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Printing with PLA

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webby2:
I have made some mods to my printer,, nothing big there.

What I just noticed is interesting to those whom use PLA.
What I have been using as a glue is DAP Rapid Fuse all purpose adhesive.  It works fairly well for general gluing of parts but I just used some isopropyl alcohol to clean up the excess glue around a bearing,, I was not so happy with the fit of the bearing as far as alignment goes,, I tried to tweak it a little bit and nothing really moved but about 1 minute after I cleaned up the excess I tried again but this time the plastic and glue all acted kind of like a liquid and allowed me to reposition the bearing alignment so that it is much better.

webby2:
I found that if I have a hole for a shaft that is not right,, it might be a little out of alignment or a little small or what not,, if I place the shaft through the hole and then spin it with my drill press,, or whatever will do the job,, I can use the friction to slightly heat up the PLA and allow it to form into a better position\shape.  This seems to work for small errors.

I also use a razor blade and "back scrape" the PLA to clean up the part, by back scrape I mean having an angle on the blade and sliding the face of the blade across the area to be cleaned up.  I find that this also seems to create a sort of surface friction melt thing.  I use the edge of the blade, whether that is the sharp edge or the square edge, not all edges work.

webby2:
An interesting thing to remember.

PLA will wear out metal parts.

I have printed a lot of parts on my printer, changed the print head\extruder out to a Bowden style system,, but other than that change I have been running with the same parts, so that is only 1 new hot-end and 1 new nozzle.  I modified my extruder to accept the Bowden setup so I have been using the same hob all along.

So the other day I used the NEW Basic Premium filament from Amazon and my printer would not work with it, I had an older partial spool and put it back on and it worked fine, back to tha Amazon premium and no good,,

I started replacing some of the parts I was planning on but in a less planned out method than what I wanted, I was looking for the reason my printer did not like the new filament.  I now have a new hot-end and cooling fan for the hot-end, not to be confused with the parts cooling fan, a new sheath that goes between the extruder and the hot-end, a new nozzle, a new heat element and a new thermistor,,  all this and still no joy.

Now you can see why I mentioned the hob,, yep that was the problem mostly.  The new filament is about 0.178 to 0.174 and the older stuff was 0.175 to 0.173,, the slightly larger diameter filament makes for a slightly higher friction in the sheath, and a slightly higher pressure making it slightly harder to push the filament through the nozzle and my hob was worn really bad,, smooth in a few spots even.

webby2:
I am using a press fit drive piece to connect a motor to one of my testbeds, it is a 2.3mm diameter shaft motor so it is very small.

When the drive motor is loaded and starts to heat up the output shaft starts to "slip"  inside the connection piece and has a few times now actually allowed the connection piece to get hot enough to warp and bend.  On larger diameter shafts I have not had this issue so much, or if I key the connection.  I have also tried super-glue with some success but as I am using it right now it is not a good way to go.

webby2:
An interesting printer issue.
My sheath that connects the extruder to the hot end came loose, that is the fitting that holds the end of the sheath to the extruder wore out.

Did not think that would happen but it would explain some print errors I have had,,,,

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