1

Hi! I recently got a Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus and printed the OK hand that was on the sd card and it turned out great!

I then ordered some more PLA and found out the spool was too wide for the spool holder…

So I tried printing a bigger spool holder from thingiverse (i3 Extended Spool Holder by ghostpoisonface - Thingiverse) and its a bit of a disaster!

The sides turned out great, they are nice and smooth. The top and bottom layers though are another story!

The bottom layer that was on the bed turned out reasonable, although it could be better (forgot to take a pic of that), but the top layer looks all thin and rough.

The layer that the supports printed on also has a little bit of a gap where the main body of the spool holder comes out of.

Now the worst bit by far is the overhang that the supports were supposed to be supporting! The supports themselves looked great and they came off easy, but the overhang is a mess!

I used Simplify 3D and don’t really have a clue what needs to be set to what, other than things like the print bed and filament size. Also when the print finished, instead of the extruder moving away from the print like it did with the OK hand, it just stayed on the print! which melted a round hole at the top of the print and i had to use the printer’s settings to raise the extruder myself…

I found a PLA profile for Simplify 3D and noticed the end script had a few more commands than I had, so I have added them to my profile in the hopes that that’ll fix that problem, but I have no idea until I do another print!

Anyway I’ve hopefully added some pics of the spool holder and my settings, hopefully someone can help me out so I can make a decent holder so I can get on with printing other things!

At the moment I’m having to watch my prints and unravel the spool because I have nowhere to put it lol.

ps. you’ll see theres some strange supports being added to the threaded part and the supports. Those were a complete disaster, so I think it’s probably best to delete those next time!

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sides_0.jpg
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end.jpg
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support_1.jpg
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supports.jpg
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settings_1.jpg
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settings_2.jpg
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2

In S3D, have you selected the profile for your printer? I am guessing so but it is important to get the right one.

I would increase your top and bottom layers for that small an infill. Maybe 5 or 6. Slow it down a lot maybe 2000mm/min until you get stuff dialed in.

I didn’t see the extruder temp but other settings look reasonable.

3

Thanks for the reply :smiley: The profile has my printer’s name but I can’t remember if I just selected the printer profile or if I created it. Heres a pic of the machine options. I remember changing the build volume on there.

The extruder temp is set to 200 and the bed is 50. Im using rigid ink PLA which recommends 190-210 and 40-50.

Should I slow down the movement speed or just the print speed?

And I think I’ll go with 6 layers then to be on the safe side! I’d hate the spool holder not being strong enough and snapping with a 1kg spool above my printer! lol

screenshot_2016-12-06_16.58.40.png
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4

I have been looking up support settings and came across “Dense support layers”. It sounds like this could be a great setting to help smooth out that nasty looking overhang I have been getting!

Anyone use this setting know a good amount of layers to set it to? And the “dense infill percentage”? I have set it to 3 layers with 80% infill for the time being (was set at 0 layers and 70% before), but if anyone knows better settings for it before I attempt another spool print, that’d be great!

5

Print speed. Remember the lower the infill rate the more layers you will need to cover completely.

6

Thanks! I’ll give it a go tomorrow and hope for the best!