Rigid Ink and the UP! Box 3D printer

So Sometime ago I got a sample of Rigid Inks ABS Filament - Unfortunately you don't get to choose the colour, but at least you get to try out a different supplier.

Here are the results of printing on the UP! Box, Printing our a marvin robot keyring.

Here is the print smoothed with Acetone to see how the filament smooths out.

Looks pretty good doesn't it.. On the white tiertime filament that comes with the UP! Box printer, it struggled with the key ring loop at the top of the robot, however with the RigidInk filament not a single problem.. It really is amazing as I was expecting the tiertime filament to out perform the Rigid Ink filament considering that the Rigid Ink filament was extruded at the upper end of its temperature range. Also I have been finding the green ABS filament from UP! manufacturer struggles to get going in as much if you put in a reel after the printer has rested, the filament requires an extra bit of pushing to get it to start extruding properly. - Now this is filament that is meant to be compatible with the UP printer (This of course could just be the green filament being the problem, and that any other colour would be fine)..

From my initial Test I am definitely sold on the Rigid Ink Filament, it is a shame that the colours are limited, for instance would be great to have a glow in the dark filament.

I am definetely going to try and get some of their other filament to test - Looks like I should be able to print PMMA and Nylon12 with the standard UP! Box setup - so watch this space!

Oh the final plus of Rigid Ink Filament is the cost - For the filament for UP! Box I have been paying £27 for a 500g reel, Rigid Ink filament is the same price but for double - yes double 1kg reel! Bargain

Up! Box 3D printer - Part 3 - After a Month of use

So I thought I would write up a short review of the UP Box having used it now for over a month.

It has been an interesting month of use, it produces consistently good prints if your careful, and follow good housekeeping of the unit. In this I mean the perforated bed! This seems to me to be one of the Ups biggest strengths and yet one of its weaknesses.

The perforated bed is a great design idea, and simple in use. The idea being it helps the ABS to stick down to the bed by allowing the ABS to ooze into the perforations (The printer is setup to level and auto height adjust to the right height to allow the correct amount to ooze into the perforations whilst achieving a good 1st layer - Get the height wrong and you either get ABS jams in the extruder, or the print doesn't stick). This works great to start off with, but after a while the perforations get clogged up and then the extruder stops extruding and skips on the gear (caused by back pressure) ( and then causing the extruder gear wheel to clog with bits of ABS meaning a complete tear down and clean of the extruder). Looking on the forums everyone suggests wiping over with Acetone prior to printing. Whilst this works to start off with, you can end up wiping endlessly to get it to start working properly (I found a simple wipe after a while did not solve the Extruder skipping).

I have tried a couple of other ideas.

1) Submerse the perforated bed into a vat of Acetone - This is the brute force and ignorance method which works really well, although you do need a well ventilated area and that you agitate the acetone every so often in order to get it to flow through the perforations... I did this with the bed for around 4 hours and seems to clean them out really well.

2) Sit at a desk with a PCB spike (Used for cleaning through holes in PCBs out ready for soldering), or similar stiff spike - maybe one for starting a hole in wood. Push the spike into each hole with ABS in, and this will push the ABS out the back. Then use the pair of wire cutters to remove the neat little ABS plug out. Yes very time consuming, but something good to do whilst you are waiting for a piece of software to load up/ Waiting for your document to load up/ Or simple had enough of the office politics and want to wind down!


The other weakness I feel is the extruder - its a simple gear on a stepper motor which if you get any jams leaves you having to dismantle the extruder (Instructions are given to do this, so they expect you to have to do it often)

and in short would I purchase one for myself... Hmmm hard to say at the moment

Up! Box Printer - Part 2 - First Print

It has taken a while, as it has been a bust period of printing parts for work. But I thought I should publish this post as a followup now.

Having setup the printer, I didn't get round to printing until after the weekend. So when I got back into work on the Monday, the printer was fired up - Now each time its switched on you have to initialize it via the initialize function in the software. One thing I was a little disappointed with is that unlike the Ultimaker 2 which can be used standalone and can select and read the files at the printer without a PC connection, the UP! Box appears to be designed to be connected up to a PC!.

Anyway once initialized has been completed, you load the part and locate it on the bed in software. The Software did seem a little clunky. To move the part you first must select the move icon and then in the drop down menu next to this select how much +/- you wan to move by and then press the x, y, or z button. To rotate you select the rotate button and then do the same. Not as nice as using arrow keys, or the mouse.. and takes some getting used to.

Here is the first print being printed, it is the bracket. When printing the UP BOX logo lights up to tell you the progress of the print, it also lights up different colors depending on whether there is an error or at what stage of printing, i.e. heating up for instance. - A nice little feature that save looking at the computer screen. If you press the power button once on the printer then inside the printer is lit up so that you can see the print.

Once removed from the printer the bracket can be seen, and its very good quality.

The Quality is definitely on a different order of magnitude to that of my printer, the same print but on my printer can be see here.

There are different speeds of settings to print to, Fine, Normal, Fast or Turbo. I have yet to see any difference in quality and speed between Normal (1.5hr), Fast (1.25hr) and Turbo (just over an hour) - I was expecting bigger differences.. I have set it up to do a reasonable (20% fill) lattice.

You can actually see the lattice structure below.