Observations on PLA and Non-heated beds
#Ingentilire was purposely made as a non-heated, PLA only printer…as such, it has a 35 Watt power supply, and prints on Glass using Hairspray or Gluestick.
With the last catastropic printfail, I discovered a few things:
- With the Eric Lein parts fan, the printer couldn’t keep the hot-end temps up.
- removing the fan and shroud improved visibility to the nozzle
I’m wondering if the curling you get that is exacerbated by the parts fan is BECAUSE there’s a lot of heat in the area…keeping the plastic from cooling…so the heat from the bed, and the nozzle, kept there by the parts cooler shroud, is making the problem worse?
Additionally, I can’t see how ANYONE prints under 200C…my layer adhesion was awful at anything less than about 230C
Layer adhesion and quality are totally dependent on the filament you use. I print a hollow tower and vary the temps starting at the high end (for PLA) at 220C and lower it by 10C each 10 mm. That way you can find the sweet spot for your filament.
unless you use a jhead or an all metal with a 13 watts heater resistence,using that very low power suply can make the voltage drop
Hot ends are available in so many various kinds, and that changes the apparent temp of extrusion too. Brass, aluminum and stainless steel all have different conductivity. The temperature at the thermistor just doesn’t reflect the temperature of the plastic coming out the nozzle.
Using a 35W power supply really does seem to be cutting it tight. Using the E3D 25V heater probably helps, at temperature it might need half to two thirds of that to stay hot, leaving 20W for the fan, controller, X & Y axes. As long as the fan isn’t cooling the heater block, anyway. That can literally blow your power budget away.
It was a packaging decision, the printer is smaller and self-contained. And I had the power supply. 