Fabrication Lab: Perfecting the Craft

Between ice hockey, Lego's, portable radio operations and my job at The University of Chicago that makes all this possible, you may have forgotten that I maintain a 3D printing hobby. I have a whole section of my blog, "Fabrication Lab" dedicated to it. So, I thought I'd write a post returning to my 3D printing hobby. 

My latest adventure in 3D printing was not so much about the models and prints themselves, but fine-tuning my printer. I had a problem, a small problem, but a problem none-the-less: My prints had lines in them. They printed successfully, but they were imperfect. They had lines of filament that were skipped, meaning that there were visible imperfections in the final product. 

The top two boats have "lines". The bottom one is perfect.

For weeks, I couldn't figure out the problem. I tried making a cool looking Tiki mug for my friend, but it kept coming out of the printer with lines. In other words, it wasn't as nice looking as it could have been. I finally gave my buddy his imperfect Tiki mug, and while he still loved it, I felt bad because I knew a Creality K1 Max should print better than the product I was able to give. And, if it were something more than a Tiki mug, I wouldn't want flaws in the filament layout... especially if it was a load-baring object. 

I took some time over winter break to experiment with my printer. I didn't know what was causing the lines (imperfections). I tired adjusting a number of variables: I used different filaments (from PLA to ABS) , I tried heating the build plate (from 50 degrees Celsius to 80, and then to 100 degrees), and I also replaced the 0.4 millimeter nozzle on my K1 Max. Nothing helped, regardless of the temperature or settings I adjusted, the prints were coming out imperfect.        

The nice thing about having a Creality printer, though, is that they have an open-sourced plan, with easily replaceable parts. I was at my wits' end, and I didn't want to cut open a $1,000 dollar machine and risk breaking it... But what good is a printer that can't print perfectly? 

I logged on to YouTube, and watched some helpful tutorials on how to replace the extruder for the K1 Max. It turns out, it was easier than I thought. You need to be very careful to keep each piece, and document the deconstruction so you know how to put it all back together. However, outside of that, it's basically just a matter of following directions. 

When I dissembled the extruder, I found the problem. The gears that pull the filament into the heater and then lay them onto the build plate had a flaw. Some of the claws in the gears were worn down. I believe it happened when I used a metal wire to force out a filament clog. I fixed the clog, but in doing so I damaged the gears. Each time the gears and filament met at the damaged part, the K1 stopped extruding. It still made the full prints, but those prints had visible lines where the material was not laid down. Those tiny imperfections in the extruder gears led to tiny imperfections in the final prints.        

Luckily, I had a Creatily printer which (at least for now) supports tons of parts, modifications, and third-party enhancements. I bought myself a completely new extruder with good gears for 26 dollars on Amazon. There were plenty of YouTube videos to help me complete the installation, and it was mostly painless. 

The most important thing is that I was able to get my K1 Max (which I have a lot of money invested in) printing perfectly again. All it took was a replacement part costing 26 dollars, and some workshop tools like a screw driver.      

The Creality K1 Max

All in all, it ended up being a fun and engaging experience. While I would've wished my K1 kept printing perfectly without any repair needed, it didn't. I used the opportunity to figure out how to repair her! 

It did cost a little bit of money, but 26 bucks is nothing compared to buying a whole new printer: a K1 or any other brand. I also believe this speaks to Creality's commitment to the "open-source" model. Creality printers let us users use any software we'd like, and open their own equipment up to third-party replacement parts. So, us consumers can keep our equipment, design our prints, and (importantly) repair our own machines at a reasonable cost, with Creality parts or with third-party parts. 

MicroSwiss, for example, is an excellent third party part-maker for 3D printing. And they have parts that work with both my Ender 3 and K1 Max. While Creality provides quality replacement parts themselves, I'm glad their machines are compatible with other firms' products. It's truly good for the industry, and for hobbyists like myself!