The Ultimaker 2+ is an excellent printer in that I can leave it alone to print once I'm sure that the print will stick to the bed. However, there are times where inexplicably something goes wrong and I find that my print has either shifted or come off the build platform leaving an artistic mess, but most of the time it's just unusable, un-displayable chaos.
Recently, I've been designing multi-part models and mass producing parts so being able to print more on a single plate while setting up only once has been in the forefront of my thoughts. Losing an entire build plate worth of parts because one part fails is a terrible waste of material, and will keep me up at night quite literally. The solution I've found is to use a feature in Simplify3D called Sequential Printing and in Cura, Print One at a Time. In this post, we're looking mostly at how this is done in Simplify3D.
In my previous post on RS Component's Glassbend, I reported multiple difficulties and challenges which led me to conclude that this material was not for beginners or the faint of heart to use. After upgrading to Simplify3D 4.0.0, dumping the spoilt section of the filament and further fine tuning of the settings, it appears I have solved most of the problems. This post is to share my findings with you so that you need not go through the same pains that I did.
Now that I have a bit more time on my hands, I've finally gotten around to testing my other filaments from RS Components. While I've had some negative experiences with their Glassbend filament, this white flexible filament seems to be far more well behaved and reliable.
When I first saw that RS Components was offering Glassbend, I immediately thought to myself that I could use this to make custom casing for phones. I didn't really think through the full commercial applications of translucent, flexible filament and only after I purchased it did I realize that in the line I'm aiming for, this probably isn't going to be a very often-used filament. It probably made more sense for the education industry where it could be used to build see-through enclosures so that you can see the internal mechanisms moving rather than having the proverbial "black box".
Nonetheless, I have it now so might as well profile this filament so that I'll be ready to print with it when the opportunity arises! As my first non-PLA-based filament, I'm sure there are many lessons and surprises waiting for me. |
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