I just downloaded Lulzbot Cura 2.6.52 (Mac) to play around with. I had been using Cura 21.03 and recently 21.08.
I wanted to try a print with Cura 2.6.52 and have about 4 or 5 rolls of eSun HIPS filament I would like to use. I see no filament profile for eSun HIPS, just one for Village Plastics HIPS. As far as I can tell the profiles for eSun and VP HIPS were the same under Cura 21.0x.
If I choose “Custom” so I can have a look at the temperatures, I’m a bit fuzzy about some of what is displayed. What is the “Default Printing Temperature”? It’s shown in this profile as 200˚C, but that number appears to be unrelated to anything I use for printing HIPS. What is the difference between this and the “Printing Temperature” (which shows 240˚C, as I would expect for HIPS)?
The Build Plate Temperature in this profile shows 85˚C, but I’ve always used 110˚C for HIPS in the past (and that is what is on both the eSun and Village Plastics HIPS profiles included with Cura 21.0x). I tried printing Benchy using the the default settings for HIPS (Village Plastics) in high detail. At a little over 1mm Z height (just switched from solid printing to the first couple of layers of 20% infill), the model broke loose from the build plate. I restarted with the build plate set at 110˚C. It’s now at 7mm Z height and still attached.
I’m wondering if there is a good reason to go to the new 85˚C build plate temp and tweak other settings for better adhesion. (I had bumped up the Z offset to combat too much adhesion and dragging the head through the first layer a while ago - maybe I went too far?)
We found HIPS adheres quite well with a gluestick at 85c, and without a gluestick at 110c.
In the past we have had reports of yellowing on the bottom of long HIPS prints at 110c, and by reducing the temp we have avoided that issue. If you would like to run yours at 110c, it should not be a problem. In order to prevent the required change each time you switch filaments, you can create a custom profile.
After changing the bed temperature (or any other settings for that mater) select the profile drop down and click “create profile from current settings/overrides” and name it your own. This will now be available in your drop down list when that material is selected.
The default printing temperature for the HIPS is stated at 200c, as the profile was created by modifying a PLA profile. The program will use “printing temperature” when generating gcode.
Some of the text pop-ups made me think that other temps keyed off of the default temp. Is it safe to assume that if I change the Default Printing Temperature" in my custom profile (just so it makes sense to me when I am looking at it), it won’t throw off any calculated numbers?
Yup, that shouldn’t be an issue! The default printing temp ties a lot into the “auto temperature” settings. By default we have this turned off on all profiles, as it was exhibiting some unexpected behavior. With 300+ profiles we were not able to truly fine tune those settings, but feel free to experiment with it if you want to try out the new functionality.
I appreciate the explanation, though I find I’m just more confused. There’s another profile for “Push HIPS” that has the bed temp set to 111. Does that not yellow as much as Village Plastics? I think I’ve been using eSun anyway… all I’ve printed on my mini for years is HIPS, and as it goes in and out of stock, it’s not always from the same vendor. But I’ve never seen it yellow. I’m not claiming to have more knowledge or experience than Lulzbot, after all the attraction of this printer for me is that you have done so much work to perfectly tune it from the factory so I don’t have to spend endless hours making adjustments to get good prints. I definitely needed to bump it back to 110º though. I’ve got this lovely PEI bed surface, so I’m not particularly interested in reverting to messing around with glue sticks and hair spray.
I just finished installing the new modular bed, and it’s heating up now. Looking forward to the first print!
In our latest update, Push HIPS has been moved to our “experimental” material section. When we are looking for new materials, we will quite often test many different types. We test for reliability, functionality, color consistency etc. During this time, we will work on and develop some profiles. If we choose to not carry a specific filament whether for quality or logistical reasons, we will be including the profiles we had been working on in this section. These profiles are not well refined, but should provide a good starting point if customers would like to use that specific type. This is due to HIPS(PLA/ABS/etc) from one vendor will not be exactly the same as another vendor.
We are also working with various filament vendors in profile development. When they have created profiles for our machines with their filament, we will also be including these into Cura LulzBot Edition for greater ease of use.
Thanks! Sometimes I forget how awesome a company you are for doing everything in the open. It’s interesting to se the changes over time since I first got my Mini. It came with a sample of HIPS and that’s what I’ve been using for years, with the original profile and no bed treatment. I like not having to mess with glue sticks and cleaning. So with the latest Cura I just choose Village Plastics HIPS and change the bed temp to 110. If I encounter any yellowing, I will know why.
A friend of mine got a TAZ6 last year, and he noted that it came with a sample of nGen instead of HIPS. I liked the nGen, it’s shiny and the prints seem to be higher quality, so I got a few spools of that and figured I’d gradually switch to it as I start to run low on HIPS. I had also been printing it straight on the PEI bed, although I see now at least in 2.6.63 the notes say “Use glue stick”. I’ll see if I can keep getting away without it, and if not I’ll start following recommendations.
Yup! In fact, we recommend the glue stick not to help adhesion, but to help part removal. Amphoras, PETgs, and TPU’s tend to bond really well to PEI if put on a clean surface. nGen is one of the least affected, but on larger parts it can stick to the bed very well.
