Advice to improve dual material print quality esp. for front panel marking

[Jez (in his) Shed @jezshed High Peak, UK]

Hi all,

After my fast-fill head decided to burst it’s innards after 407 hrs of use, I’ve just invested in a dual material upgrade and full “MOT” of my Cel Robox. It wasn’t a cheap exercise, but I hope it will be worth it.

I’d like to use the Dual Material capability for doing front panels of my electronic projects. I notice that the DM alignment test print looks really good and I’d like to get that kind of definition and quality for my own panels, but what’s the secret?

How can use I SketchUp to apply markings and text efficiently? I’ve tried added markings and text as separate objects (with a depth of 0.5mm for example) and selecting the appropriate material in AutoMaker but I can’t really work out the best combination of text size (or feature width) and depth to obtain a neat finish.

My attempts (although reasonable) do show some blobbing and joining of features. The best results so far use a simple font (Dosis) with approximate feature width of 2mm and a depth of 0.5mm, but it’s not as neat as the Alignment Test Print. I’m sure a font that results in a single pass outline rather than a “fill” will yield better results but I don’t know how I would ensure that a font (or marking) uses only a single pass rather than attempting a fill. To be honest, a font with a feature (line) width of 2mm is way too big, so I need to be able to get down to a feature width of 1mm like the Alignment Test Print, but my attempt was horrendous!

Also, really stupid question here but I’m missing something obvious here. What’s the most efficient way to assign materials to certain parts of the print. So far I’ve tried importing the whole STL and then using “ungroup” and then selecting individual objects to assign the correct material. That takes ages and is not always possible. I’ve also tried exporting the various objects as separate STL files from SketchUp and then assigning the desired material when importing them into AutoMaker. Sadly any imported objects get positioned to Z=0 (flat on the bed) so the relative Z positions are not correct.

Finally, is there a general tutorial here for Dual Material printing? I feel a little lost although I’ve loads of experience with single material design and print.

Thanks all,

Jez

• This topic was modified 4 days, 10 hours ago by  Jez (in his) Shed.

[Mike @17bt CHORLEY, Lancashire]

@jezhead If your STL files have a shared or common origin they will import OK

Just select all the relevant files by selecting them using the CTRL or CMD key and that way they will import all grouped and centred together. Then assign all the relevant filaments and bingo.

[Mike @17bt CHORLEY, Lancashire]

Sorry @jezshed typo’d your username with iPhone & fat fingers…here’s a thread that might help!

http://www.cel-robox.com/forums/topic/dual-material-printing-adding-models-origin-shift/

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