Another 3D Print - Star Wars Tie Fighter

Last week suddenly I heard a noise and I saw the extruder of the 3D printer I build hanging on only one screw. I tried to fasten everything again, but I had no luck what so ever. So before I could do any more printing I had to take the whole extruder apart, fasten the screws a but more and put it back together. That was a little setback, but unfortunately it didn't end there. After that I had to recalibrate the head distance and I had no luck in that.

The material just didn't want to stick to the heated print bed anymore. I tried cleaning with alcohol, rubbing it a bit with sand paper like I did before, but no luck. Then I started looking on some forums for a solution and I found one. Painters tape! Very cheap stuff that you can just stick on the print bed and after that I printed like a charm. I guess by now you would have guessed from seeing the pictures of a print in progress.

The model I printed came from ThingiVerse and it is a tie fighter from Star Wars. I really like the look of that model. It consisted of three separate printable parts that you eventually have to glue together. But before I got to this point there was some more trouble. After the first print was finished, the material was stuck to the painters tape so well, that I couldn't get it off. I printed in PLA and that is quite fragile, so I could not use too much force since then the material would break.

So again I went to look for a solution and I found one. The tip was to use a spraycan with compressed air, put it up side down on purpose so that the stuff coming out is frozen. This cools the object to quickly that it shrinks a bit and pops loose. And guess what? It worked :) I will go and look now though for blue painters tape since they say this is less sticky. So that is worth the experiment. All in all the model is done and I really like it. But again I found out that printing on a DIY 3D printer is not so easy as it looks. Ah well most important thing. It still works. Up to the next project.