Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

Guys,

When I ordered my Rostock I also ordered some white PLA. I didnt know that I needed ABS first to print the fan mounts to the hot end.

Anything I can do with those fans besides wait for ABS to get here?

Does Staples carry ABS in stock?

I have tested both fan shrouds with pla, they do work, you would just want to change them out for abs eventually when you get some or have the chance...

Guanu

Thanks Guanu,

Appreciate that. PLA for now

Sorry for all the small starter questions but I have another.

Do I need to use the Elmers Glue Stick on the glass if printing in PLA?

I would recommend it, yes. If you just print straight to the glass, it'll likely just pop off.

You could also try blue painters tape (gently sand it with fine sandpaper if your printed part doesn't adhere well) or aquanet super hold hairspray if you can't find the right gluestick in your frenzied rush to begin printing! I've been there. Best of luck!

geolupulus wrote:You could also try blue painters tape (gently sand it with fine sandpaper if your printed part doesn't adhere well) or aquanet super hold hairspray if you can't find the right gluestick in your frenzied rush to begin printing! I've been there. Best of luck!

When I first started, it was the blue tape and isopropyl alcohol. Worked great. I hear the hair spray is great for both PLA and ABS.

Thanks guys,

Ya'll are awesome with the help. Guess what.... IM PRINTING!!!!

Its crazy seeing this thing come to life for the first time. This is amazing!!! Can't tell I am excited can ya? Ok, so I printed the first fan shroud... didt come out perfect but I can see areas on it that are perfect. This tells me that its a matter of adjusting the speed or temp up or down. Just have to figure out which. I will try to post some pictures of my first print soon.

Thanks again for all the help.

Anyone have a temp or speed they stick with using PLA?

Boundless wrote:Anyone have a temp or speed they stick with using PLA?

Congrats!

I've been using bed at 60c and hotend at 205c for PLA, which seems to work pretty well for me. I found that the fan shroud is a pretty good indicator of machine calibration - setting the extruder steps/mm and filament diameter is especially important to getting high quality prints.

As for speed, I would just try sticking with the 30mm/s until you get a feel for things.

Temperature, I usually try at 190C and see how that goes. I have 1 roll of black PLA that requires me to go above 200C, but the rest are all lower. With PLA, you generally want to get the temperature as low as you can and still extrude properly. If it's too hot, you'll get a ton of stringing and drooling. Some of my filaments I can print down around 180-185.

Thanks again Tinyhead and dgriff.

I got that PEEK fan shroud printed and it looked pretty good. So I ran the Auto-tune again and put in the new numbers and printed my second pyramid after that.

Came out worse than my first. So many bad areas I cant help but think Im printing too hot. I was at 210 and lowered it to 205 but I may have to jump down to 190 and see how that goes.