Filament - lesson learned

[Razor1666]

I have a few small dryer boxes I print from that go to 55 and a bigger unit for drying that will reach 85.  https://3dprintingcanada.com/products/copy-of-printdry-filament-dryer-pro?_pos=1&_sid=db3db9d89&_ss=r

I didn't really think I needed it until I used it... Does a great job! 

 

 

[Penatr8tor]

@Razor1666 That's a serious drier. I haven't needed something like that yet, hopefully I won't need to, but ya never know.

[claudermilk]

22 hours ago, Penatr8tor said:

@claudermilk Good seeing you on Nero's stream yesterday. I was curious about how he was going to power his Pi and he responded with, I'm using the Octopus and then at the end it he ended up deciding that he want to connect the Pi via UART. I hope he covers in on the next stream so I can see how he goes about setting it up. 

Anyways, I digress... Yeah, I tried a .6mm for a good number of prints and it performed comparable to a .4mm when printing at .2mm layer heights and you get the benefits of a wider extrusion that helps with overhangs and layer to layer adhesion. As far as a dryer goes... I have two of them, One is a 1st gen JOYO white on bottom with clear top and while it's pretty basic and fan less... it does the job. I also have a Sunlu that is made from grey tinted plastic with an lcd touchscreen built into the side. Also fanless but has better control and more drying features, it works too. Bear in mind that I'm in TX, my filament and printers are inside of an airconditioned home that is generally 35% humidity or less. If you're on the coast or have your stuff in a garage or shed or something then you probably have a more challenging environment to deal with than I do.

It was a pleasant surprise to "see" you on his stream. I try to make as many as I can. He usually streams Tuesday & Thursday at 2 EST and Saturday at 8 EST. I also try to catch Steve Builds on Sunday at 10 PST.

I see the Sunlu S1 is on sale on Amazon right now and the S2 is reduced price from before. I'm thinking hard about that S2--it looks like it will do what I need. I am on the coast (SoCal, 2mi from the beach), but except for the TPU and Nylon I haven't had any trouble.

[Penatr8tor]

@claudermilk Yeah, I generally watch Youtube from my home theater and a lot of the streams I watch after the fact. Rarely do I get a chance to catch them live with a keyboard in front of me.

The JOYO is a Sunlu S1 with different branding. The Sunlu I have is the S2 model. Both work well enough, the S2 will dry better and faster. Fingers crossed. Hope it works for you.

 

[claudermilk]

S2 ordered (Fabreeko ended up being within $3 of Amazon, so I supported one of our vendors rather than help fund another Bezos space dildo.  ).

I almost always am on the streams on my tablet with BT keyboard. When I can I cast to the TV. Best of both worlds: big picture and a way to type in all my inanities & dumb questions.

[Penatr8tor]

@claudermilk Well, Hopefully that does the trick.

I hear ya on the tablet. I just bought a new one, Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra and I found that you can do what you described. I just need to set myself up with the tablet and TV. FWIW I use an Xbox Series X for my home theater. And don't even get me started on home audio LOL. I could have bought a really nice car for what I have invested.

 

[mvdveer]

4 hours ago, Penatr8tor said:

I could have bought a really nice car for what I have invested.

Would the roar of the engine be as good?

[Penatr8tor]

On 3/31/2023 at 3:20 PM, mvdveer said:

Would the roar of the engine be as good?

Nope. To be honest... Every time I listen to music or watch a movie... it's like the first time. Life's too short to listen to crappy audio IMO. 

Plus these speakers are the sh!t!

[mvdveer]

1 hour ago, Penatr8tor said:

Life's too short to listen to crappy audio IMO. 

I hear you loud and clear.

[claudermilk]

I saw those or something very much like those back when I was shopping for HT gear. I "just" have a set of Paradigm Studio 20s driven by an older Marantz receiver. Going on 20+ years old and going strong. I need to get the Golden Ear sub repaired though. Not having to buy updated audio gear has allowed me to later "invest" in that very satisfying engine roar. 

Dryer should be here on Thursday. Just in time to throw a reel in and try printing on the weekend. In the meantime I'm getting to a stable point calibrating my 0.15mm nozzle for miniature printing--coming out surprisingly well and the Polymaker Polyterra grey is working terrific for that. Then switching to some Easter print jobs; that gives me a good use of the MatterHackers rainbow PLA I won at the OCMF meetup last week.

[Penatr8tor]

@claudermilk They're Martin Logan Vista's. They don't make them anymore although they do sell something very similar. They're electrostatic and require power to function. I've had my HT setup with these a ML center channel (Matinee) ML Depth I sub and two Mirage towers for the rears. I'm powering all this with two Emotiva amps. One 2 channel 500w per chan. and one Emotiva 3 channel for the center and rears that puts out 300w per chan. The amps are driven by a Denon AVX-R3300W receiver. Paradigm's are really nice and old vintage receivers never die... they just sound better.

I have a really nice small or personal system that I built. Yes, I built an amp from scratch.  It lives downstairs in the living room and people are just amazed that a vintage tube system can sound as good as it does but it does.

Here's a few pics.

Speakers are Magnapan LRS (Little Ribbon Speakers). Sub is a Martin Logan Dynamo. Audio source is a Sonos that's hooked to an Emotiva DAC via toslink.

Amp is a scratch built Dynaco ST-120. 60w per channel Class AB. 

[Penatr8tor]

34 minutes ago, claudermilk said:

Dryer should be here on Thursday. Just in time to throw a reel in and try printing on the weekend. In the meantime I'm getting to a stable point calibrating my 0.15mm nozzle for miniature printing--coming out surprisingly well and the Polymaker Polyterra grey is working terrific for that. Then switching to some Easter print jobs; that gives me a good use of the MatterHackers rainbow PLA I won at the OCMF meetup last week.

Hopefully the dryer helps solves your TPU issue. Fingers crossed. One thing I've learned... it seems to never be what you think. As for the Poly-Terra filament... I love that stuff. It's not overly glossy and it seems to flow better than other stuff I've used. Plus... the polyterra black is almost a direct match with ASA black and you can get away with printing some external parts out of PLA and have it still match your printer enough to fool even a pro. So yeah, I'm sold on that stuff. So far I've printed with white, grey, black, blue, light blue and green Polyterra. All print really well.

Here... I cheated and printed my IEC power inlet out of Polyterra White PLA. No one will be the wiser LOL 

[claudermilk]

Very nice. Yeah, I looked at the Magenpans, then looked at the pricetag. After I picked myself up off the floor I looked at other options. Fortunately at the time I was shopping I had just picked up a live album of a band my wife and I had just gone to a concert for. So I had very recent memory of what they sounded like live. The Paradigms and one other brand matched that the closest. I forget what the other speakers were--they had coaxial tweeters and were based in one of the Scandinavian countries as  I recall.

I think I'm pretty much set on Polymaker and Jessie for my PLA needs unless there's a specialized color I want (e.g., MatterHackers Quantum, Fusion's fancy colors).

Edit: oh, and that's a gorgeous table you have your gear on. Almost a shame to cover up the inlay with the audio equipment.

[Penatr8tor]

@claudermilk Yeah, Those "Maggies" are the latest, the LRS. They go for around $600-700 ish for the pair I want to say. The hardest part is getting a pair as the lead time is on the order of 3-4 months wait. I had a friend that wanted to sell his a couple years ago and then he bailed and when he decided to let them go again I jumped on them. I think I paid around $550 for them slightly used and had to drive to San Antonio to pick them up. I used to have a really nice pair of Bower & Wilkins DM601 S2's hooked up to them which FWIW, I think they sounded a bit fuller and richer. The magnapans sound a bit thin to my ear. But they're cool and they do sound much better than your typical consumer grade speakers you get at Best Buy. Although they now sell some really nice stuff in their Magnolia section so I don't want to crap too hard on good ol' Best Buy LOL.

The Jesse filament looks interesting. I never heard of that brand. Is it from Uncle Jesse on YT? Impressive color selection.

[claudermilk]

Jessie is from Printed Solid, nothing to do with the YouTuber.

Yeah, I'm not much interested in regular Best Buy stuff. Magnolia is a different story. Last time I looked it was almost literally a separate audiophile/videophile store that just happened to live inside of the big box.

[Penatr8tor]

OK cool, Thanks for the heads up. I want to try a roll or two of the Jesse filament. 

Yup, Magnolia has stepped up their game over the past few years. I remember they didn't have that much and I went in one day a while ago and they had Martin Logans and Mcintosh tube amps, etc. I was pretty surprised.

[claudermilk]

I've used a bunch of Jessie and love it. Until I started playing with Polymaker it was my go-to PLA. Now I'll have to split between the two.

[claudermilk]

Well, that filament dryer made a huge difference.

I got a good calibration cube from the Nylon, so I tried printing up some parts (RC car gears) and it kind of worked. My overhangs and bridging sucks so I have to figure that out; something needs to be changed from the ABS baseline. I'm running at about 50 mm/s, no fan.

For TPU I got a decent calibration cube. The filament spool isn't rotating completely freely when running from within the dryer, so I'll have to put it back on the regular bearing holder I use. I'm also still seeing a few of the surface gaps. I may try just running the dryer overnight to really dry the stuff out.

These two materials really are hard mode.