Remove the Elephant's Foot from Resin 3D Prints - Plus NEW FREE Bulge Buster App
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- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- IMPORTANT UPDATE - Bulge Buster is no longer supported. The app was a proof of concept and not long after it was release the functionality was added to Chitubox. Look for a setting called tolerance compensation.
The Elephant's foot can ruin your 3d resin prints when you print right on the build plate. In this video I discuss 3 methods for removing the elephant's foot bulge and show you how to use an app I made called Bulge Buster to process 3d print files and remove it. However as I said the app is no longer supported.
The shirt I'm wearing in this video is not my own slogan but is from the Screen Rant Pitch Meeting videos featuring Ryan George. We find them pretty funny - check them out. No connection to this channel. I'm just a fan.
My hat - well if you know it put it in the comments. It's custom made and not for sale unfortunately.
To support this channel please use these amazon affiliate links below. Here are some of my normal supplies:
The food trays that I put in front of my printer to catch parts on. These are ridgid and therefore a little better at holding liquid and spills than the ones in my resin handling video: amzn.to/3lo3bQK
The rubber mats as seen in the resin handling video- amzn.to/3pmhfws
Metal Funnels - amzn.to/39ZU56y
IPA - amzn.to/2T0uFzS
Spray Bottles - amzn.to/2T2q7t2
Nitrile Gloves - amzn.to/2Tm6T0c
My Mask - amzn.to/3cgvWL5
Tea Strainer for Recycling IPA - amzn.to/3c7ZJFr
And this is my favorite resin: amzn.to/3kln4qe
Wow, That is some serious effort you did! Not only with the app develpment and testing etc, but also in the making of the video. I love that you show renders of how the resin printer works for example, and also the very detailed explanations, all acompanied with footage. Seriously a testament to patience and discipline! Well done and thank you.
Thank you very much! Check out my video on Why Resin Prints Fail which has more animations and explanations.
Thanks for all of your hard work. I'm sure that many resin printer users will find this tool invaluable.
I hope so!
You sir, are a treasure to the printing community. As a new maker I have learned so much from your content, which is clear, concise, and interestingly presented.
Then to top it off you come out with something like this which is going to be literally a game changer for sp many people.
Thank you. Seriously thank you for chosing to be an educator for this community.
Wow, thank you!
No hyperbole! I love how he says "this project took me longer than I expected"
I would expect it to take me ... Well I wouldn't even know where to start so literally forever? Dude is amazing.
I thought I understood enough about FDM and SLA printing until I saw your videos. The visualizations that you use are probably the easiest to understand that I've come across. Thank you!
Great to hear! Thanks!
It was impossible to love a stranger. Then I watched this video. The level of information given was FANTASTIC!!!
- No doubt you made a great effort doing this video, and then you top it up with the app; a million respect for you, sir.
I resolve this issue of the Elephant's Foot by giving a 45-degree chamfer to the edge of the part, a chamfer slightly bigger than the resulting total height of the bottom exposure base.
You did an excellent job!
This is great! I also see this as something that will or should be standard in slicers. Absolutely brilliant. On of those things that seems obvious once it has been invented. I am looking forward to using it. You earned my subscription long ago, but it now comes with my admiration along side!
Shirts from other youtubers is TIGHT!
Well ok then! ;)
Came back from the future to say when it’s time for the wash that shirts gonna need to get aaalllllll the way off of his back!
Amazing video, super thorough. I might add however, that when printing small parts that do not need overexposure, there is another technique i just tested. Step 1 lower the number of bottom layers slightly and bring exposure down as well. Step 2 when designing the part add a champfer on all edges that will touch the buildplate. Step 3 tweak the values of all 3 changes until the elephants foot fills in the champfer. Then if still an issues try the pixel dimming above.
Just like we do on a FDM printer , except for the pixel dimming :-D
Crazy! Thank you for putting in so much time creating this solution!
You bet!
I am absolutely blown away by this! The work you've put into this is stunning, and your presentation is excellent. I used to code clients server applications, so I appreciate what you've done here. So glad I've subscribed to your channel!
Wow thanks!
That is incredible amount of research you made for this video, and all your videos explain perfectly hiw things work on a deeper level. Best 3D printing channel out there, thank you so much for you work!
Wow, thank you!
The timing of this video couldn't be better, thanks for all your efforts! Photon Mono X is arriving today, and I'll predominantly be printing functional mechanical parts.
It’s possible that printer needs a .pws or .photons file (with an s) in which case it won’t work yet.
@@Nerdtronic I'm absolutely new to resin printing, but technically minded. If you need help in any way testing this or porting this to the newer version anycubic machines let me know and I'll try and help out.
as a newbie diving into resin printing, finding your channel has been a godsent.
the production value is great, the script straightforward and professional. And at the same time you seem like a great guy who just enjoys what he does.
I am adopting your safety workflow, upgrading my printstation and now I can't wait to also experiment with printing straight on the plate.
Cool! Good luck.
Oh my! What a quaity of life improvement. UA-cam, where did this video hide so long?! Will try out right now...
Keep up the good work!
As always your videos are VERY well done! Clear and helpful, but most of all you explain your logic and the testing of your theories. This helps us to understand rather than just "take someone else's word for it". By the way, I agree with your daughter - something dimmed 10% is 90% of its original brightness. I have shared links to so many of your videos, probably the most has been Calibrating Your Resin 3d Printer. This will be high on the list! BRAVO and THANK YOU!!
Thank you very much!
I do development work and I can appreciate just how much effort you put into this app. Especially when combined with the very technical nature of what it's trying to accomplish and frankly the experimental nature getting rid of the elephants foot bulge.
Just amazing work. Simply amazing. Thank you for all your efforts
Thanks. Yeah it took more work than I hoped or expected.
Fantastic work, sir! You have some of the best content and one of the most effective presentation styles on UA-cam. It's clear that you put a lot of work into each video and I look forward to where you'll take this channel.
Thanks. I hope to take it towards doing more project oriented videos. Build some cool stuff.
I am very intrigued by the 8mm film scanner. I worked for 13 years at a small video production company in the late 90's early 2000's. One of the things we did, pretty much continuously, was convert old home movies to video. I was constantly frustrated by the limitations of the equipment. I am very curious about what you have come up with!
You're a madman and a genius, in the best possible way! I just want to be able to make simple miniature bases printed straight to the bed without distortion and without too much elephant footing. I look forward to trying some of this science on my bases. Thanks for all you do Nerdtronic, you're the man!
I was looking at this video for this exact reason. Have you had any success with printing miniatures directly on the plate without an elephants foot?
I like that you don't rush projects and how thorough you are. SUBBED.
Excellent, this will save me a lot work sanding off the foot on timing pulleys.
I use my printer for functional functional prints and I tend to use the lowest possible exposure to get the tolerances as tight as possible and I get the best results when I print directly on the build plate. One disadvantage though, is the limited bridging distance.
Have you ever thought about trying to improve bridging distance by increasing the exposure time on layers with an abrupt transition?
It seems like your software allows you the ability to contract and over-expose arbitrary layers in the print which could enable stronger overhangs.
Keep up the good work!
Wow this project is so valuable and you helped the whole community with this app, excellent job
Thanks
I bought a resin printer to print planetary gearboxes, the elephant footing has been a critical problem for me. I will be testing Bulge Buster on an Elegoo Mars, I will let you know the results. Thanks for putting in so much time and effort!
Good luck!
This is absolutely something that needs to be integrated into chitubox and other slicers. Brilliant way of reducing the elephant's foot!
I assumed that they'd borrow the idea and put it in there, but I'm not sure they're going to. They have similar features but not exactly this. To really replice the functionality of the BB app you also need to print the test chips so you can find the best reduction for your resin.
Thank you ❤️This is pretty amazing work, you just became one of my heroes.
Love that you did both windows and Mac versions.
Thanks.. and Linux 64 bit
This is AWESOME! Selective dimming is a really elegant solution to this problem.
Thanks!
Overexposure is not the only culprit of elephant's foot. There is little time for resin to settle after the build plate has entered the resin, positioning itself as the next layer is exposed. Some printers allow per layer settings and can be tuned with UV tools
While it's commendable to acknowledge your efforts in testing and developing this feature, I must mention that Lychee Slicer handles elephants foot perfectly and with ease, especially with the grayscale feature. Additionally, I'd like to inform you that printing on the build plate is only advisable for flat and thin parts, such as the wheels you've tested. The bed offsets are not perfectly flat right out of the factory. If you desire perfectly squared faces, you'll need supports. Resin is not FDM. You need angles from the lcd screen for good balance of forces.
What can I say, Michael? Except that you make me wanna be a better 3-D print Hobbyist. I tip my entire hat collection to you sir!Great job
I wanted to wear a different hat on each video but I don't think I'd have enough room to store the hats. At least if I make all the videos I want to make. (life goals)
I know a comment doesn't mean that much but I want to thank you for not just making a video but also making a meaningful contribution to the 3D printing community
Well done! Very clever approach(s)!
I think the double exposure would be the most accurate. Ironically, I have Herringbone Gears to accurately print! When I saw this, I was quite impressed! 👍👍👍
Thanks! In my experience actually the pixel dimming works the best.
thank you for your tons of effort into this and especially supports for the mac users!
There's also a simpler method at the only cost of spending a bit more resin - don't print on the build plate (which I'm always to do with miniatures bases for example), use some supports and the elephant foot will be left only on the supports/raft, which goes in the trash.
This video is very interesting from the aspect to understand (and control) precisely the printing, but I don't think it's very practical for most people (unless it's somehow automated in next gen printers)
Btw, if I understand correctly the transition layers purpose is not so much to reduce the elephant foot (they can't reduce it on the very bottom layers that take the full exposure anyway),
but to ensure more gradual curing condition of these layers, to prevent delamination (by having two layers being cured at 10 times different speeds)
2k likes? should be more like 200,000... we do know how much effort it took, because comes from passion! keep doing what u do, we love it.
Hi, this is realy awesome video and it helped me quite a lot to understand how SLA works in etail. The program looks also really good, but I cannot use it, since I have only photon mono x. I tried to print some gears and shafts, but I was unable to do so, due to issue described oin this video. (with supports I was also inable to print because the gears are ussually not strait)
I would like to kindly ask you if it would be possible to add support for *.pwmx files for anycubic?
Thank you a lot.
Kudos to you. You obviously spent a good bit of time, sweat equity and intelligence into this presentation and the APP. This graphics and animations are very understandable and it helps to see how you drew your conclusions. I am new to Resin printing but not to 3D printing. I am confident this app will have a place in my work. Thank you
Welcome!
I love the pedagogic scientific approach to explaining and testing.
The tshirt is hilarious btw.
Thanks. The shirt is from another youtuber's channel. Ryan George.
Thank you for all your effort and experiments. I will give this a try.
Best of luck!
I also think the rough & reflective build plate will disperse the UV light to surround resin near bottom layers, causing elephant foot aswell.
great video!
And due to the reflective of the build plate, i think the bottom layer resin tend to receive higher UV intensity, because the UV light will come through the resin to the build plate, and reflected by the build plate, and expose the resin again.
Yes, this is true, I've noticed this more when I started using my reflective Flex Plate, and even more when using translucent resin.
Very Nice. In Chitubox, you can also use the "bottom tolerance" setting in the advanced section to shrink the overall outline of just the bottom layers to compensate for the elephants foot.
Thanks for the info! Chitubox can't print the bottom reduction test so you can see how many pixels to reduce. I sort of think that's a key part of the calibration. It also doesn't have the pixel dimming method.
Still, glad they are starting to put this functionality right in the software. I wonder where they got the idea? 🤔
Bulge Buster was more of a proof of concept. I'd be fine with it just being part of the slicer.
I just figured out Lychee could also do this in the Resin Configuration -> Compensation -> Burn in Layers -> px
On these larger printers the UV intensity is alway default to 100% it can have a massive effect of over exposure trying to dial in your exposure settings! Even dropping it to 90% makes a massive difference in getting that exposure dialed in! We follow a couple of professionals and trying out some of their findings over a few of our printers the light intensity works great on the elegoo printers and uniformation and Of course Phrozens printers as these seem to have a super stong UV light that needs dropped to around 80% light intensity
Woaw. This is genius. Don't print directly on the build plate so much because of this but also because the angle helps reducing peel force helps preventing failure. But is some case that can be really helpful.
I'm doing mechnical print as well and I have to admit that what is bothering me the most is the fact that the resin I use (ABS like Elego and Photocentric Firm) get scratches so easily that it's ugly. You know that white powder that stands out when two pieces rub each other? Or even when you scratch with your nail. I can't really make threads for example. They holds no problem, but they get totally white and powdery at first use, it's ridiculous. If you have a solution for that, I'd take it as well 🤣.
But thanks again for all the efforts you're putting into this and sharing it for free.
I know. The limitations of resin. Hopefully some better resins or resin additives will appear on the market soon.
@@Nerdtronic Ok so it's not only me. Good to know at least. Thanks a lot. Keep it up!
Thank you! Alot of hard work went into this. I can see this becoming a popular app!
In using BulgeBuster, I've discovered, at least on my Anycubic Photon and Elegoo ABS like, that even with pixel dimming, which I find very interesting, that while I can match dimensions for bottom and regular layers, there's still an Elephants Foot that's about 0.1-0.2mm larger, regardless of settings and bottom layers. I'm guessing it's because no resin is 100% opaque, and the uv light is reflecting off the bed for an arbitrary thickness of resin until the layers are thick enough to absorb all the light, over exposing the first few layers regardless of exposure time or busting. I discovered this whole printing a overhanging bevel directly on the bed and found it wasn't flush, but I noticed it on perpendicular faces as well. At first I thought it was just the nature of overhangs and sla printing, but I didn't see any similar artifacts when printing with supports. I haven't had the time to test this and I lack high precision tools, but I think I can alleviate this by a pure pixel contraction for the height and length of the ridge, and further doing a subsequent pixel dimming.
Thanks for this explanation Bradley. I think you've definitely figured why this is happening. I'm seeing this more with translucent resin. I have some Siraya Tech Blu Obsidian Black (more opaque than what I've been using) and this will let me test out this theory. I think this might also have something to do with fact that I'm using a highly reflective Flex Plate that is exacerbating the issue. Some prints just don't work well with supports unfortunately.
Just discovering your channel. You are evidently a very clever person! Fantastic.
Oh thank you!
This is really cool! I think many of these methods are better than the compensation in Chitubox! The double exposure thing could be added with a firmware update if companies like anycubic would do it
I hope you see this comment, because it seems to me like the software you made and the solution in Chitubox are fairly different and the chitubox version is much more incompitent.
If I understand it all correctly, your software exposes a single layer with two different exposure times, which means that the outside rim of bottom layers will be exposed exactly the same amount as the normal layers!
The chitbox version simply scales the model down in those layers which would require much more percision and tweaking resulting in worse prints.
Anyway, I guess my point is that this prgram still seems to be very relevant to and useful in the current SLA printing pipeline.
Yeah I wish they would implement the pixel dimming method
Oh but also they encoded their file format. So I can’t load or save in the file format now
YES!
Double exposure is - by design - the best, and I am surprised by results. Can we ask for Anycubic's .PWMO format? (Photon Mono model)
Other file formats won't be added until next year probably. I spent too much time on the project and now I have to make up for lost time on other jobs and projects. New file formats are sometimes very difficult to figure out. If it wasn't for the help I got from the community I wouldn't have been able to even add the ones I did. If you have any info about the file format email it to me michael@nerdtronic3d.com
@@Nerdtronic Sure thing, I'll look into it then, maybe to make it possible to create a script based translator of sorts.
Any hints as for where to look for info apart of those places and people you mentioned in video ?
@@cthulpiss It's here: github.com/sn4k3/UVtools Feel free to just use their app as well. Mine I think is easier to learn and use, but I think theirs does a lot more stuff. But anyway, that format is supposedly supported on their end. So if I can gleem from their code how that file format works I can probably add it to BB. But again, it'll be early next year.
I feel like this has great potential for industrial applications
Im from Germany, we have words for everything, but i cant find any appropiate words for what you have done. Thank you
Wow, thank you! And I have an app update coming out tomorrow that should fix the international numbers issue. USA uses periods for decimal point where some of the rest of the world uses a comma for that. This was a bug in the app that is fixed in the 0.9.3 update
@@Nerdtronic Im a X-Plat Dev and know these kind of issues very well. Numbers, Dates, ... its just anoying sometimes. You did an awesome job for the first version
Thanks.
So you just made a resin exposure calibration tool. I used to work for Eckerds 1hr photo and we actually had a tool that would tell us how off the exposure of the chemicals in the film was and it required the light amounts and times from the machine for quality testing. Each color had its own chemical calibration. This tool reminded me of that. I had to do that every morning in high school as a Lab Tech II and we sent those results to Kodak so they could make sure their batches were good. Wouldn't adjusting the sharpness of the LCD do the same thing? You are basically trying to combat pixel bloom but the LCD should have settings that would help with this I would think.
I'm a bit late to this party but I just wanted to state that it sounds like you were on to something helpful. Still, it comes across as a concept that more like an unproven theory.
I draw and print all my own models and I try to print directly on my build plate more often than not. When ever possible I just add a chamfer on the bottom face-edges of my models. The chamfer is sized to compensate for the amount of the "Elephant's-Foot" that I was getting before I started simply adding that chamfer to the bottom-most edges of my models.
Viewed with a magnifying glass it's still far from perfect but for me it's a simple solution that I would have otherwise had to do alot of post print sanding or filing. I hope that with time you can perfect your solution so that we can all print easier.
This is incredible, I can really appreciate the time and effort you poured into solving the problem. I suspect slicers will start to follow in your footsteps.
One personal annoyance, this thing looks like one of those virus keygen programs. Give it a more modern UI (i.e. remove background graphics...) and I can guarantee it will be more widely accepted and downloaded!
Note taken. I've been thinking about what I would do next in it but I have other projects that have to take priority for a little while. Probably next is adding more printer support. Then I have some ideas on how to fix the bottom layer erosin problem.
Lol yeah I was thinking it just needs autoplay background music, then it's straight up rando keygen.
Kudos to your explanations and efforts!
Thanks
This is pretty amazing work, thank you! Also love that you produce both Windows and Mac versions (I'm a Mac person myself, and often we get left out :-). And, your daughter is right.
There's also linux but I don't have it posted yet. My daughter is often right ;)
This is amazing innovation. Let's hope this catches on throughout the industry. Let's hope you get some reward for trailblazing.
This channel is so under rated! Subscribed!
Very interesting stuff. Thanks for walking us through your process. I'm looking forward to giving this a try.
Hope you enjoy it!
I just went from FDM to resin for translucent parts. And got exactly elephant foot because of printing flat as supports are not needed. It was clear to me it is because of overexposure but how to fight it together with bed adhesion? Sir, you are hero.
I have to find a solution with UVTools as those are I use to fix all things in sliced file.
Nice one! A++ for incredible effort.
I have the anycubic photon mono. Would bulge buster work for me? Is the Tycho hat from the band, Tycho?
The hat is from the show The Expanse. Bulge buster was a proof of concept. It’s not currently being updated or developed. Some slicers now have the feature built in.
Love this channel, can you please make the cleaning tutorial you mentioned in your dogtag video. My prints dont look as good as yours after post processing!
Yes it is coming soon. Q1 2021
This is fantastic! Would be so nice to see this integrated as optional settings directly in ChituBox.
This is terrific. I am just getting my first resin printer and I am looking forward to using your tool. Thank you.
The tool isn't currently being updated and there are now issues with loading files since Chitubox locked up their file format. There are new ways to do it in Chitubox. Not exactly the same but will still work.
Doing an incredible job! looking forward to a photons addition.
Hopefully I can add that. Can't promise when yet.
Thank you for all your hard work!
Amazing work! Congratulations!
You are helping much more people than you can imagine.
Nice to see smart improvements in this technology.
Amazing work, thanks for putting the effort into this. Will be trying this on the Saturn soon.
Good luck!
Really appreciate the depth on this topic that only a true nerd would delve to (said with pride, as a fellow nerd and rabbit hole diver). The app is amazing! Even though I couldn't see how it would work with my Photon.
Your work, and description of the problem (awesome graphics!) inspired me in two ways. First, that printing on the base isn't a sin; it actually might be preferable for parts that really need a flat base (like most of mine). Second, that there might be a way to counteract the bulge, and save all that knifing and filing and sanding (I just thought I'd have to live with that, as an artifact of the process).
So, inspired by your work, I did something that wouldn't have occurred to me otherwise. I measured the height of the bulge, and put in a chamfered edge of that height (45 degrees), across the entire bottom surface of the source model. STL'd it out, C'boxed it using no supports, printed it out. And the bulge is almost entirely gone! With a perfect base!
My hat's off to you Michael, great job!
Awesome! That's great to hear. I assume you have a newer Photon? I hope to add support for .pws files and .photons files early next year.
Yes, the Photon S (.photons file) and Mono X (.pwmx file). Thanks!!
This video is cool for a long term solution but in the short term you can measure how much wider and taller the elephants foot makes the part and subtract that part in the model with fusion 360 or something. Get it in the ball park clean up with small file. Manufacturing can be delightfully simple if you let it.
I was just looking for a way to reduce or eliminate elephants foot on my Mars 2. Thank you so much for this. And a linux version, even! Cannot wait to try this out.
Try out the tolerance compensation features that are now built into the newest version of Chitubox (1.8.1). I'm going to test nerdtronic's app and the tolerance compensation features in Chitubox on my mars 2 and see how they compare in terms of convenience and functionality.
@@jaredjones6570 Thank you. I am new to all of this resin printing. I'll give that a try.
Thank you for working so hard at this problem. I am just starting out and gathering information and your videos have been extremely well done in a way that helps me absorb the information I'm trying to understand very thoroughly and in a way that fills in the tactile, practical, and conceptual details. I ordered the 4k Photon and I'm waiting for it to ship. You worked out a really great solution to this problem!
I'm in the process of wrapping my brain around how printing and curing and light intensity all intertwine. Have you considered that the only time this is an issue is when the build plate is so close to the LCD that the light halo from the open pixels able to reflect diffused light back down at the intensity required to cure the resin?
The light from underneath is not coming through at a specific angle, but the intensity of the halo is lower because the light source is farther away.
If you have your intensity set properly, there isn't enough light to even partially activate the surrounding resin through the rest of the build, otherwise you would have a bunch of floaters. I am thinking it needs a certain intensity of light to start the activation, in addition to a certain exposure time to fully cure the layer before moving to the next layer.
This would mean to me that the majority of the elephant foot is formed from light coming in directly perpendicular to the pixel. The fact that as the foot shrinks as the first layers build seem to confirm this hypothesis as the intensity of the reflecting light would reduce with each layer as it's absorbed by the cured resin.
I'm curious to know if the problem is reduced by using an anodized black build plate or a matte black magnet mat like I use on my FDM printer.
It may be as simple as adding a matte black adhesive vinyl over the build plate. I have some and I will try it out as one of my first experiments when my printer gets here.
P.S. you're dimming the light intensity, not the pixel. A fully blacked out lcd TV display would be 100% dim, lol.
Chitubox should hire you to incorporate your techniques into their slicer.
Great work indeed! Maybe you could also add the gears as a default test file in the installation?
Great work my friend. I was having trouble printing small letters and they would always end up with this elephants foot but not now!! I have used this on my Elegoo Mars 2 :)
Oh glad it worked. There is also a function inside chitubox now that does it. For when my app stops working, which it will as soon as you upgrade to the latest chitubox. :(
I printed some bases (flat) using this technique. It worked pretty well, using the 50% dim and 3 contract radius. However, there was a tiny amount of elephant foot, I think 4 contract would work better for the bases.
Usually if I do a dimming method I'll do more contract radius than I need. So 6 might be good.
I hope you make a video about the filmscanner, it sounds super interesting.
Also, I don’t know your position on sharing but I’d be inclined to buy models or plans for such a scanner if it works well.
Amazing work. I don't sub often but you've earned it!
Wow, thanks!
I do like your solution. I will try it out on my Eleego Mars 2 Pro and let you know how it goes.
Good luck!
The latest version of Chitubox has a beta feature that does this. You can set some parameters and it’ll compensate for elephants foot.
I think it does something but I'm not sure it does it the same way. And you can't print the test chips with Chitubox to help determine what settings will exactly equal and compensate for the amount of elephants foot you're getting at the bottom layer exposure time.
Thank you very much for sharing this Programm to the Community. Hopefully it becomes in the Future support for the Anycubic Photon Printer. That is what i'm waiting for. Meanwhile i had to print a couple mm above the Platform...
I hope to add photon support in a few months.
@@Nerdtronic I (and many others) are happy to hear that. I wish you a happy new year ... and may the force be with you😉
Love this! The double exposure method seems like it would work the best, if only because it shouldn't take any calibration, and would be much less sensitive to part geometry. I wonder if you could "fake" a double exposure on a printer not explicitly capable of it by modifying the gcode to set the lift height to zero every other layer for the first few layers ...
That's exactly how we do double exposures on the Transform. I tried it and it just doesn't work. There is an option on the menu bar called Double Exposure Test which will make a file that you don't print, but you run with no resin and with the vat and build plate out. It should lower the plate and show a ONE on the screen, then a TWO - witoutout moving the plate. Then move it after the two up and down, then show a THREE and a FOUR.. then move the plate.. then show a FIVE and a SIX. That's a test to see if your printer can do it doing exactly what you stated.. setting lift distance to zero between those plates. But it won't work. I never could get it to work on .ctb files or other file formats.
@@Nerdtronic oh nice! Sounds like we had the same idea. I wonder if the firmware requires a non-zero lift height distance? Did you also try setting it to some non-zero-but-very-small number (0.001mm?) to try getting around this hypothetical restriction? If that still doesn't work, maybe they have a minimum value hardcoded, which would be a bummer. I have a Photon MonoX and do a lot of printing on the build plate, so would love to see something like this available as an option. Thanks for all your hard work!
@@brettlee4955 Unfortunately since I only own a phrozen transform, it's very difficult to do trial and error type experimentation. If I had the printer here to test I'd bring it to my desk and spend a day trying things. But the way I've had to do testing it to create a file, send it to somoene else, have them test it when they get time, and then repeat. So it becomes a weeks long process. I considered getting a Sonic Mini 4k but have to wait.
Chitubox 1.8 beta has "bottom tolerance compensation" which looks to be able to help out
Yup - setting the "bottom tolerance compensation" to -0.21mm (for items A and B) has eliiminated the foot on my prints using elegoo grey/white/black resins on a SM4K (I'm currently printing v6 resistorboxes, which have the advantage of being nice and easy to measure/quantify distortions on.)
Based on experience trying to print a planetary gear bearings and the way printed teeth bled into each other up along the entire height of the print, I think that tolerance compensation of -0.05 to -0.1mm might need to be dialled in to loosen the fit of such parts, but I'm pretty sure if I did that on the resistor drawers I'd start seeing holes appear
Thats amazing! :D
is the Anycubic Photon supported too?
.photon can be read, but the Photon is not in your list of working printers.
It can read .photon files. But some of the newer Photon printers use a .pws or a .photons (with an s) file. And those are not supported yet. Sorry. File formats are sortof difficult. When I can I'll add support for that.
@@Nerdtronic I seem to be a lucky guy and I got .photon files :)
I'll try your Buster tomorrow!
But I think I found a little mistake:
In the bottom layer reduction test I can't change the layer hight. I want to change it from 0,01 to 0,05 but it sticks with 0,01 :/
I use the windows version
nice work, been doing that already. You make it much more clear on so many points, good work.
Cool, thanks
i'm new to resin printing so this question could be "stupid" because of ignorance.
wouldn't it be acceptable to print the adhesion layers using the standard method at almost the right contraction instead of precisely? at least with gears it seems this would alleviate the elephant's foot without reducing the operability of the gear.
thanks for taking the time to make this video
Great work, waiting for Anycubic mono 4k.
This is just what I needed. Saved me so much grinding g
this is so incredibly thorough thank you so much!!
Welcome
Thank you for sharing your hard work with us! I can't wait to try this.
Couldn't one use a polarizing lense to reduce the amount of scattered light? I would think that this would allow for longer exposures at smaller layer heights, while avoiding the elephants foot. Love that term. Elephants foot!
I like your Ryan George pitch meeting shirt
Love it! Any chance for pws files for photon machines?
Subbed ... I appreciate the steady, reasoned approach and presentation. A lot of other channels make me feel like I'm watching a game show with all their disingenuous Wow, Awesome, Kapow!!! They leave me skeptical of the value of their reviews. I've FDM printed for years but I don't have a resin printer yet, so I'm not sure if you've tried what I'm going to suggest or if it's even possible. Have you tried (normal 12s exposure, lift to flush the resin away, lower back to first layer height), repeat (...) 5 times to get 60s total exposure for layer 1 and repeat for the 10 layers for good overall adhesion? Might not be possible in the slicer but perhaps a copy/paste of first layer gcode could do it. My reasoning is that since the reactive medium is fluid, radicals (reactant chemical species) diffuse from the UV lit areas to the dark areas over time, hence the growth of the foot if allowed to go on for too long. However if the reaction is stopped by lifting as if to do another layer and then simply repeating the first layer, the subsequent exposure cooks the first layer further, it becomes less mobile and radicals less able to diffuse. Furthermore the fluid in the dark zone is fresh since any radicals from the first exposure have been diluted away. The important part is to stop the reaction and flush the fluid before repeating exposure, not just adding more exposure time. Of course this all depends on whether the first layer at nominal 12s exposure is mechanically sound enough to withstand build plate raising and lowering a few times. Anyway just a thought. Will try myself when I eventually figure out which printer to put my money into. Cheers.
I think what you are suggesting is printing multiple exposures on a slice but lifting and lowering the plate between? If so there are a couple of issues with that. First is that most printers don't let you control the build plate in that way. Most printers don't let you lift and lower back to the same Z because they're trying to protect the screen. It could be dangerous and put the screen at risk. Normally when the plate lowers back down there is that 50 micron (or layerheight) gap between the printed part and the screen. You'd be pusing it all the way down. Second is that you'd be peeling that layer multiple times. And I don't think that would work well to make physically to make a clean part.
A better plan would be to expose a bit, pause a bit, expose a bit more, pause a bit, etc. And that is what the double exposure method in my app does do. But again - not supported on many printers. Only the transform at the moment. And in my experience pixel dimming works just as well in practice.
Absolutely incredible, I have been struggling to fix the bulge on gears I am printing for a puzzle box. I appreciate all the work you put into this, very very well done :) Also, Fred Johnson would commend you for your hat :)
Best technical about elephant foot ever !!!!
Cool. Thanks.
Why don't you share the code on Git and let people contribute, make it easier on yourself regarding formats, printers, etc. etc. ?
NEW FINDING OF THE MAIN CAUSE! Elephants foot is mostly caused by resin STILL FLOWING as it gets "squished out" underneath the built plate. This flowing resin cures as it flows, causing the elephants foot. How to FIX the elephants foot? Wait till the resin has stopped flowing before turning on the UV light. This pretty much completely removes the elephants foot. For details on how to do this, look up the blog by Jan Mrázek.
I know I'm late to the party - but I must say you're wrong here. Elephant foot is caused mostly by the fact, that resin is not still when it's beeing exposed; basically when your printer lowers its build plate to the bottom of the vat, it must squeeze resin from that very thin space between them, and it doesn't happen instantly. You start exposing when resin is still flowing, and since it's a bottom layer your exposure time is long, that partially cured resin moves outwards and eventually some of it close to desired shape gets cured enough to for what we call elephant foot. And it may also cause dimentional inconsistencies in X and Y axis.
To solve that problem, all you need to do is wait before you start your exposure - you need to increase "light off delay" (or whatever it's called in your printer), for bottom layers 60 seconds should be more than enough, and then you can than lower it to say 15s for the rest of the model. I use those values and everything works like a charm.
Oh, and I set bottom layers to no more than 3x the time of normal layer, that's enough to get a good grip to build plate.
It's not that I'm that smart to figure this out, I read it on this guy's blog:
blog.honzamrazek.cz/2022/02/a-step-by-step-guide-for-the-perfect-bed-adhesion-and-removing-elephant-foot-on-a-resin-3d-printer/