5 3D Printing Tips the ELITES don't want you to know...  

I've worked at Prusa and can confirm we use the hole bringing trick everywhere all the time and it works really well. When modelling just offset each extrusion by your layer height (worth putting that in your variables for convenience). Also make little circular cutouts (dia cca 0.5mm) on each vertex of the hex pocket, ensures the corners of the hexnut fit in perfectly every time. Nose around some of the part files to see for yourself, there's a lot of these little tricks that will help you out!

I got a G10 print surface after watching your video on that. Cheap and works great! Also, it might be useful to see a tutorial or something for creating those "prusa bridges" for supporting holes.

I've found that the glue stick you use does actually matter. In the case of the UHU Stics, for example, I avoid the blue or purple "magic" versions because they use different formulas, break down under heat and just won't hold the prints down... use only the original white-capped version.

Lots of modern "file formats" are just zip files. An interesting use is to embed the original source, for example your raw model design inside the 3mf in this case, or the ODT in a generated PDF, this kind of things. There's also ways to alter a zip file slightly so that it would still be a valid zip file when opened as such, but it can also act as another file format, like mixing a picture with a zip that would open as a picture with an image editor, and as a zip with an archive tool.

0:13 1. The prusa research hole bridging trick 1:29 2. 3D print on G10 (Garolite) 2:30 3. Bed adhesion with glue stick + IPA 3:19 4. Drying filament with food dehydrator 4:40 5. Slice using STEP files 5:51 Bonus

Great tips! Glue stick and IPA was too much work and too inconsistent for me, so I've mixed PVP-K30 powder (which is main "glue" part of glue sticks) and clean IPA and put it in a small spray bottle. I use it on glass and it works amazing! Super high adhesion when bed is hot and prints pop off when bed comes to room temperature. Works very consistently - haven't failed even once. The mixing ratio is 1:18 by weight, PVP-K30 powder to 99% IPA. It doesn't mix instantly, so it needs about 5 min constant stirring (I use wooden stick in a drill press for that))). Again, can't recommend this enough. Edit: changed PVP-30 to more correct PVP-K30

best tip: Level your bed looking at the skirt. I barely level my bed, but when I have to, I simply print with a 15 lines skirt and I just simply levelemy bed looking how the skirt is being printed.

You can dry your filament even cheaper: use your printer bed. 60°C, filament spool on top, cardboard box and if you want ventilation, use the part cooling fan.

The Voron project also uses the hole bridging trick, and Prusa is where they got the idea. It gives very good results.

Another tip for printing material that warps easily is to use some basic white wood glue and spread it very thin and evenly on your print bed. Works wonders for me printing large ABS and Nylon prints on printers without enclosures.

Another benefit from using step files in your slicer is that they are generally smaller and easier to edit later if you happened to lose the source file.

Lol love the clickbait"These industry disrupting 3d printing tips"

The G10 bed was the best advice you taught me about. I did have to prep the bed with wet sanding the gloss surface to a dull finish. Adhesion and finish is amazing. I wasn’t having a problem with PEI adhesion but didn’t care for the rough texture it left on the print. Thank you for your videos.

G10 is an AMAZING print surface. After seeing your original video on G10, I ordered some from McMaster-Carr. The ONLY issue I have with it is that It has to cool down a bit before pulling prints off, especially thin prints, or they can warp as the adhesion is so strong while it's hot. Once it cools down completely, my prints come off with NO force whatsoever. I can just pick them up, as they've already released. I don't use glue sticks or anything else.

❤ your videos, love how you share open ideas, and love your passion for 3D printing. 😊

Always amazing content! You've really upped my 3D printing game over the years. I'm going to look into that Garolite print surface, I have a WhamBam print surface, but getting Carbon Fiber reinforced Nylon to stick to the PEX required a thick layer of glue stick.

I came up with that same hole bridging trick a while ago. It seems like something slicers should be able to figure out how to do by themselves, by something like ordering the different parts of a bridge so that nothing is printed before being attached to existing material (the root of the problem is that normally all perimeters get printed first, even the ones "in the air"). SuperSlicer does have some experimental bridge perimeter options that seem tangentially related to this problem but it doesn't do quite the right thing yet. Also a way to get curves to print better (at least in the XY plane) with a traditional mesh workflow before STEP support gets better is to run Arc Welder on the G-code. I have this integrated into OctoPrint and use it on pretty much everything.

Straight and simple yet powerful tips. Awesome

I used the STEP file import feature in Bambu Studio and the SoftFever (Orca) fork too, and it does makes a visible difference to circular lathed model parts, as well as overhangs. I could see artefacts in the STLs previously with other printers replicating the CAD mesh structure, and used to change the mesh properties in the CAD file export to try and reduce them. There was a bug in the STEP file import in Bambu Studio, not sure if Prusaslicer has captured this when they copied/forked from Bambu Studio.

Great tips. Thank you! I always appreciate your videos

I think Bambu Lab at some point mentioned that they wanted people to move towards sharing 3MF-files over stls because that would mean you could embed all these extra things for the project, like a cover image, text description, settings, etc

I use glue sticks also, but I just use warm water to wash off the glue stick residue and it works faster and easier than using isopropyl alcohol or window cleaner. I use the purple Elmers washable School Glue sticks and have never had a problem with large flat prints staying stuck.

I've been looking for a sheet of G10 to fit my Anycubic Mega X ever since your first video about it but I've never found one at this mythical cheap price you claim, even sheets closer to standard bed sizes seem to be vastly more expensive than their official counterparts, and I'm talking like up to 10x more expensive sort of thing.

Loved all the tips, specially the STEP one, ty for sharing 🙂

I have a G11 sheet. It transformed my prints and even allows ABS to be printed with very good quality. Big fan

Great tips, especially the G10. Thanks!

I discovered this hole bridging trick by accident two weeks ago when I downloaded a printable measurement device from Printables which had a hex hole at the bottom for an M3 nut. Since my slicer, contrary to my expectation, did not inform me to activate support structures and the print ran without problems, I then took a closer look at the model in Blender. I discovered this trick with exactly one layer height for partial bridging in one direction, a second layer with further bridging in both directions and subsequent layers for the round hole and saved it in my mind as a clever idea for future models.

Tested out step vs stl in flashprint, stl gave odd layers not aligning as you would expect, but the step file gave nicely aligned patterns in the slice with spiraling curves rather than slightly in some layers then moving the seam etc further up

The glue stick + ipa trick is new to me, ive seen countless failures from caked beds where it looks like the entire bed is caked in the glue and it dries hard, when ive tried a glue stick i put a small circle of glue down and used a drop of water to make it into a fine solution that i spread around with a fan brush. Brilliant video as always sir, thank you! :)

use a filament box upside down on a heat bed to dry filament ;)

Great work, Angus! Thank you!

Great information! Thanks!

I have to say that I've been doing this for a while, and the IPA/gluestick trick, although trivial in hind-sight, is AWESOME! This is the best time (and probably money too) saver I've had in a loooong time. Thanks!

Cura used to have a solidworks integration plugin which stopped working around 5.0 introduction - the extra steps this leads to has really made me appreciate how much I relied on it

Thank you for the g10 recomendation. I love it

I did buy a bottle of the Vision Miner Nano Coating a while back and it has been great on glass. I won't say it is better than a glue stick for adhesion necessarily, but it is less messy, doesn't need to be applied very often, and my bottle is still 3/4 full several years later. Releases like a dream once the bed cools, almost feels like static is all that is holding it. Still haven't tried the G10 yet, but it is on my list. Really excited about the hole bridging trick, can't wait to give that a shot! Great video as always!

Awesome tutorial !! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

It’s important you have arc movements enabled in your firmware. If you can’t obtain a STP file, there are also tools to process Gcode to convert your G1 movements to G2 and G3 arc movements if curvatures are detected, with adjustable sensitivity.

Another one I used: put a small triangle cutout to guide the slicer for the start/end of the perimeter. So the junction is in the triangle tip and doesn't make a bump in a surface that should be smooth

All very helpful tips. Thank you. The G10 is definitely a plus. We use glass on our Ultimaker, but G10 would definitely be a neat alternative we could use on some of our other hobby printers. And the dehydrator is a great idea.

Happy printing 😊

Love the tips. Can you talk more about the bridging trick? Is this all done in fusion 360? If so, need to watch for tolerances, otherwise screw heads might stick up over services and issues like that.

Here’s another great tip Solutions to problems are usually way more simpler than you may think

Thank you for your money saving suggestions! For drying filaments, it’s worth noting that the BambuLab X1C includes a filament drying menu function as standard…! You simply put the filament reel onto the print bed and tap on the « filament drying » function with the temperature desired, close the door, and voila! No extra cost.

Ilove the last tip. Awesome tip about vulnerability on that kind of files. Thx bro, nice vídeos

Thanks for sharing!

Totally Awesome DUDE!!! Thank You so much!.. Just another great reason I subscribed a couple years ago, Just WoW!

Thanks for the informations on .3MF. I gonna be aware now !

For an additional tip for drying your filament, if you can't find a food dryer then what you can do is set your printer bed to 70 degrees C, then take the box that your filament came in and cut off the lid and punch a 3x3 grid of holes in the bottom with a pencil. Put your spool on the heated bed and put the box on top of it. It should dry your filament within about 5 hours. I've tried it. It dried out some bad PETG I had to be like new.

good research on 3D printing and a really interesting extra information in additon to this on 3mf... top top top!

Great video. Thanks

I regularly use food dehydrator with my filament rolls. I made one of the trays into a container full of desiccant that fits into the storage bucket I use. It even has a section filled with color-change. Good point about keeping the bed clean. I have a spray bottle with a mix of 70% IPA and dissolved glue stick that I use before printing.

So you convinced me finally to buy a sheet of g10 to try.

I run Arc Welder in my Octoprint to convert steps to arcs. On round prints especially it looks way better. I have seen some artifacts I can't really pinpoint but overall it does well (with regards to the bit about STEP files).

Great info, Thanks!

Thanks for the tip on the 3mf files!

Did anyone else go looking for a 3mf version of the MakersMuse Maker coin to see what Angus had hidden in there?

Vision miner makes an adhesive which works amazing and lasts a while. dont have much time to deal with prints failing, especially for prototyping stuff and this has saved me many times

Great tips and I'd suggest them. I use them when I have time to print these days.

Well, Ive been having first layer troubles with my anycubic vyper, I finally just gave up today. Decided I would just flip the removable bed over and try your glue and IP trick. Its not perfect but its going 500% better. Thanks!

You ve got a new subscriber ! Thanks for sharing.

I think you were cleaning the bed with a paper towel. I used to do this and got variable adhesion. I changed to using a cotton cloth and the adhesion got MUCH better. I clean the bed with IPA using a cotton cloth. I discovered that paper towels leave a lot of very fine fibres on the bed which, I think, can disrupt the adhesion. Cotton cloth doesn't seem to. HTH

finally picked up some G10 last week and i love it so much, feels like a bit of a waste though having to cut down a 12x12 to fit the bed.

Great job, Angus! As a semi-noob this is awesome!

The biggest advantage of slicing from a step file is the file size. In the cases where the default STL export wasn't satisfactory, a custom mesh tolerance gave best results.

Keep up the great work!

Great stuff - useful practical information, as always :-D

Picked up some G10 after your first video, its been working great.

I was looking for a steel spring bed for my ender 3 max. I'm glad this video reminded me of the g10, because I really want to test it before buying something expensive.

Thanks Angus. Do you have a video on the bridging technique for the example?

Thanks for the info about .3mf files, pretty interesting.

you have the best tips!

5:42 pro tip: Creality Slicer also has addons for solidworks and blender parts that you can directly open on.

Great Video! ❤

Nice tips. Do you have any recommendations for distributing print files with modifier geometry in place?

Just a thought about drying the filament. When you dry plastic like PLA, the water leaves, but now the plastic is full of voids that can be focus points for cracks and it's still brittle. Consider replacing the air in the voids with a hydrocarbon (like ethanol, turpentine or something) to soften the plastic cracks a bit. After drying, place it in a container full of those fumes for an hour.

Silica gel cat litter is a fantastic dessicant and very cheap. AND... you can dry it in the microwave so it's reusable over and over again so you dont need an expensive food dehydrator either ! I use it all the time as the UK is quite wet most of the time.

great topic , thanks 👍

Glue sticks is what saved me. I had loads of failures because of bed adhesion.

G10 is amazing! Thanks for the tip re: High Temp G11... too.

Love the Prusa gradual support trick and will definitely try to incorporate that into future designs. Also, the glue with ISO alcohol is the truth! I just make an X across the bed with the glue stick and give it a couple sprays of IPA then schmear it on nice and thin with a paper towel. Perfect every time! 👍

Thank you

You did a vide on G10 like a year ago, and I've switched to that 100%. I have multiple sheets of G10 I bought cheap from McMaster Carr, and I have one surface roughed up with sandpaper for printing PLA on a non-heated bed, another sheet with the glue/alcohol slurry for TPU, and another sheet that's smooth as a baby's bottom for the other 90% of things I print.

I've had 90% success rate with my coated glass Creality bed, but I really want to try PEI because I think it's a cool finish. I also want to try G10 to see if it's any better than what I'm getting now. Thanks for the great tips!

I have been designing a board game with a friend and have been designing tiles in fusion 360 and exporting as a step file with great results slicing with prusa slicer!

I've been using arc welder addon plugin on Octoprint and Cura to bring back arc movements and that seem to work well as well

Brilliant!

This is great.

I export as .STEP from Fusion 360 primarily because it's way faster than exporting to STL as it does not require the online component. I did not know about the other benefits, but glad to know these!

Hi Angus, I tried STEP export from Fusion 360 and imported into PrusaSlicer 2.5.0 and it actually created a more faceted-looking version of the model in some curved areas compared to when imported as an STL from Fusion 360 (both when looking at the model on the plate and the shape of the print moves in the print preview), which looks nice and smoothly curved. Only a single data point, I may need to play more with it.

For PLA, I use water / alcohol-based hairspray in a pump bottle (Garnier "Fructis Style") for bed adhesion. A few dollars for a 250 ml bottle which lasts forever. A few spritzes on the heated bed is all it takes. The stuff is a mix of water-soluble polymers (or an emulsion), so it dries almost instantly and is easily washed off with water or alcohol.

kool!!! Thanks!!

I have a spool of bridge nylon and I haven't printed with it yet but it does not have any noticeable kinks after bending even though it has been out of the box and has not been dehydrated for a year!

Hi Angus, Thanks for another great video, big fan. Can you provide further details on the bearing setup in the food dehydrator? I already have a dehydrator for this purpose and would like to replicate the bearing and filament outfeed. Do you have a source for a particular bearing as well as any 3d printed parts?

I originally came across partial bridging in voron parts, I wondered how they printed so cleanly without supports and saw in the slicer they had drawn a box using two layers perpendicular to one another inside hex nut holes.

Hey just as a further tip on that food dehydrator.... I actually got one off a local internet site but I got a tall one. I cut out the bottom of each tray to make the inside open so I can stack 3 rolls of filament at a time.

I also find PrusaSlicer does well with bridging. Garolite as a bed sheet works great, and heats up very fast compared to glass.

A good friend, when i suggested a new mother board, asked me if Maker's Muse has done it yet!!!! I started watching your channel and see why he asked me that. On the G10. I was shocked to see you recommend what I had stumbled onto. I went to Garolite several years ago, still have the same plate. I used Glue stick a lot. Then last fall I ran out glue Stick, and had read about cleaning with IPA. I scrubbed and scuffed up my Garolite cleaned it well and left it bare. Prints stuck just fine. Then i changed filament and found a thin layer of glue helped. The I used a cotton cloth soaked in IPA to smear the think glue layer around, it sticks better. So now, I have a thin layer of glue and smear it around with IPA after each PRINT! Just like you described. But now I want to replace the big heavy Aluminum bed frame with something much lighter. Any thoughts on a PETG CF Plate???? Dennis a Maker's Muse Believer

I guess I'm not elite because I absolutely want folks to dry their filament and stop printing string monsters. 😂 Regarding desiccant, another tip you should add is to throw out the useless silica gel and buy 4A molecular sieve. It will keep your filament bone dry for months in dryboxes or even half decent zip bags. And it costs about the same.

#3 is the best trick ever!