Printing In 3D, Finally

Today we managed to get quite a bit of stuff done that we have been putting off and one of them was to get the Cube 3 D printer up and running. The process was relatively easy to be honest but the first print was not as perfect as we may have hoped it to be.

We had a few issues with the initial setting up of the Z height after the bed auto level was finished doing its thing. I guess that this is fairly common due to the shiny surface of the print bed it cannot calibrate as good as it would like or need to do it can move on to the next step of setup.

After the third try we had a successful setting up of the Z and the Cube was ready to run. We put the glue / removal liquid into the printed and hit start. Things appeared to be going as planned and we ended up with a decent print, well it appeared that we would anyway.

By the time that it was working on the second layer I knew that the Z was still off a bit based on the distance between layers as well as the amount of jaggy was that appeared on the underside. In the past when I have seen this on other printers it meant that the bed was too far away from the head or that the printed was not as level as it should be.

So even though both tests were passed with flying colors as far as the software was concerned, we could tell from the print that this was not the case. Not a big deal honestly, it's fairly easy to readjust and try the print again. Thankfully the print is thin and small and only takes 16 minutes or so to complete.

Anyway, as I sit and write this entry I am waiting for the printer to do a quick firmware update. I think that we should have done this before ever starting the first print but it never prompted us to do do. One of the guys online was prompted to, so I am wondering if he shot his video in many segments.

Not a big deal because again, it's entirely wireless and pain free. Once done we will make some adjustments based on the manuals suggestions and try another test print to see what we get out of the thing that time. If it's still a little off we will continue to tweak until we get it just right! Should be fun and a learning experience none-the-less!

Photo: The very first print off of the 3D printer. This is a little test print, kinda like a key fob with the Cube logo on the side not showing. Not perfect by any means although it gives us a great place to start tweaking the software and the hardware to get them printing much closer to perfect!