MakerBot Industries

ReplicatorG 0029 is now available. This release is a minor update, with only one new feature, one click Print-O-Matic defaults. MakerBot operators indicated that they wanted a better and easier way to put Print-O-Matic settings back to the Defaults we recommend. So we added a ‘Defaults’ panel to Print-O-Matic for resetting to the Factory defaults for all of our Stepper based extruders. Since there are a lot of new Bot Operators during the Holiday season, we choose to roll this now to make it easier to tinker with their new bots.

If you are new to 3D printing, this is a really helpful set of buttons. New users can now test and experiment with Print-O-Matic settings to their hearts’ content, safe in the knowledge the factory defaults for Print-O-Matic are a button click away!

If you’ve been using any recent versions of ReplicatorG, you may be familiar with this dialog box.  It’s Print-O-Matic, a feature that was added to RepG in version 0025 (which should be pronounced “double-oh twenty-five,” as in “double-oh seven”) which is designed to make it easier to find workable Skeinforge settings for various layer heights and speeds.

While Print-O-Matic is fairly straightforward to use, we’ve had some requests from power users who wanted to know a bit more about exactly what it does, and some requests from less-advanced users who want to know good strategies for using it.  That’s why we’ve whipped up this documentation page which has both sorts of information.  You’ll find basic usage info there as well as tips on how to go deeper if you want to.

If you’ve been wondering about that “Print-o-Matic” thing, hopefully this will answer your burning questions.

Slow down, you move to fast. You've got to make the moment last.

Over the weekend I was experimenting with really really fast feedrates for my Thing-O-Matic. ¹  What I discovered was that if I start even a complex object off very slowly, I could run the Thing-O-Matic pretty darn fast. ²  The tricky bit was getting that first layer to print slowly enough.³

After some poking and prodding in Skeinforge, I found the settings here:

• Raft -> Object First Layer -> Object First Layer Feed Rate Infill Multiplier (ratio)
• Raft -> Object First Layer -> Object First Layer Feed Rate Perimeter Multiplier (ratio)
• Raft -> Object First Layer -> Object First Layer Flow Rate Multiplier (ratio)

I set each of these settings to the same value.  However, my target range was between 10 and 15mm/s.  So, I look the Feedrate from the Speed settings, and discovered that I would have to reduce my Feedrate to 30% of it’s normal speed in order to get within that range.  Thus, I entered 0.3 in each of the above settings.

The result was an almost agonizingly slow first layer – but a print that adhered well to the heated build platform, did not deform as the infill was applied, and provided an excellent base layer for the rest of the print. ⁴

1. Feedrate is the speed of the X and Y axes.  Flowrate is the speed at which the plastic comes out of the nozzle. [↩]
2. More on the speed stuff in a later post. [↩]
3. Photo courtesy of Jakob E. [↩]
4. If you’re curious, I was printing the 27-to-1 gear toy [↩]