Page 1 of 1

Prints curling/warping - suggestions needed

Posted: Tue May 12, 2015 6:42 am
by Flashforge Dreamer
Hello

I am using a Flashforge Dreamer with S3D. I attached glass bed on top of provided blue sticky mat and I apply a layer of blue painters tape on the glass.
My settings: Printing PLA only, 215C left extruder, 60C bed temp, 0.2mm layers, 90ms printing, 150ms travel.

I get curling of the support (see lower left of the image)
DSC_1108_s.jpg
DSC_1109_s.jpg
Can you suggest what could be done to eliminate the warping please?
I usually print very large pieces almost whole footprint and full height.

Re: Prints curling/warping - suggestions needed

Posted: Wed May 13, 2015 6:21 am
by JoeJ
I would use a 10-20 outline brim. That can help a lot with holding the corners down (read more here: https://www.simplify3d.com/support/tuto ... and-brims/)

Others like to use things like hairspray or glue sticks to help hold the part to the bed. A heated enclosure could also help.

Re: Prints curling/warping - suggestions needed

Posted: Wed May 13, 2015 11:12 am
by TopJimmyCooks
On something that large there is a lot of contraction going on inside. Increase adhesion as previously mentioned with a brim but also cut infill to the absolute minimum. run the cooling fan if the printer has one.

Re: Prints curling/warping - suggestions needed

Posted: Tue May 19, 2015 10:35 am
by braddo
Curling is due to the upper layers cooling more than the lower layers, pulling inward and then lifting up from the bed. To reduce this you must reduce the differential temps between the top and bottom layers. You can set your bed to be hotter for the first layer, then somewhat cooler after the first couple of layers. Contrary to previous poster, you want to reduce your usage of fans, perhaps turn them on only for overhangs. Finally, if you can enclose the print area that's best of all - not sure how easy that is to do with your machine. As a partial alternative, you can create a heat barrier around the outside of your part using the skirt setting in S3D - make the number of layers the full height of your part - a lot of plastic I know but it will keep the bed heat in the higher layers of the part. Per previous posts, a brim helps a lot as well, but I'm not sure if S3D allows separate control over skirt and brim. To build the barrier requires skirt, but you obviously don't want a full height brim. If someone knows how to do this, maybe they'll chime in. Meanwhile, a work around would be to just design the heat barrier in your modeler and print it along with your objects. To further refine this, if your part is not too big, you can experiment with making the modeled barrier be wider at the bottom, to grab more heat coming from the bed, then narrower as you get higher on your print, to "trap" it in - the heat will convect upwards but will get closer to your model as it goes past. Good luck! Really big parts can be tough even using PLA (nevermind ABS or PC!), and it's why professional machines have enclosed chambers.

Re: Prints curling/warping - suggestions needed

Posted: Tue May 19, 2015 7:09 pm
by Rebekah_harper
hiya,

there is a build surface layer called BuildTak. it's very good stuff

Becky

Re: Prints curling/warping - suggestions needed

Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 9:46 am
by DarthRevan
Rebekah_harper wrote:hiya,

there is a build surface layer called BuildTak. it's very good stuff

Becky
+1 for BuildTak :D