RepRap: Blog

I'm not holding up high hopes on this. Although I've increased the part thickness to 60μm, and set the perimeter overlap to 25%, the perimeter is still not attaching and it looks a wee bit fragile. If you look carefully at a zoom-in on the top of the micrograph below:

you will see that the stray bit of perimeter flapping around in the breeze is ribbon-like. This means that it was printed vertically, and then detached. Because we're dealing with a light beam and not extruded filament, this means the light beam did not intersect with the infill. Because it is deeper than it is thick, this strongly suggests that it is the first layer. No surprise then that subsequent layers go awry.

I'm beginning to wonder if the print width is less than 9μm. Thinking about it, an optical fibre has  a core and a sheath, so it's quite possible that the UV beam is much narrower than 9μm. I would print single lines and measure them but the bloody things don't stick!

So I have reduced the print width to 6μm and increased the overlap to 65%, and we'll take it from there. Test subject is another Benchy because I'm making them for fund raising. I didn't have to do that for the original RepRap Project, as it was funded - albeit the lowest project funding Dr. Bowyer had ever used. Less, in fact, than the cost of a 3D printer at the time.

Anyhoo the pantograph above has its lower test pad anchored to the Krapton Tape with nail gel. It now has to be prised loose and moved. Place your bets on: Broken during separation, broken during feeble articulation, actually moves, or pings off into the aether?