In my previous post (read it for more details on the artist and his studio), I displayed a picture of the 2 inch print of an STL file I received from “Gullwing”, the artist at Images in Depth/Lifecast Arizona. Here you see a deconstructed 4 inch print (left) along with the removed support material (right).

Since the print is larger, it seems to be slightly thicker, as you might expect.  And I tweaked Slic3r‘s settings in an effort to make the support material easier to remove – which seems to have been successful.

Slic3r Settings

I started with the “fast-PLA-pt35noz-pt28layer” settings file provided by Aleph Objects (maker of the Lulzbot TAZ4 I own), but made the following changes on the Print Settings tab:

• Infill menu
  • Fill density: 40%
  • Fill pattern: line
• Skirt and Brim menu
  • Brim width: 2mm
• Support Material menu
  • Generate Support Material – checked
  • Enforce support for the first 2 layers
  • Pattern: rectilinear grid
  • Interface layers: 2
  • Interface pattern spacing: 2mm

Lulzbot TAZ 4 & Material

I printed with Printrun/Pronterface using 3mm clear/natural PLA, with an extruder temperature of 200C and bed temperature of 70C directly to the Kapton surface.  I’ve learned with experience – especially here in Arizona where it’s very dusty – to clean the Kapton everyone morning before printing, usually with a little denatured alcohol (I’ve been using 15%) and a cotton ball or a lint-free wipe such as Kimtech (also used in my Up Close Imagery microscope pictures).

Printrun estimated a usage of 1622 mm of filament and 55m 36s to print, and the actual print time was 1h 7m 13s.

Coming Up…

I’ve ordered the Structure Sensor which should arrive today, and I’ve already had discussions with Gullwing about coming back by his studio and doing my own 3D scan.