3D Printing Adventures

Tinkercad is down for maintenance and I've a stack of design from Term 4 students to download and print.  No worries this provides a good opportunity for some maintenance, change the printing filament to a new colour, ready to get started tomorrow!

After many prints the glue we apply to the bed of the printer builds up and causes the base of a print to be bumpy! (See picture below)

First make sure that the Ultimaker 2+ is turned off and build plate has cooled down.  Then gently  scrape some of the glue off using a painter's palette knife.  We have a couple of different sizes of pallette knife (they are also good at helping to get finished 3D prints off the bed.)

Next we vacuum clean the scrapings of dry glue so that it does not stick to the next print.

Today because the last print had gone really bumpy on the base I cleaned off all the glue.  After the vacuum cleaner step I use a damp cloth to take off all the glue.  I only do this once in a while! 

Ultimaker recommend removing the glass plate to clean of excess glue.  Watch these videos to show you how to do this.

Before our next print we re-apply a base layer of glue (it helps the 3D print stick to the bed of the printer.