New 3D print with my own CAD newbie need critique

[7racer]

Hello! I am trying to print a simple license plate frame for my race car. I built the 3D CAD in Shapr3D. I exported the file to Luban and printed.

I used the baseline settings. But the print didnt come out as clean as I wanted. Can people give me a critique and suggestions on what to look for on settings or printing problems or slicing that I might be doing wrong?!

This is only my 4th print and second hand made 3D one that I made myself.

I tride to chamfer the edges of the bolt holes but it doesnt look clean and the base didn’t give me an even layer.

Hopefully I can upload the pics *ah crap newbie only one pic in post

[7racer]

[7racer]

[brent113]

Looks good, I give it a 9/10. Maybe increase numbers of walls / top & bottom surfaces and increase infill percent. Also solve your bed adhesion issue, probably redo the calibration, and better yet do an 11x11

[7racer]

thank you! what’s a 11x11?

[clewis]

When you calibrate the snapmaker from the controller. The default options are 3x3, 4x4, or 5x5, but you can increase the value up to 11x11. It really helps on the larger beds, since they’re not nearly as flat as they should be. You can see the difference on the bottom surface where some places the tool path is clear (center of photo), and other places (left of bolt hole) the texture is completely squished. Ideally, you’d have the same texture on the bottom everywhere.

Your top surface looks under extruded. You should be able to see the path the head took, but you shouldn’t have gaps between them. You shouldn’t be able to see through the top layer to the layer beneath it. That could be the cause of your top surface adhesion issues. This is a recent print I made w/ Normal Quality (but a 0.16mm layer height):

I suspect that calibrating your E steps will help with that. Changing your E steps can affect bed adhesion (hopefully improving it if you’re under extruding). Your bed adhesion looks good though, so you might end up over extruding the first layer (which causes it’s own texture issues).

The bolt holes with two walls should be strong enough, but it wouldn’t hurt to increase the thickness of the walls as brent113 mentions. The bolt holes will be where you have the most compressive force, so I wouldn’t worry about infill too much. Not unless infill is so low that it’s causes surface issues (which I’m not seeing).

Snapmaker generally makes negative holes slightly small, so double check that your bolt holes are big enough to fit a bolt. If not, you might want to make a sizing prototype that is just a small square with a bolt hole. Once you get the size dialed in, take that back to the larger project.

[brent113]

@clewis

Not unless infill is so low that it’s causes surface issues (which I’m not seeing)

Yea, I wasn’t sure either. I am wondering if this square pattern is the infill, in which case it looks a little low to me. Showing through the surface would be suboptimal, another surface or 2 would help.

[clewis]

d’oh. I zoomed in, and didn’t notice the pattern. It’s pretty obvious zoomed out. That seems like a decent infill percentage for something that size though. I’d probably go lower to speed up the print.

[7racer]

thank you everyone for the tips and suggestions. Will give it another shot and keep learning!

[7racer]

A bit better! Here is print 2. I inset where the bolt holes are and took some mass away. But that created an area that is floating and it didn’t make a clean print. I like the walls. Top and bottom still a bit rough.

Current settings:
Normal quality
Layer height .16
Infill 30
Wall Thickness 2
Top thickness 2
Bottom Thickness 2

Also did the calibration at 5x5 but boot sure how to do 11x11. Will read more on the forum tonight

[7racer]

[7racer]

[clewis]

The first picture looks like it’s from the bottom. For those center holes that don’t touch the buildplate, you’ll want to enable supports touching buildplate. It’ll print some disposable scaffolding to support printing that starts above the build plate. Then you can use pliers or something is tear off the supports once printing is done. It does leave a bit of texture behind. People that find it annoying usually sand the area lightly.

I think you’ll be happy after that.

[podkido]

My tool of choice for removing the support artifacts is a nice sharp wood chisel. It gives great control and very smooth results.

[7racer]

thanks! I didn’t know there was that function in Luban. I know there is in Cura. Need to hunt more in Luban. Was staying on that for now to get past the learning curve

[7racer]

heading to Amazon now! LOL

[7racer]

I ended up reversing that center section to avoid the lack of supports and will have the flat surface facing out. Should work for now.

[7racer]

[7racer]

[podkido]

Good news. Keep them really sharp and you’ll be happy with the results.