I found uniform flow to be highly important for high speed printing. With high speed printing you're only cooling the skin of the extruded plastic, so less is better.
Print a Benchy. Scan it. Print the scanned Benchy. Scan the printed Benchy. Print the scanned Benchy. Scan the printed Benchy. Keep going until the Benchy is unrecognizable.
My 9to5 is being test analyst and I can say your videos are a joy to watch. You know what to test, what to include in scope and what to leaves to chances and assumptions (coz it is impossible to cover all scenarios in a completely digestible video).
I can’t believe my first comment is about the fantastic book you mentioned in your ad! I’m a pilot, and, while not really an engineer, can really appreciate the skills. That is a _fantastic_ book! I’m also humbled to say that I know people who participated in the early days of the Skunkworks.
Stefan, I listened to that audio book a few months ago and I was depressed when it was over. As an engineering student I felt the same as you about the technical struggles they faced. I was also very intrigued by the fact that Skunk Works had to literally invent, and fabricate, new tools and methods in order to achieve their design goals. Also, great video!
Thank you very much for this illusive test! As 3D printing is a field of mostly hobbyists (only those share information), many sources are very contradicting. Your (and others ofc) rigor really drives good quality information spreading and clears very important questions. Much needed answers should be found for strength, since quality vision based is really well explored, but repeatable strength tests are VERY rare. Since I build mostly usable parts this is of high interest to me - Thank you very much! Keep it going!
As you already have the installation for annealing, it could be very interesting to see if you can cancel the impact of cooling with annealing. It could be a good way to have both of gemometric quality and strengh performances.
I tried to get a job as a mechanical engineer at Skunk Works. By the time they got back to me (almost a year later), I had already accepted another job. This other job with General Physics eventually sent me back to the rocket site at Edwards very close by. That was about 20 years ago. I worked there for a couple of years. The desert there is miserably hot and windy. I love your informative videos. I make parts for function and don't care how ugly they are. I will try to print with less cooling to see if I can get stronger parts.
Very interesting facts to look at my next prints. In my opinion the issue of parts strength is important on things which design is given or you couldn't make bigger/stronger. 99% of the parts I print I created self and try to make them stronger by the design, if needed or failed by the first test. If I copy a broken part (that is not available or too expensive) and print it, I had to use all settings, including your video, to make sure the part will be able to replace the original.
Very informative. I am new to 3D printing and will be receiving my first printer today, so am looking forward to printing. Information videos like yours is very helpful and an enjoyable learning experience. Thanks!!
BAM! One amazing video after the other!! You are killing it. You answered so many of my questions already in 90m of videos using science this is superb I am out of superlative to describe how impressed I am.. I'll have to review these videos again and again because so much useful info it is mind blowing. I was also under the impression that cooling was having a huge impact on layer adhesion. Thank you so much for doing this video and getting so deep and technical about it that you answered all my questions and many more I did not even think about yet... Also, 3d scanning to conpare actual print to the model is so cool!
I'd love to see how print temperature interacts with part cooling. My favorite PETG settings are 270C and 60% min fan speed on Mono-price I3 with the Dii duct.* This gives good overhangs and layer adhesion sufficient that the fracture surface of a hand broken test doesn't follow the layer lines. Normally this would also cause hellish stringing, but I print from a dry-box using molecular-sieve/Zeolite desiccant so my filament is SUPER dry. (* haven't calibrated the hot end, and PIDs needs tuning. often reads 255C during prints)
Printing three towers when alternating layers between all towers without cooling actually still provides some cooling because until the next layer is printed on the same tower, it takes some time so it cools a bit...you should print one tower at a time to say there was no cooling...
You're definitely right about the Ender3/CR-10 heatbreak fan. I upgraded a CR-10 mini to an E3D v6 and when I printed a benchy when I hadn't printed the cooling fan mounting bracket yet, it was the most horrible result I ever had. I'm also thinking this may be related to the watertightness of 3D prints. I used to get some good results with small boxes, but a large-ish boat I just printed is leaking. I'm going to try cranking the temperature up and disabling the cooling fan. It will still be cooled a little bit due to creality's design. I really also want to get my own universal testing machine running. So much to test, like creep and fatigue life. My machine is based on a raspberry pi though so I still have some programming to do.
Always been printing sucessfully without cooling and with the lowest viable temp for layer adhesion - very nice to have seen this quantified so thank you very much for that 👍
I literally just posted this question to one of the FB groups I'm in regarding printing of an airboat hull for RC. My posit was that lower parts cooling speeds would enhance layer adhesion and in-turn assist with watertightness. Thank you for this video.
Thx for this comparison it get even worse if you print in a cold room (once i wasn t able to finish a print by a room- temp of 17°C with PETG it cracks while printing with fan on). Would be interesting how quality and strength comes out in a heated chamber with cooling fan which throws hotter air on the print :)
Thanks really interesting, so what we need is Cura to make an update that varies the fan speed based on overhang angle ( no overhang = no fan) to get stronger prints whilst keeping the quality high. That would give a good compromise of strength and quality.
Another competent video with short and to-the-point dialogue! It is so important to note that filament from different manufacturers can behave in totally different ways. It would be interesting to see strength tests with different colours too, as I have had dramatically different results for the same part made in different colours.
Very informative video and a great way to show one of the many ways to use 3D scanning in quality control. If you use the tool deviation-label you can mark many locations on the STL file and see the exact deviation on that location. That is the tool I used in my video about my warped bed plate, for my CR10.. If you have any questions about other tools in the software or about the possibilities with the Core scanner feel free to contact me! Thank you for making great content, I’m happy to see that you have some sponsors to support the time you put in these videos 👍🏻
I recently got a 3d printer. Based on your Benchy that was smooth on one side and veiny on the other, that helps me understand this one print of mine. I still haven't found a good balance of layer time to cooling time and what not. Every model is going to have custom settings I guess. To a degree.
At 9:45 you can start seeing the collet slipping and shortlz afterwards the test bone breaking, maybe this sudden 'slip & grab' might introduce unnecessary load and cause premature fail of the test part?
I’m quite new at this but have already figured this out. I mostly print ABS because it’s easy to get a nice finish and further refine it. But I’ve got some excellent PLA prints out with much higher temperatures than usually recommended and practically no cooling. Empirically, these are substantially stronger than cooled versions and look much better too. Good information here! I like your methodical approach.
I use Das filament petg and I am pretty satisfied. I can report that I have found small variations between types of spools. For me the transparent was the best in printing quality, layer adhesion and overall strenght. I always cool 100% when printing and used the recommended 230 and 75 degrees for temps. Thank you for your efforts and your videos. It really helps everybody that deals with a 3d printer.
This more or less validates everything I've observed so far when printing, but I think there's a few things worth mentioning for newer users: - More emphasis on slowing down prints/layers and tuning that. I usually slow down the print for layers below 20-30 seconds, and kick up the fan for layers below 10-15 seconds (depending on filament of course). - Super-important: Separate bridging cooling settings! Slic3r, Cura, S3D all have this (not sure why it's missing from Ideamaker, last time I checked), and I set it to full blast when bridging, which is critical on a 0.6mm nozzle! I still sometimes get artifacts as the fan takes time to spin up, but most of the time it works remarkably cleanly. - In addition, I think some slicers might offer separate overhanging cooling settings. I don't think there's an ideal implementation of it, where it would adjust the fan speed based on the overhang angle and strictly limit it to just the overhanging region, but I'm pretty sure Cura had an option for it at some point, and it's better than nothing. Overhangs tend to be where I have some trouble, even when following the 45 degree rule, simply since I can't have the slicer crank up the fan for those regions. Lastly, having visited your videos on how print temperature affects part strength, I think it would be interesting to visit a combination of the two factors and how to tune them together for different filaments, at least if there's anything new that you find. Thanks for covering the topics of 3D printed part strength. There are very few resources on it online, I had to learn most of it on my own, and it's nice to throw some proof at fellow 3D printing hobbyists that there are better ways to do things lol.
Bridging fan speed is an option in Ideamaker but I can understand how you missed it because Ideamaker's setting UI is trash. Go to advanced settings > Other > Enable Bridging Detection and then the options aren't greyed out
I think this shows that if printing 'vertically' you should only ever print ONE item at a time (or multiples sequentially). Even a group of 3 let's the previous layers cool and lessens adhesion.
Definitely how speed influences the strength. From 10mm/s to the max. Visually I find just a little difference between 30 and 75, so I'm really interested in strength.
My ender 3 prints very well, except when it's printing on the far side of the fan on overhands, like what you had on your benchy. From your test and mine, it seems like I need to increase the directions of the air, but decrease the total amount of air
I think a lot of it depends on the mass of what you're printing. For example, we don't use any cooling fan to print thin wall models such as an airplane wing, there is little mass there to retain the heat, it cools fine on it's own.
Nice video and testing! I'm wondering longer layer time could also affect the part strength, since by the time next layer comes the previous one would have cooled down right? Maybe different layer times could also be a subject to test in the future, thank you!
Great info, thank you. I especially like your attention to detail, not just accepting the results, but proving them by using sensible thoughtful tests. Thank you :-)
Is there a way to turn off cooling for just infill? I would think when printing parts at 100% infill you could make a stronger part if you ran cooling only for the outer layers, then no cooling on infill.
Excellent experiments Stefan. I believe using a thicker layer height when no cooling is used would reduce the deformation in your print since the nozzle will be touching the model for far less time. Also, one more thing to look into when testing for strength is the printing temprature. I noticed you used a relatively high temp especially since you were printing with 0.15mm layer height and typically for PLA I would recommend 190~195 for such a fine quality setting. I print most of my parts with minimal cooling since they are mostly functional and mechanical. Would love to see you go more in depth in this topic in the next videos!
what if you could use a dual extrusion 3d printer and do the infill with one filament and the shell with another. The internal filament being PLA, and the external filament being PETG. Then set the slicer so walls print before infill on each layer. Then, make it so the PLA has a way higher extrusion rate than normal and higher temp to melt layers, but not too much to melt PETG. Also on the internal layers try turning off the fan? The PETG shell you would probably want to print close to normal settings, as it would be more for the asthetic, so the part doesn't deform. You would essentially be building a bowl of petg around a soup of PLA. I wonder how well it would hold up.
Very nice Stefan! You must try cpe from filamentum. It is the filament with the best layer adhesion i have tested and I use it for all mechanical parts on my 3d printers. Also petg type must be dry!
The print temp makes a huge difference, I use eyrone PLA and it doesn't stick well at all below 215C cooling or not. I would think the different fan settings make more of a difference at higher print temps. It would be interesting to see if the Cura draught screen makes a difference as its supposed to be like a mini heated build chamber around the part. I was going to try some ABS but I have an ender 3 so I need a different fan shroud first.
Nothing replaces full factorial. DOE does not replace full factorial. It just optimized the amount of information for a gives amount of resources. If you are not resource contained, full factorial with multiple levels of each factor is the best.
Counterintuitivly, I think cooling fans should blow hot air at prints. The aim is to take the plastic below the glass temperature as fast as possible, but no further. The PETG result might be sure to water absorption. Water in PETG reacts during the high extrusion temps and damages the polymers. I think E3D did a blog post on this effect.
For that reason I enclosed my printer, that will also lower the electricity used. And for part cooling in some situations I designed a small tower to print on the side with changing thicknesses depending on how much time I want the part too cool before the next layer. My printer doesn't have a cooling fan ;-P
I agree with you, the optimal thing should be to have a temperature controlled chamber that sits just below the glass temperature, and let the part "cooling" fan should cool the print down to the tg fast, but no further. For this reason i actually picked up a old Stratasys printer with a temperature controlled chamber that i intend to retrofit with new open source control boards, new hotend etc to make it into a printer for high-end engineering materials.
And, an engineer in Germany (Europe in general) has at least a 3y bachelor engineer degree. Not just "I work with something technical that involves problem solving" :)
hi to get better addition just turn off the fan on the infill pattern and turn on when the extruder print the perimeter, you can do it writing a delay to turn on the fan between layers. by the way nice videos :)
I found when i print multiple prints (water bottle holder) the parts cool passively enough that there's no significant curling because new filament hit cooler plastic thus having (part cooling) and yet failure rates are negligible between printing one or two at a time. My assumption is that the part when passively cooled still has a warmer surface closer matching its subsurface and when the layer is then added the temperature of the new filament doesn't reduce temps too far possibly giving it time to bond better but still cools quickly enough that it doesn't curl. Somewhat similar to slower printing or printing in an enclosure to keep the part warm. Which is also why i think of routing the heat break fan onto the part cooling duct, too cool it down enough that bridging is good and there's no curling but still keep the part warm enough that when another layer is added it will bond well. I should test printing outside layers first and test how then the inner layers act on the outside layer. I should have a small prime/ooze wall that prints very slowly as to not use too much filament while the part passively cools vs printing two of the same prints.
LOL.....watching the melted filament sticking to the layers as the nozzle went around the perimeter reminded me of the time I made pancakes and poured the batter in a ring of concentric circles that mixed together to form a solid pancake......the adhesion was good considering the pan was quite hot at the bottom but they came away quite easily with a thin edged metal scoop.......possibly it was the oil film.
Another awesome video. Thanks! Btw, we pronounce F-117 "F one seventeen" because of a spoken shorthand used to convey numbers over the radio. Ironically, the F designation usually indicates Fighter but the Nighthawk is an Attack aircraft, like the A-10 Warthog but, stealthy.
FYI, others blamed my results on the Creality leaking fan shroud so I did follow up tests with the bottom of the fan shroud blocked on my Ender 3 and got the same great results with no cooling fan. So my profile does work. Watch at 3:05 here to see what I did. th-cam.com/video/QvyesgYLwQk/w-d-xo.html
This was interesting. i completed my Bachelor thesis on a similar topic and can to the same conclusions. When looking at a cross-section of a print under a microscope you can clearly see that at low/no cooling the material is almost completely homologous, with cooling clear boundaries between the lines of filament can be seen. I was mainly using PLA but also did some testes with PC-ABS and found that even with no cooling and a heated enclosure of 110 C the boundaries were still very clear. As expected proportionally the PC-ABS had weaker inter layer strength to the PLA. I think this is why annealing prints can make such a big difference, it allows the print to homogenise.
In my experience besides better thermal performance, annealing PLA doesn't do a lot to the mechanical properties, it especially doesn't homogenize layers or melt them together better. There is actually a video in the making on this topic.
@@CNCKitchen for PLA I would agree. In my research i found a paper describing this processfor ABS. It would be interesting to see if for materials such as ABS or PC-ABS anneling (or maybe heat treating is a better term?) could improve the inter layer bonds.
I've been printing PLA with 0% fan on my Creality. It's in an enclosure but the room that it's in is about 50 degrees F so that might be helping it. If I put the fan on I get a lot of warping.
Well done video on a very important topic! I have suspected that part fan speed should be high only during overhangs -now you have proven it! Now I wonder if post cured (what they call annealed) PLA parts can get to 'no-fan' strength but use a bit of fan to help overhangs. Post cure of PLA functional parts is becoming my standard because heat deformation and creep are unacceptable without it.
Greight video, thanks. I find 0% fan is best for most prints, but I have it on 20% for areas that are unsupported (bridging), support interfaces, and for very small features where the layer time would otherwise be too short. But I agree, no cooling is usually better! Edit: This also applies to TPU!
Hi Stefan, a philosophical question (that I have been thinking about for a while now). The function of the part-cooling-fan is to bring the temperature of the 3d-ink just below its glass-temperature. Would it then not be best to "cool" with hot air - for example 80'C for PLA, whereby the temperature reduction shall be done by the mass-flow rather than the temperature-differential, and the print would be held warm enough to have the following layer melt-into it nicely. I was considering "festo" style tubes emitting hot-air near my nozzle, being fed by a compressor with a heater/regulator to pre-heat the air to 80'C. What do you think?
@@CNCKitchen Exactly. The difference is that the hot-air can be significantly hotter- e.g. 120'C if you are printing HIPS - that is something no "heated chamber" can afford. Furthermore, instead of a heavy and vibrate-y fan on the hot-end that wafts air in the general direction of the print, the compressed air can be precisely dosed exactly where it is needed.
@@AdityaMehendale I would agree with your proposal, then you could completely remove all fans from the hot end and use small tubing air nozzles for the precise air directing as you need it.
An annealing step may give the same benefit without the compromise in print quality. Seems like the same mechanism - the print spends more time between melt and glass transition temperatures. Worth a followup test?
Your no fan results are not really what I've seen in similar tests unless I'm printing way too hot. I'd like to see more options in slicers for turning off (or down) cooling only for infill and/or inner perimeters. Mostly, though, I use Colorfabb nGen with little-to-no cooling fan at 240c and get really good results.
My new 3Dprinter will have a part heating fan that can reach 250c for this reason! It can instantly switch to cool air. My idea is to day print pla at 60c and petg at 70 and abs at 100c air.
Very well done. I have been looking at scanners myself and would be interested in scientific look at the accuracy of them. Like maybe print an object, scan it, print another from the scan and continue cycle to see what happens?
Tips on how to get good, even parts cooling (especially for PC and nylon in enclosure), while still minimizing printhead mass? Spending a lot of time, tinkering and what little money I have, on reducing direct drive all-metal printhead on my CR10S - and it kinda sucks spending money on a pancake to reduce weight, only to add it back and then some in big plastic shrouds and 3 fans.
Excellent integration of the sponsored portion into the video. The SR71 print - and its relevance to the audiobook mentioned - made me watch the commercial. I usually skip ahead. Well done.
AWESOME! Not only great information but an audible book suggestion... ok dude... I'm subscribing... My 3d printer is in the shop... which is only sometimes heated so... gonna have to come up with a method of guessing.
Skunk Works is a fantastic book! Fans of Kelly Johnson will especially like the 1st half, where Ben describes the development of the SR-71. The 2nd half is about Ben's time leading the Skunk Works after Johnson retired, and centers around the development of stealth technology.
Thanks for doing these in-depth investigations! One piece of often information I often struggle to find is quantitive information about the warping properties of filaments. Given that I most often print molds for casting precise technical parts, warp is about the only material property I really care about; and not just if its low enough to stick to the bed; but if I can count on my holes having the right spacing, and if rods will turn into bananas or not. There are some filaments out there like ABS-X or some PLA variants that claim to be zero-warp. Also, some say that a heated chamber helps for PLA just like it does for ABS. But an actual in depth investigation of the matter, is something I have been unable to find. Perhaps you will find it interesting to do something along those lines in the future.
Would be interesting to reprogram the fan control to cool only when printing overhangs and outside perimeters and see how that would affect strength... on one hand, it should not compromise strength on the infill while keeping the outer surface tidy but on the other hand, cracks usually originate on stress points on the surface which this approach would not change from the normal cooling approach... so it would be very interesting to test this out.
A lot of people want the extra cooling for better overhang. I went with the Ductinator and get way less air. I also do my brand of PLA at 230c and also jump the bed temp up to 60c. seems to get better strength parts and a good quality PLA still bridges well anyways.
Feel free to share the video on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and other social media!
Why don't you share your videos on r/3Dprinting or elsewhere?
Shared in my V-King builders group. You have the best videos
I found uniform flow to be highly important for high speed printing. With high speed printing you're only cooling the skin of the extruded plastic, so less is better.
What kind of PETG filament do you recommend? AprintAPro does not supply filament anymore, would you still recommend DasFilament?
Das Filament is good stuff. Still use it regularly.
Print a Benchy. Scan it. Print the scanned Benchy. Scan the printed Benchy. Print the scanned Benchy. Scan the printed Benchy. Keep going until the Benchy is unrecognizable.
Then sell it as art. You will get rich 😉
th-cam.com/video/QEzhxP-pdos/w-d-xo.html Jpeg style
Basically the physical version of the "Google translate loop". :D
This is against benchies license
@_ David _ Yes. :D
Always print Benchy pointing into the wind.
open the nearest windows pointing towards the ocean!
Should I do this with ABS?
@@keithkittler188 do it
@@keithkittler188 I believe PEEKs will yield more usable strength than ABS. Unless you have back warping trouble. Then you need more focus on ABS.
Never piss from the windy side of the boat.
Your videos are always really really well done both for simple watchability and indepth testing Thank you very much!
Thank you!
My 9to5 is being test analyst and I can say your videos are a joy to watch. You know what to test, what to include in scope and what to leaves to chances and assumptions (coz it is impossible to cover all scenarios in a completely digestible video).
I can’t believe my first comment is about the fantastic book you mentioned in your ad! I’m a pilot, and, while not really an engineer, can really appreciate the skills. That is a _fantastic_ book! I’m also humbled to say that I know people who participated in the early days of the Skunkworks.
Stefan, I listened to that audio book a few months ago and I was depressed when it was over. As an engineering student I felt the same as you about the technical struggles they faced. I was also very intrigued by the fact that Skunk Works had to literally invent, and fabricate, new tools and methods in order to achieve their design goals. Also, great video!
Thats what I loved about Skunkworks.
Thank you very much for this illusive test!
As 3D printing is a field of mostly hobbyists (only those share information), many sources are very contradicting. Your (and others ofc) rigor really drives good quality information spreading and clears very important questions. Much needed answers should be found for strength, since quality vision based is really well explored, but repeatable strength tests are VERY rare.
Since I build mostly usable parts this is of high interest to me - Thank you very much! Keep it going!
3D printing on TH-cam is mostly semiemployed man children making pointless knickknacks, and one stripper.
Just getting into PETG now. All the contradictory information is rather confusing and irritating.
As you already have the installation for annealing, it could be very interesting to see if you can cancel the impact of cooling with annealing. It could be a good way to have both of gemometric quality and strengh performances.
Have you tried annealing pla with salt or sand or something similar? If so how did you change the scale of your model before printing?
I tried to get a job as a mechanical engineer at Skunk Works. By the time they got back to me (almost a year later), I had already accepted another job. This other job with General Physics eventually sent me back to the rocket site at Edwards very close by. That was about 20 years ago. I worked there for a couple of years. The desert there is miserably hot and windy. I love your informative videos.
I make parts for function and don't care how ugly they are. I will try to print with less cooling to see if I can get stronger parts.
what a video. thank you for getting to the point about almost EVERY question I have about cooling. PLEASE keep it up and never leave my feed!:)
Video starts at 4:49 Too long ads works against advertiser.
Ads usually never influence what I buy anyway.
cgwworldministries advertising has a huge impact on sales. Sometimes it is more subconscious than we realize.
@@dylan.m8865 aren it against my privacy to alter my sunconcius mind?? -as i cant directly erase any ad from it!
Duck it’s funny that you think advertisements don’t have an effect on what you buy.
thankyou! Saved 5 mins of my life
Very interesting facts to look at my next prints. In my opinion the issue of parts strength is important on things which design is given or you couldn't make bigger/stronger. 99% of the parts I print I created self and try to make them stronger by the design, if needed or failed by the first test. If I copy a broken part (that is not available or too expensive) and print it, I had to use all settings, including your video, to make sure the part will be able to replace the original.
Absolutely a pioneer for us in the 3d community. I thank you for the time and effort you put into your work. Thanks again and again! - Andy
Very informative. I am new to 3D printing and will be receiving my first printer today, so am looking forward to printing. Information videos like yours is very helpful and an enjoyable learning experience. Thanks!!
I'm receiving mine tomorrow. Also watching videos xD
Phenomenal video as usual. I’ve probably watched it a dozen times.
BAM! One amazing video after the other!! You are killing it. You answered so many of my questions already in 90m of videos using science this is superb I am out of superlative to describe how impressed I am.. I'll have to review these videos again and again because so much useful info it is mind blowing.
I was also under the impression that cooling was having a huge impact on layer adhesion. Thank you so much for doing this video and getting so deep and technical about it that you answered all my questions and many more I did not even think about yet...
Also, 3d scanning to conpare actual print to the model is so cool!
I'd love to see how print temperature interacts with part cooling. My favorite PETG settings are 270C and 60% min fan speed on Mono-price I3 with the Dii duct.* This gives good overhangs and layer adhesion sufficient that the fracture surface of a hand broken test doesn't follow the layer lines. Normally this would also cause hellish stringing, but I print from a dry-box using molecular-sieve/Zeolite desiccant so my filament is SUPER dry. (* haven't calibrated the hot end, and PIDs needs tuning. often reads 255C during prints)
Well, I guess that kinda confirms that my 235 degree setting was too low.
Your videos are always great. Thank you for your scientific/technical approach to every topic you investigate.
Printing three towers when alternating layers between all towers without cooling actually still provides some cooling because until the next layer is printed on the same tower, it takes some time so it cools a bit...you should print one tower at a time to say there was no cooling...
You're definitely right about the Ender3/CR-10 heatbreak fan. I upgraded a CR-10 mini to an E3D v6 and when I printed a benchy when I hadn't printed the cooling fan mounting bracket yet, it was the most horrible result I ever had.
I'm also thinking this may be related to the watertightness of 3D prints. I used to get some good results with small boxes, but a large-ish boat I just printed is leaking. I'm going to try cranking the temperature up and disabling the cooling fan. It will still be cooled a little bit due to creality's design.
I really also want to get my own universal testing machine running. So much to test, like creep and fatigue life. My machine is based on a raspberry pi though so I still have some programming to do.
It's so refreshing to see somebody with an engineering background do truly valid testing on 3D printing. Great content :)
Thats is the best audible commercial I seen. I might actually check it out this time.
Do it! Great book.
Always been printing sucessfully without cooling and with the lowest viable temp for layer adhesion - very nice to have seen this quantified so thank you very much for that 👍
I literally just posted this question to one of the FB groups I'm in regarding printing of an airboat hull for RC. My posit was that lower parts cooling speeds would enhance layer adhesion and in-turn assist with watertightness. Thank you for this video.
Hey Stefan,
Deine Videos sind echt der Hammer!
Konnte dadurch meine Produkte wirklich um einiges optimieren.
Vielen Dank!
Thx for this comparison it get even worse if you print in a cold room (once i wasn t able to finish a print by a room- temp of 17°C with PETG it cracks while printing with fan on). Would be interesting how quality and strength comes out in a heated chamber with cooling fan which throws hotter air on the print :)
Very nice! Independently testing all the major parameters is a great idea. Looking forward to the rest of this series. Thanks Stefan!
Thanks really interesting, so what we need is Cura to make an update that varies the fan speed based on overhang angle ( no overhang = no fan) to get stronger prints whilst keeping the quality high. That would give a good compromise of strength and quality.
Another competent video with short and to-the-point dialogue! It is so important to note that filament from different manufacturers can behave in totally different ways. It would be interesting to see strength tests with different colours too, as I have had dramatically different results for the same part made in different colours.
I always enjoy watching these tests, you know your doing well when Amazon says hi!!
Very informative video and a great way to show one of the many ways to use 3D scanning in quality control. If you use the tool deviation-label you can mark many locations on the STL file and see the exact deviation on that location.
That is the tool I used in my video about my warped bed plate, for my CR10..
If you have any questions about other tools in the software or about the possibilities with the Core scanner feel free to contact me!
Thank you for making great content, I’m happy to see that you have some sponsors to support the time you put in these videos 👍🏻
I recently got a 3d printer. Based on your Benchy that was smooth on one side and veiny on the other, that helps me understand this one print of mine. I still haven't found a good balance of layer time to cooling time and what not. Every model is going to have custom settings I guess. To a degree.
At 9:45 you can start seeing the collet slipping and shortlz afterwards the test bone breaking, maybe this sudden 'slip & grab' might introduce unnecessary load and cause premature fail of the test part?
I’m quite new at this but have already figured this out. I mostly print ABS because it’s easy to get a nice finish and further refine it. But I’ve got some excellent PLA prints out with much higher temperatures than usually recommended and practically no cooling. Empirically, these are substantially stronger than cooled versions and look much better too.
Good information here! I like your methodical approach.
Thanks for the inf! I just saw this at the end of a 6+ day multiple print project that needs to be extremely strong.
Thank you Stefan for your professional researches ! As a beginner in 3d printing field I need the information you provide on your channel.
I use Das filament petg and I am pretty satisfied. I can report that I have found small variations between types of spools. For me the transparent was the best in printing quality, layer adhesion and overall strenght. I always cool 100% when printing and used the recommended 230 and 75 degrees for temps. Thank you for your efforts and your videos. It really helps everybody that deals with a 3d printer.
Yess brah, your vids are so well tested mate
I really like how thorough you are
This more or less validates everything I've observed so far when printing, but I think there's a few things worth mentioning for newer users:
- More emphasis on slowing down prints/layers and tuning that. I usually slow down the print for layers below 20-30 seconds, and kick up the fan for layers below 10-15 seconds (depending on filament of course).
- Super-important: Separate bridging cooling settings! Slic3r, Cura, S3D all have this (not sure why it's missing from Ideamaker, last time I checked), and I set it to full blast when bridging, which is critical on a 0.6mm nozzle! I still sometimes get artifacts as the fan takes time to spin up, but most of the time it works remarkably cleanly.
- In addition, I think some slicers might offer separate overhanging cooling settings. I don't think there's an ideal implementation of it, where it would adjust the fan speed based on the overhang angle and strictly limit it to just the overhanging region, but I'm pretty sure Cura had an option for it at some point, and it's better than nothing. Overhangs tend to be where I have some trouble, even when following the 45 degree rule, simply since I can't have the slicer crank up the fan for those regions.
Lastly, having visited your videos on how print temperature affects part strength, I think it would be interesting to visit a combination of the two factors and how to tune them together for different filaments, at least if there's anything new that you find.
Thanks for covering the topics of 3D printed part strength. There are very few resources on it online, I had to learn most of it on my own, and it's nice to throw some proof at fellow 3D printing hobbyists that there are better ways to do things lol.
good comment.
Bridging fan speed is an option in Ideamaker but I can understand how you missed it because Ideamaker's setting UI is trash.
Go to advanced settings > Other > Enable Bridging Detection and then the options aren't greyed out
this is pure gold
I think this shows that if printing 'vertically' you should only ever print ONE item at a time (or multiples sequentially). Even a group of 3 let's the previous layers cool and lessens adhesion.
These videos are ridiculously useful.
Great video and as a fellow Engineer I appreciate the testing approach and data layout.
Can you print the outer perimeter with some cooling and then the internal stuff without it?
Best 3D printing channel so far
What an excellent video Stefan!! Thanks for doing this kind of tests and sharing your results.
Great technical video. Love your stuff keep it up!
Definitely how speed influences the strength. From 10mm/s to the max. Visually I find just a little difference between 30 and 75, so I'm really interested in strength.
My ender 3 prints very well, except when it's printing on the far side of the fan on overhands, like what you had on your benchy. From your test and mine, it seems like I need to increase the directions of the air, but decrease the total amount of air
I think a lot of it depends on the mass of what you're printing. For example, we don't use any cooling fan to print thin wall models such as an airplane wing, there is little mass there to retain the heat, it cools fine on it's own.
Nice video and testing! I'm wondering longer layer time could also affect the part strength, since by the time next layer comes the previous one would have cooled down right? Maybe different layer times could also be a subject to test in the future, thank you!
Great info, thank you. I especially like your attention to detail, not just accepting the results, but proving them by using sensible thoughtful tests. Thank you :-)
Thanks for making this video, I was curious and your results confirmed. Excellent work.
Is there a way to turn off cooling for just infill? I would think when printing parts at 100% infill you could make a stronger part if you ran cooling only for the outer layers, then no cooling on infill.
Thank you Stefan, this video is cool and helpful! I love how your engineering comes out in your videos!
use the scanner to check the linearity of your tension test rig and then see about accounting for its misalignment or physically adjusting it
I will surely try lowering cooling for my PETG prints. I almost exclusively print technical stuff and layer adhesion is often very critical.
Yea i Set 20% min and 50% max fan cooling
damn...excellent use of Gom equipment and software to make the thesis. amazing work.
Great video. Thank you for educating the 3D printing community.
Excellent experiments Stefan. I believe using a thicker layer height when no cooling is used would reduce the deformation in your print since the nozzle will be touching the model for far less time. Also, one more thing to look into when testing for strength is the printing temprature. I noticed you used a relatively high temp especially since you were printing with 0.15mm layer height and typically for PLA I would recommend 190~195 for such a fine quality setting. I print most of my parts with minimal cooling since they are mostly functional and mechanical.
Would love to see you go more in depth in this topic in the next videos!
what if you could use a dual extrusion 3d printer and do the infill with one filament and the shell with another. The internal filament being PLA, and the external filament being PETG. Then set the slicer so walls print before infill on each layer. Then, make it so the PLA has a way higher extrusion rate than normal and higher temp to melt layers, but not too much to melt PETG. Also on the internal layers try turning off the fan?
The PETG shell you would probably want to print close to normal settings, as it would be more for the asthetic, so the part doesn't deform. You would essentially be building a bowl of petg around a soup of PLA. I wonder how well it would hold up.
Very nice Stefan! You must try cpe from filamentum. It is the filament with the best layer adhesion i have tested and I use it for all mechanical parts on my 3d printers. Also petg type must be dry!
@3:01 Audible has the biggest selection of audiobooks on the planet.
Ermmm. How do you know?
Numbers
The print temp makes a huge difference, I use eyrone PLA and it doesn't stick well at all below 215C cooling or not. I would think the different fan settings make more of a difference at higher print temps.
It would be interesting to see if the Cura draught screen makes a difference as its supposed to be like a mini heated build chamber around the part. I was going to try some ABS but I have an ender 3 so I need a different fan shroud first.
omg you did every test... this is why design of experiment is created to do like 10% of the work and stil have verry accurate results
Nothing replaces full factorial. DOE does not replace full factorial. It just optimized the amount of information for a gives amount of resources. If you are not resource contained, full factorial with multiple levels of each factor is the best.
Counterintuitivly, I think cooling fans should blow hot air at prints. The aim is to take the plastic below the glass temperature as fast as possible, but no further.
The PETG result might be sure to water absorption. Water in PETG reacts during the high extrusion temps and damages the polymers. I think E3D did a blog post on this effect.
For that reason I enclosed my printer, that will also lower the electricity used.
And for part cooling in some situations I designed a small tower to print on the side with changing thicknesses depending on how much time I want the part too cool before the next layer. My printer doesn't have a cooling fan ;-P
I agree with you, the optimal thing should be to have a temperature controlled chamber that sits just below the glass temperature, and let the part "cooling" fan should cool the print down to the tg fast, but no further. For this reason i actually picked up a old Stratasys printer with a temperature controlled chamber that i intend to retrofit with new open source control boards, new hotend etc to make it into a printer for high-end engineering materials.
Yes Skunk works is an amazing book, even if you don't get it from audible.
You're mostly one of the last videasts with CHEP, Thomas and Angus to do technical research and provide knowledgeable videos. Thank you 💟
Every german be like:
"As an engineer myself..."
little known fact: in Germany you get your engineering degree when you are born
@@poweredbysalt4158 As a German myself i can confirm that.
having lived in Germany for a while I can confirm this is actually true.
Also true that they have the best engineers. It fits them :)
And, an engineer in Germany (Europe in general) has at least a 3y bachelor engineer degree. Not just "I work with something technical that involves problem solving" :)
@EasyBreadToast ok just for you :
Every asian by like :
"As a Doctor myself..."
hi to get better addition just turn off the fan on the infill pattern and turn on when the extruder print the perimeter, you can do it writing a delay to turn on the fan between layers.
by the way nice videos :)
I found when i print multiple prints (water bottle holder) the parts cool passively enough that there's no significant curling because new filament hit cooler plastic thus having (part cooling) and yet failure rates are negligible between printing one or two at a time. My assumption is that the part when passively cooled still has a warmer surface closer matching its subsurface and when the layer is then added the temperature of the new filament doesn't reduce temps too far possibly giving it time to bond better but still cools quickly enough that it doesn't curl. Somewhat similar to slower printing or printing in an enclosure to keep the part warm. Which is also why i think of routing the heat break fan onto the part cooling duct, too cool it down enough that bridging is good and there's no curling but still keep the part warm enough that when another layer is added it will bond well.
I should test printing outside layers first and test how then the inner layers act on the outside layer. I should have a small prime/ooze wall that prints very slowly as to not use too much filament while the part passively cools vs printing two of the same prints.
LOL.....watching the melted filament sticking to the layers as the nozzle went around the perimeter reminded me of the time I made pancakes and poured the batter in a ring of concentric circles that mixed together to form a solid pancake......the adhesion was good considering the pan was quite hot at the bottom but they came away quite easily with a thin edged metal scoop.......possibly it was the oil film.
Another awesome video. Thanks!
Btw, we pronounce F-117 "F one seventeen" because of a spoken shorthand used to convey numbers over the radio. Ironically, the F designation usually indicates Fighter but the Nighthawk is an Attack aircraft, like the A-10 Warthog but, stealthy.
I was JUST wondering about this! You're always right on time with awesome testing for my questions. :)
FYI, others blamed my results on the Creality leaking fan shroud so I did follow up tests with the bottom of the fan shroud blocked on my Ender 3 and got the same great results with no cooling fan. So my profile does work. Watch at 3:05 here to see what I did. th-cam.com/video/QvyesgYLwQk/w-d-xo.html
This was interesting. i completed my Bachelor thesis on a similar topic and can to the same conclusions. When looking at a cross-section of a print under a microscope you can clearly see that at low/no cooling the material is almost completely homologous, with cooling clear boundaries between the lines of filament can be seen.
I was mainly using PLA but also did some testes with PC-ABS and found that even with no cooling and a heated enclosure of 110 C the boundaries were still very clear. As expected proportionally the PC-ABS had weaker inter layer strength to the PLA. I think this is why annealing prints can make such a big difference, it allows the print to homogenise.
In my experience besides better thermal performance, annealing PLA doesn't do a lot to the mechanical properties, it especially doesn't homogenize layers or melt them together better. There is actually a video in the making on this topic.
@@CNCKitchen for PLA I would agree. In my research i found a paper describing this processfor ABS. It would be interesting to see if for materials such as ABS or PC-ABS anneling (or maybe heat treating is a better term?) could improve the inter layer bonds.
I've been printing PLA with 0% fan on my Creality. It's in an enclosure but the room that it's in is about 50 degrees F so that might be helping it. If I put the fan on I get a lot of warping.
Well done video on a very important topic! I have suspected that part fan speed should be high only during overhangs -now you have proven it!
Now I wonder if post cured (what they call annealed) PLA parts can get to 'no-fan' strength but use a bit of fan to help overhangs.
Post cure of PLA functional parts is becoming my standard because heat deformation and creep are unacceptable without it.
Thank you! Was waiting for a test like this! Awesome! :)
Greight video, thanks. I find 0% fan is best for most prints, but I have it on 20% for areas that are unsupported (bridging), support interfaces, and for very small features where the layer time would otherwise be too short. But I agree, no cooling is usually better!
Edit: This also applies to TPU!
thanks for this. cooling vs adhesion was my first thought the first time i saw an fdm printing.
Hi Stefan, a philosophical question (that I have been thinking about for a while now). The function of the part-cooling-fan is to bring the temperature of the 3d-ink just below its glass-temperature. Would it then not be best to "cool" with hot air - for example 80'C for PLA, whereby the temperature reduction shall be done by the mass-flow rather than the temperature-differential, and the print would be held warm enough to have the following layer melt-into it nicely. I was considering "festo" style tubes emitting hot-air near my nozzle, being fed by a compressor with a heater/regulator to pre-heat the air to 80'C. What do you think?
That's an interesting question. I think you can kind of compare it to what's going on in heated chambers and that usually increases strength.
@@CNCKitchen Exactly. The difference is that the hot-air can be significantly hotter- e.g. 120'C if you are printing HIPS - that is something no "heated chamber" can afford. Furthermore, instead of a heavy and vibrate-y fan on the hot-end that wafts air in the general direction of the print, the compressed air can be precisely dosed exactly where it is needed.
@@AdityaMehendale Print in a Sauna? :P
@@AdityaMehendale I would agree with your proposal, then you could completely remove all fans from the hot end and use small tubing air nozzles for the precise air directing as you need it.
@@rkan2 Haha.. the hygroscopic filament-types won't like that ;)
An annealing step may give the same benefit without the compromise in print quality. Seems like the same mechanism - the print spends more time between melt and glass transition temperatures. Worth a followup test?
Your no fan results are not really what I've seen in similar tests unless I'm printing way too hot.
I'd like to see more options in slicers for turning off (or down) cooling only for infill and/or inner perimeters. Mostly, though, I use Colorfabb nGen with little-to-no cooling fan at 240c and get really good results.
My new 3Dprinter will have a part heating fan that can reach 250c for this reason! It can instantly switch to cool air.
My idea is to day print pla at 60c and petg at 70 and abs at 100c air.
Very well done. I have been looking at scanners myself and would be interested in scientific look at the accuracy of them. Like maybe print an object, scan it, print another from the scan and continue cycle to see what happens?
Tips on how to get good, even parts cooling (especially for PC and nylon in enclosure), while still minimizing printhead mass? Spending a lot of time, tinkering and what little money I have, on reducing direct drive all-metal printhead on my CR10S - and it kinda sucks spending money on a pancake to reduce weight, only to add it back and then some in big plastic shrouds and 3 fans.
Excellent integration of the sponsored portion into the video. The SR71 print - and its relevance to the audiobook mentioned - made me watch the commercial. I usually skip ahead. Well done.
Happy to hear that and a seriously a very good book!
AWESOME! Not only great information but an audible book suggestion... ok dude... I'm subscribing... My 3d printer is in the shop... which is only sometimes heated so... gonna have to come up with a method of guessing.
Can you test some PEI/PEEK/ultem filament and compare it's properties to other materials?
If I only had a machine to print them on. I try to make something work later this year.
Always quality work Stefan, great stuff and very helpful.
awesome video! I've actualy been looking for just this all week. thanks!!!
Very well done!
Das war geil! Danke und LG aus Salzburg
Think you for doing your show you are saving me hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours.
Skunk Works is a fantastic book! Fans of Kelly Johnson will especially like the 1st half, where Ben describes the development of the SR-71. The 2nd half is about Ben's time leading the Skunk Works after Johnson retired, and centers around the development of stealth technology.
Thanks for doing these in-depth investigations! One piece of often information I often struggle to find is quantitive information about the warping properties of filaments.
Given that I most often print molds for casting precise technical parts, warp is about the only material property I really care about; and not just if its low enough to stick to the bed; but if I can count on my holes having the right spacing, and if rods will turn into bananas or not.
There are some filaments out there like ABS-X or some PLA variants that claim to be zero-warp. Also, some say that a heated chamber helps for PLA just like it does for ABS. But an actual in depth investigation of the matter, is something I have been unable to find. Perhaps you will find it interesting to do something along those lines in the future.
Would be interesting to reprogram the fan control to cool only when printing overhangs and outside perimeters and see how that would affect strength... on one hand, it should not compromise strength on the infill while keeping the outer surface tidy but on the other hand, cracks usually originate on stress points on the surface which this approach would not change from the normal cooling approach... so it would be very interesting to test this out.
A lot of people want the extra cooling for better overhang. I went with the Ductinator and get way less air. I also do my brand of PLA at 230c and also jump the bed temp up to 60c. seems to get better strength parts and a good quality PLA still bridges well anyways.