Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced

I’ve been puzzled by the designations of various filament options on the Lulzbot store as being “Suited for xxxx Users” where xxxx is Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced. So, for example nGen is Suited for beginners, ABS is suited for intermediate users and Nylon 645 is suited for advanced users. What does this really mean? Assuming I am using the proper print profile for each of these filaments I don’t really know what additional issues/adjustments I might have to make. I’ve had a Taz 6 for about 3 weeks now and have printed maybe a 25 objects in ABS and nGen with very little difficulty. This seems to imply that there are many greater pitfalls lurking around the next corner.

Art

It means that those materials can be more difficult to work with. Beginner stuff is pretty much click print. Intermediate might have issues like warping, lifting, etc… Advanced is going to be stuff like Nylon. It likes to be hard to print, suck water from the air like crazy, require high temps and bed treatments like glue stick, and generally be a PITA to work with. Some of the higher levels will also include flex filaments, which can be tricky to work with.

My go-to filaments are PETG and ABS. Strong, heat resistant, and generally easy enough to work with. I’ve tried nGen, and I like it, but it’s a bit pricey in my view. If you don’t need to worry about heat, PLA is also easy to work with.

Thanks for this and your reply to the question about print bed requirements. I’ve already encountered a few problems with ABS, particularly warping even when the item stuck well to the bed. I was creating a box for a PCB. The base stuck well to the bed but the sides bowed up in the middle. When I changed to nGen that all went away. I’ll have to give PETG a try.

The print profiles are in my opinion only guidelines to set you on your way. Each print will require different settings and as you experiment more you will learn more about how everything works and adapt to suit whatever it is you’re printing. Model design also comes into at as some thin walled or parts that curve off the print bed may print a breeze with PLA but will warp or droop with ABS or Nylon.

I think I’m about to launch into that realm of more detailed experimentation. My next project is some patio furniture clips I can’t buy anymore. I’ll need to print them in nylon and from what I’ve read so far, that will be tricky indeed.

Thanks

Nylon is very stringy and drips out the nozzle like a leaky tap. Try to design and orient your model to minimise the amount of travel moves. Or if your slicer has the capability tell it to travel within the perimiters of the model.

If you haven’t bought the nylon yet, I’d say to use alloy 910. It’s stronger but it’s easier to print and handle, although the down side to that is any strings and blobs left on your part can be an absolute R pain to remove neatly. My printer lives in fairly moist air so when I use any nylon filament I have to keep the reel in a dry box I made with a feed hole out the top so it doesn’t come out until it’s all used up. If your filament isn’t completely dry there’s no point in starting, you will hear it crackle and pop with steam rising from the deposited plastic. As you look closely you will see lots of little holes where water has exploded out of the nylon. On smaller parts this will cause a horrible surface, on larger parts it will cause warping. I’ve never bothered to finish and use anything I started printing with saturated nylon but I’d expect it to have limited strength also.

I wish I had seen your note a few hours earlier. I’d already ordered 645. In the absence of recommendations I based my decision on the descriptive text in the Lulzbot store. Afterwards I spotted this:

http://www.taulman3d.com/how-to-choose.html

Obviously 910 is the strongest and by their description in the shrinkage chart, easiest to print. We’ll see how it goes with 645. Life is an adventure.

Hi, I am from Australia and looking for an outdoor furniture as well through new LAZ 6. Possible?