Learning how to 3D print... blood, sweat and tears....and burns

After getting my Tronxy X3 I, of course, started printing like crazy... I immediately found it was not easy.  The biggest problem was first understanding the basics, material flow, extruder heat, extruder stepper, g commands... etc.  The second was leveling the bed.  That sucked...    Also learning the nuances of the machine, like end stops, belt tension, what tools I needed,  parts popping off, the printing surface, etc.

I am going to list here the things I suggest to fix some of these issues.

Tools
There are some tools I found that are absolutely needed to run a 3D printer, they are:

• Calipers: Harbor Freight has a good one for 20$. You need one that has a resolution down to .01 mm.  This is probably one of the most important for me. From measuring the Horizontal bar distance to the bed to checking part dimensions... so very helpfull.
• A spark plug gapper: One like this I bought one at Harbor Freight but I can't find an online link for it. I only paid 3$ for it.  I use this to measure the bed distance from the print head.  I use this all the time.
• A set of razor blades: I bought a set at Harbor Freight for 4$ looking at the image in the listing I use the one on the very left the most.  I use it to pop the parts of my glass bed surface (more on that later). Also good for trimming parts.
• A set of small pliers: Again Harbor Freight, I spent 7$ on them.

Material Flow

Getting the flow of material was difficult for me to get at first... I spent a lot of time printing test objects until I got it right.  I found the most important things to pay attention to are these things:

• The material being printed:  First off not all plastic is created equal, even when ordering from the same supplier you could get different filament.  This basically means when you get a new reel you need to run some tests to get the settings for the material correct.  I usually write the settings on the reel to make it easy to remember.
• Extruder servo tension:  The tension of the servo, (the little wheel that presses aginst the servo gear) plays a critical role.  Obviously, if it is too lose the servo can't grab the material to move it.  But if it is too tight it could cause the stepper to fail and skip a bit, also if too tight the teeth of the gear will press into the material changing the flow rate of it. 
• Extruder temperature: This obviously is the most critical for material flow. But there are certain aspects that might not be obvious.  If the temperature of the extruder is too cold the extruder stepper will skip.  Too hot and the material could be brittle and stringy.  Again the manufacturer plays a role here.
• Material feed rate: If the feed rate is too high the extruder can't melt the material it fast enough so again the extruder stepper will skip.

Note that all these factors play a role together.   A major symptom of not getting it right is extruder stepper skipping, this was a big problem for me.  I can't really describe the sound... but you should know it what you hear it.  When it starts to happen it is pretty much death to whatever your printing at the moment.  To fix it you can do these things... Increase the temperature, decrease the feed rate or adjust the extruder servo tension.

Print Bed Surface

As it has been said in so many other places the first layer is the most important.  If you don't get this right your print will probably fail. The tronxy comes with that blue painter's tape, I tried it.. didn't like it.  So I went searching and found a MUCH better solution.  Glass and hairspray, here is a good video about it.  Basically cut a piece of glass to your bed size hold it down with some of those big black paper clips and spray the glass with some hairspray.  Note not to get any of it on your machine... it will gum things up.  Depending on the size of the first layer of the part you are printing, that is the amount of material on it.  You will need to adjust the quantity of hairspray.  Note that if you use too much it could make it hard to get the part off.  If you do put the glass in the freezer for a bit and it will pop off.


Well, thats all for that subject...