Days 15 & 16 - Triumphs and tragedies

Corrie and myself made the decision to change back to the white filament but not before I printed off a persian inspired decorative ball. On the Thursday the Makerbot Replicator printer finally arrived as did a 3d scanning system. The 3d scanning system appears straightforward enough but does not seem to provide a means of stitching together the resultant meshes and given the late arrival of the system it is unlikely I will dig too deep into its capabilities especially in light of having far more things to print than I have time left in which to print them.

The Makerbot Replicator printer did not provide the out-of-the-box experience I was hoping for. The unpacking and setup of the machine was simple enough but that is where it ended. The machine fired up and printed a default object that came preloaded on an SD card and the preliminary results were encouraging. At first the noise of the Makerbot lended an authenticity to it being a hi tech device In action the Makerbot Replicator sounds like R2D2's long lost brother; but after an hour or two the noise had lost its charm and by the second day I was well and truly annoyed by it. The noises it makes do not have a consistent rythm and it seems to leave me in a state of permanent distraction which is something to bear in mind if looking at purchasing this unit.

The more obvious problem with the Replicator however proved to be printing itself. The software used to send the models to the printer is nowhere near as user-friendly as the UP! software and it took quite a bit of trial and error before I finally managed to successfully send a print to it. When the software planets finally aligned it took a long time to send the model to the printer and begin printing. At first the printing process seemed to be working quite well and all indications were that the print was going to take a relatively short amount of time for the model I sent to it (a double sized version of my slug model). However shortly thereafter the raft material began to split and splinter, the Replicator's second nozzle began catching on sections of the splintering raft material and before I knew it the whole print had been ruined as the model detached from the platform.

Upon inspection and careful re-caibration I ascertained that the front right hand corner of the platform may need a longer spacer as even at the maximum height there appears to still be too large a gap between the platform and the nozzle for adequate operation. Corrie and myself have both printed small objects (which only occupied the center of the printing platform) which have completed successfully. Sadly for Makerbot however I don't feel I could endorse the machine as of yet as the print quality itself just does not seem to be there; there are inconsistenties in the quality of the print, loose strands and loops which require additional finishing work to bring the model up to an acceptable standard and the surface is nowhere near as smooth as that provided by the UP! printer and it is possible to see the internal matrix/supports through the surface of the object which is not ideal for finished objects.

While all this was happening with the Replicator I managed to print out a half sized version of a 3d fractal I made in Mandelbulb 3d which turned out quite nicely. It turns out however that printed fractals are suprisingly sharp and I shredded part of my thumb while removing the raft and support materials.