How And When To Use Skirts, Brims, And Rafts For 3d Printing
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ส.ค. 2021
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In this video we take a look at how I have used skirts, brims, and rafts over the past 5-6 years. These are incredibly valuable and even if you do not need them for every prints, having a basic understanding is a must. Depending on materials used and print geometries, they really can be life savers.
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Im 62 years old and brand new to 3d printing. Your videos are a great help to me. Keep up the good work.
73 here, and i agree 100%. I'm a retired pro photographer with experience with complicated software. even took CAD for 6 months back in the 80s. This 3D stuff is a bit intimidating, but really fun.
Best of luck with your prints!
462 Here I was I bit scared when I was born in the elizabethan period so it was a hard adjusting the 3d printing
@@Blissed42 Hard to believe it was that tough of an adjustment. Living through the Renaissance cotton gin and steam engine would have prepared you enough. Surely WWII would have done it if those had not.
But good for you! I bet with all you've seen you could create some incredible stuff!
And from one 420 to another, 3d printed dab rigs never hold up, and smell like shit when they melt before the dab does.
If your looking for info on 3d printing my top 3 channels are modbot of course, makers muse and teaching tech all 3 are a great source of info
@@DeSeriousSquid Remember CNC Kitchen!
skirts 2:50 to help your printer extrude before the actual part gets printed. It prints a loop around your print(he uses 3 loops)(does not interfere with print)
brims 6:30 to help with bed adhesion and warping, if your print's first layer is too small it might fall off during printing and brims help with it. It prints a layer around your print and is actually stuck to your print(8mm width is fine but he uses 5mm)(might need deburring tool to remove it)
rafts 10:09 rarely used but useful if you don't have a heated bed, your print surface is jacked up or you're worried your bed leveling was off. It actually lifts the print off the bed so it requires a bit more material
MY COMMENT WAS JUST A SUMMARY all points in this comment comes from the video i did not come up with these myself. Like the actual video if you found this helpful
@@Joevim bro your comment summarized a 15min video into like 30s of reading
that deserves some acknowledgement
thanks for saving me 15 min
rafts are also super good for reducing elephant footing if that happens. itd be interesting to know how brims impact elephant footing
Bless you 🙏
I use a raft over brim most of the time now if I need tolerance confidence on the first layer, peels off beautifully
I am 75 and just bought my first 3d printer. The AnyCubic eliminates the need for skirts by always doing a skirt on the edge of the print area before starting on the item to be printed. A tip from an experienced friend that eliminated adhesion issues was to wash the bed plate with washing up liquid and clean it with one of those green scouring pads. I then just give it a light rub with a dry pad before each print and it seems to work every time. If it fails to adhere just rewash it. The AnyCubic also includes self levelling. Glad I never jumped in too early. Machines today seem highly developed.
I’ve found rafts especially helpful with prints having lots of small parts. The flexible octopus worked much better with it for me, coming off and being SUPER flexible as soon as the raft was removed. The big one for me was when printing my cable chain. All of those little parts were a nightmare for me at first, popping off randomly no matter what I changed. Once I enabled the raft, it printed perfectly the very first time.
How did you remove the octopus, the same situation for me, it only worked with the raft but I can’t get the octopus off the raft? I use generic PLA and an Ender 3 v2 neo
@@SS____________ if I remember correctly you need to increase the raft air gap. It is labeled differently on different slicers. But it’s the distance between the raft and the actual print. There should be a small gap so it doesn’t weld it to the print.
@@ghrayfahx ok ill try to reprint with that in mind.
I’m literally doing the octopus with a raft right now Raft seem to be helpful. When you have a lot of small pieces that get stripped off the build plate easily.
Good to know! I printed the octopus with a brim and it made a bit of a mess around it, I'll try with a raft next time
Thank you so much for this video. It has really helped to clear up this element of 3D Printing. I did not have a clue when to use these, but now I know and will be able to improve my printing thanks to you and this video.
Many thanks once again, take care and stay safe,
Joe
3 weeks new to 3D. I was shocked to hear this video.
100% of the models (stl) I have downloaded and printed had rafts when I sliced them with Cura, Cr Pronter, CR slicer.
The reason found this video is that I made from scratch a model thin tinkercad and when I sliced it in Cura I got a raft that was only under half the model and I didn't know why as I had the default setting.
Now that I hear this video, I'll need to go back and remove rafts!
I use a prime line in my start gcode, no skirts. Something I have been doing lately is I put just a tiny bit of painters tape where the nozzle moves over the bed to wipe the nozzle off. The tape just barely rides on the bed, maybe 1 or 2mm, then its folded over, it is only there to knock off the prime line before the nozzle moves over the bed and starts printing.
Amazing that your talking about this now. I'm using a brim to save a print that I know would have warped due to its size. It very flat and takes up the whole bed. Its been printing for hours now and it perfect due to the brim. My bed is levered well as I learned that's the key to good prints but sometimes with very flat parts it still warped without a brim. I only use rafts on very small parts or oddly shaped ones.
ngl i had no knowledge about all of these things until i watched this video, thanks a lot!
I'm with you on the rafts. I've never really found much of a use for them at all over just having a clean flat build plate.
I have been using brims for PET-G on a printer without a heated bed to help with adhesion and warping issues. However, I build the brims into my CAD model as opposed to letting the slicer do it. This way I don’t need the entire foot print surrounded. Just the areas that are prone to warping…..Makes clean up of the parts much easier.
I'm new to 3D printing and this video is an excellent guide to get started! Thank you for the information. Keep up the good work! Subscribed
The best advice I have ever had, which improved the success of my prints to about 99%, is the use of a 'feeler gauge'. It is a inexpensive tool from an auto parts store such as 'Autozone', they are used to properly space sparkplugs. To level your bed, such as on an Ender 3, first 'autohome' the print nozzle, and move the z axis to starting z position (set to z layer height, 0.28mm for example). Choose a feeler gauge that best matches your z layer height (0.279mm for my feeler gauges). disable stepper motors, and carefully adjust bed corner knobs to have very light friction. This works perfectly every time, I never require rafts or brims. A single layer adheres perfectly, and peels off like a piece of paper.
Absolutely great tips!
Thank you for the Extremely helpful video. I was struggling with small parts and this helped me a lot 😂
I use rafts for CF nylon and polycarbonate. I use brims on everything else.
Wish I found this video earlier. This is some great knowledge so my future print quality is thanks to you!
perfect explanation! liked and subscribed!
Great info & advice. Thanks 🍻
Thank you so much this is very helpful for me 🙏🏻
This video came out at the most convenient time. Just as I started having problems with bed adhesion! btw this is my first time printing.
Glue stick, its a miracle worker.
Should always make sure your bed is leveled before you try anything else, but if you are positive it is leveled, glue is the next thing to try. Brims are fine, if you have to have them, then you have to have them.
So it always gets over looked when someone says they are having bed adhesion problems, even I over looked it. Dont even know what made me think about it and comeback to recomment but....
There are many other things besides just a level bed to getting good bed adhesion. Are you printing hot enough? You want to print your first layer hotter than all your other layers. Are you printing slow enough? Printing your first layer too fast will cause problems, you want to print your first layer extra slow. There are all sorts of other little things I am likely missing too, its easy to just point to one thing and say that has to be the problem simply because it is the most common problem.
If all else fails, CHEP has a Cura profile for the Ender 3 you can use. Im not particularly a fan of his profile, its on the slow side, but it is a proven working profile that many people love.
really well explained, thanks
Thank you for the cogent explanation...
Great video~! I'm new to the 3D printing community and this was very informative. I just bought/assembled my Prusa i3 MK3S+ and am getting started. One of my first few prints has a solid base measuring 7.2mm x 14.5mm. About 15-20 minutes into the print, I find that the back end lifts off of the bed. I've gone thru the alignment wizard a few times, thoroughly cleaned the bed each time, and the 2nd time I tried using a glue stick, but the same result. I haven't built an enclosure yet, but I've got a large cardboard box that I'm going to try using in the meantime. For my 3rd go around, I'm going to try a brim to see if that helps. Just trying to understand the dynamics of this new tool in my shop.
I am a newbie and ive been having a hell of a time with leveling my bed and my bed getting damaged due to having the nozzle to close to the bed etc. and your video was amazing! Im literally going to go try these options right now, fingers crossed this will help!
Thanks so much!
Thanks for the great video!
Great info, thanks.
This was good and you covered mostly everything. For rafts there are two more scenarios that they are used. Some enclosed ABS/HIPS/PC machines (Zortrax M200, UP mini 2 etc) come with a perforated build plate and always use a raft for material to get into the small holes (reason for thick extrusions) and provide a foundation that is mechanically griped to the bed. It is better for less warping and a raft is the only way to print on a perforated build plate. Another is when you are printing a large part with a material that sometimes sticks too well to the build plate material and does not release easily after cooling down. Ever heard of PETG welding to smooth PEI and chipping smooth glass? Polycarbonate can also weld to Buildtak surface. If the model has a flat continous surface (no grid, no gaps, just full solid infill) then it will be difficult to remove. A raft in this case acts as a release agent.
PETG can actually bond to borosilicate glass at a molecular level. Do not print PETG on glass without an interface layer of hairspray or glue stick or something to separate them.
4:36 Damn... I forgot how slow the B1 was. I've Klipperised mine and installed the H2 V2S and it just flies now. :)
WELL DONE!!!!!
I found out the hard way last night that rafts are a nightmare. lol. Funny, i also use the skirt as a z offset indicator. Now i just have to figure out how to make brims a little easier to remove. Thanks for this video!
00:15 Hat tip to the venerable BIQU B1 😁
Rafts are great for prints without a large flat face, like a Sphere. Rafts are good for enhancing adhesion and prevent layer shifts for the supports below a printed sphere or odd shaped model that's essentially floating in space above the print bed, or things sliced at a 45 angle to minimize layer lines.
That’s essentially the issue I’ve been having. I’m trying to print a cross guard for a LOTR-lightsaber hybrid and as soon as the print gets to the far ends of the cross guard, the nozzle catches or it shifts and the whole print goes haywire. Trying it right now with a raft and hoping for the best!!
Love it thanks bro
I'd love to see pros and cons of deltas vs. gantry type printers. With all the advantages of a delta, esp. the flsun qq-s-pro with: autolevel one-time, z-axis align one-time, glass bed (coated?) which sticks very nicely and parts slide off when cooled and fast print speed. Why choose another type?
I went for a long time never using rafts, but I have found them useful recently on parts where dimensional accuracy is paramount. I normally have things printing pretty hard on the buildplate to ensure adhesion, which creates a small elephants foot and thus slightly reduces the height of a model, using a raft gets around that. The bottom of the piece is nowhere near as pretty, but it is dimensionally accurate for fitting parts together, so it has its place.
Good stuff! Don’t forget helper discs, there the new brim. I haven’t used one since.
Damnit that is what I mean not lily pads unless the term lily pads is used by some. The helper disks are something I would love to explore more and cover separately 😬
@@ModBotArmy I always heard them called "mouse ears". I use them to avoid corner warp, or if I want the advantage of a brim, without it going around the entire print (like a print with multiple parts, but only one needs more support).
@@dayveeman I guess they have lots of different names!
@@ModBotArmy You could totally do a whole video on it between placement strategy and method of creating the disc.
Is there a way to get mouse ears in cura?
I very new to 3d printing (2 days!) and my first "real" print of Flexi Rex failed on the first layer due to curling. A brim solved the issue. Shame the part silently failed half way through the 4 hour build because the filament stopped feeding.
THANKS!!!
ive found that i use rafts on things that need to fit really well, the brims often are difficult to get off the part fully, and you usually end up with some amount of it still there and causing fitment issues, (like if you have a tiny printer like a monoprice mp mini delta and you want to print some gears, you can stack them on their side, which makes the print 3x longer, but i'm asleep anyways so it doesnt matter, but if you use a brim it messes with the mesh, but a raft usually doesnt)but if i use a raft, there isnt any, rafts come off better (for my printers and abilities i mean) a de buring tool usually only works on circles, and edges one way any type of bend or weird geometry, good luck using a de-burring tool, sand paper is fast for me and wont gouge the part if you hold it weirdly or slip.
still great information! I'm in the land of the bambu X1C and if I don't use a Brim for ASA, which I love as a material, it warps (also I use bambu glue) I am toying with brim distance to see if I can still get good bed adhesion and also more easily remove the Brim. when I print some pla parts also I use a brim if the part has small bits, 90% of the time they get knocked off the bed even with glue.
Im new to 3d printing but i heard someone said raft will prevent u from "elephant footing" if u want to print "print in place" stuff
No need for a raft, most slicers have a setting to address that directly now, in Cura it's called "Initial Layer Horizontal Expansion", PrusaSlicer has "Elephant foot compensation".
@@grumbel45 ouhhh..thxx
If you print a wide brim or mouse ears, get the print to pause after 2 or 3 layers and use some small magnets on them. Rehome x and y and continue.
Thank you for sharing your video's. I am a bit embarrassed to ask for information as I am not a signed up member yet, but hopefully will be in future. If I may ask for advice please, I see you have a blue light below the hot end etc. Do you have a video of the install, I may have missed it, alternatively the name or where it can be bought. TIA
Raft also helps you to have a better leveled print, at least it does to me at first in my Monoprice Mini Delta.
what raft air gap do you use? i cant seem to get mine to work at 3.2mm
I started to use raft with abs because i couldnt get it to stick right on corners and lifted up, brimm just separated from where the brimm toutches the part and the thing lifted up. Sometimes rafts are needed
The default skirt distance is 10mm in Cura and in version 4.8 I was able to change this to 15mm so if an ooze fellinside the skirt it would not impact the part but in 4.10 when I change this it is highlighted in orange to signify an error, do you know what is going on?
Almost in all prints I prefer to use Brims :) With tuned settings :) Dont have any bad print with this settings :)
Hey ModBot, Have you every used PLA-F filament? I bought a kilo not knowing that it was any different than PLA. My limited research shows its a mix of PLA and ABS. Ive only owned a printer for under a week but would still like to figure this filament out. I tried doing an ABS temp tower (260-220), but results didnt really seem to show much to me. 260-240 all looked the same, but when it got to 235 the tower fell over, so bed adhesion apparently wasnt great
You probably fixed this by now, but for anyone else, ABS needs a higher temperature on the bed, so in this case a higher bed temperature would probably help in adhesion!
hjcpkr
Thank you
Brims work great, but Cura only allows 1 layer brims. MatterControl slicer will allow multiple brims to be used so that the brim does not tear at the part surface during warping.
Hi ,im new in printer 3d and im intristied how can you suport a model roof in Cura ?
Set Brim distance 0.55 and your Part will connnect with thinnest border of BRIM. and you can teae it like a paper with hand in PLA too. Set different distance as per your filament flow. Start with 0.48
Any way we could customize where the brim is added? Brim is hard to remove, and normally I only need brim for a few small pieces
"Let's get right into the video!"
*inserts ad*
🙃
What are your printer settings for your for your voxelab
In most cases a raft is a waste of time and filament, however I was printing hand armor without any flat edge. Yes a raft worked but if didn’t clean up well. Have support easily removable and easy to clean up is a bid deal.
I use rafts for small or tiny parts
I got a new bed where I don't need adhesion but for some reason I can only get a raft to stick which I don't understand, any suggestion?
My Brims or Rafts sticks to much to my PLA part and I fte break a piece of piece wanted. Any way to control this adhesion?
Subbed.
Wow... At 5:30 the whole bed moves from right to left. I almost can't believe this bed is leveled alright as it is loose on the carriage.
I am almost sure one (or more) of the excentric nuts are not tightened correctly, therefore at least one of the weels is loose.
Nevertheless, this was a very good explanation of the Skirts, Brims, and Rafts, and everyone new to 3d printing should see this video. Just happened to see that movement. :-)
Haha you are probably not wrong (need to rewatch). Due to small spaces the printers get moved a ton which causes things to loosen. Good catch 😬. Thanks for the kind words and feedback 👍
@@ModBotArmy Lol, I do know that problem... Same happens here on a weekly basis :-)
Thank you this was so helpful I tried to print an octopus and the brim kept getting attached to the bottom and the tentacles would not move.
Rafts are for dimensionally accurate parts. Any other reason for them is a "band aid" as you said. But the trial and error approach to nailing first layer squish while compensating for elephants foot and keeping a part the right size is kind of silly and unnecessary. That's what rafts are for.
Hello
I'm new to 3D printing
I'm using CR 10s pro V2
I'm always having stringing
Can you help me to get rid of this problem?
The new Bambu lab p1p wipes his nozzle by himself bevor printing. I cant stress enoug how insanely comfortable this is. If you have the budget , go for it.
I use 6 skirts because I tend to change color/type of filament. I use rafts for gears
Thank you so much I was pulling my hair out thinking why are my supports failing every time.. I'll see if brims help
4:42 actually did this on 1st print, now I have a new ender machine with a scar on the bed
i find rafts useful for tall statues with a small base and need lots of supports.
i find rafts useful when the a) the bottom of the part is not important, and b) has many small contact points separate from the main body
I noticed I avoided the elephants foot effect while using rafts... Is there anyway to tackle that while using skirts and brims?
Use the "Initial Layer Horizontal Expansion" setting in Cura or "Elephant foot compensation" in PrusaSlicer.
Starts @2:50
I have an Ender 3 S1 pro, and no matter what my adhesion settings in the slicer are, it always prints 2 straight lines along the left side of the build plate.
I assume this is to fill the same purpose that a skirt would. In fact, until watching this video, I always wondered what the purpose of a skirt even was. It always seemed so pointless. When you started explaining it's purpose, I was like "oh. Cool. That makes sense, but my printer already does that itself."
I see you're using a Mac. If/once you get one with M1 SOC, you will learn that prusaslicer runs much much better/faster on that hardware. And Cura don't have full M1 support anywhere hear.
Question when using raft I can’t pull off the model it sticks and distroy the part. Please help using cura
I found the "raft air gap" is crucial. I set it to 2 layer height (for example with layer height 0.2mm set it to 0.4mm) then I can separate the model and raft easily.
Thank you
I have one brand of pla that the only way I could prevent it from warping is to use another pla brand for the first few layers and then change filament to this pla which is prone to warpage. Otherwise this pla is realy good and strong.
First time I hear about the brims. I will try the brims
Thank you
I feel like im the first person asking this but ....
What the f do I do if my adhesion is TOO HIGH? Bought the Anycubic Mega X and my PLA prints just wont come off. The last two I had to get off with hammer and chisel. Doubt the printer likes me doing that but what else am I supposed to do?
Bed is fully cooled down, even after hours it sticks like glue. Tried ethanol which people claimed to work wonders but nothing happened.
I hoped skirts would have been like those in resin printing where you actually get a slope to shove your chisel under.
Even with PLA, brims are really really important if you have a large flat closed area because warping can happen very easily in those cases.
I use brims on PETG parts.
I use raft when I'm printing something very tall as even the slightest bit of leverage can cause it to fall over and spaghetti
Is this Joshua Bardwell’s clone? Do super nerds just look the same?
Ive seen recently that rafts can be used for 3d printed gears where dimensional accuracy is very important where any amount of elephants foot would ruin the profile.
I never used Rafts before
problem is using abs
I tend to elephant foot everything. Raft.
Rafts are local bed leveling.
main reason to use rafts: removes elephant's foot.
thats good enough reason for me
I have never used a raft in over 300,000 hours of printing. Brims..yes. Rafts, no.
youre bad with rafts, i use em all the time and it always leaves a smooth finish, better than just printing on the straight bed too so i dont have to worry about leveling
When print head is at Z = 0 the print head should just touch the bed. Avery other method is wrong!
0:50 why are you constantly shaking like you have to pee?
No.
Oh man, you speak too fast and without any pauses between sentences.
Pause, rewind, and slow are all options 👍
@@ModBotArmy Oh, I never realized there's a speed selection in the player. 0.9x is perfect! Thanks for the tip!
Wait till he finds out the "bill" of a hat is actually called the brim. And that some hats actually do have them all the way around
Use of the term "Leveling" as in bed leveling, is actually incorrect. The correct term is "Tramming".
Im printing a big cylinder with a big angle at the end of the print, i cant invert the object cause it will be to weak, at the end of the process the object will distack from plate every single time, i ve use brim and i slow the printer to 40-50% of speed but nothing, raft can help me? Ah i have set the z hop and nothing it distack 🫣🫣😢