Oh thank you, I never would have realized the bed would toggle temperatures from this(and possibly cause a part release mid-print). I've made a custom 'petg-interface' filament profile just for this now. Also the extrusion multiplier info is the cherry on top, I've been wanting to do something like this with my AMS but just got it, and wanted to be cautious.
Great video! I’ve tried testing stacking in the past using fusion 360 and Bambu studio- had a bit of success but also some issues. A lot of good tips here that I think will help me dial in my settings. Thanks!
I'm trying to calculate just how much material it would take to cover a certain square footage (would be cool to have a calculator on the site [ Full Stack Web Dev here if you need help ]) Was going to use your screenshots at 1:55 but am a bit confused by the verbage. You said 8x8, but in text it says 3x3. I'm not really sure what is going on there, but your 4x4 screenshots are 1/4 the spoken 8x8 screenshots, so I am going to guess the text is wrong and the tiles are 8x8 as those calculations make sense... Perhaps the 3x3 was the layout of the tiles themselves and not the dimensions of the tiles since there's 9 of them... A graphical representation would've been helpful here, but I think this is right :) BTW: It came out roughly to 1.29g / sq. inch for those also wanting to do some cost calculations. This means around 6kg of material for a 4'x8' sheet.
If you don't want to manually change filaments, the "ironing" method does work. Just don't wait too long to pry them apart, or you find out how hard PLA edges are!. I printed out a 4 layer stack of corners, then an 8 layer stack of core tiles.
I agree that dish soap cleans very well, but that takes way more time than cleaning with IPA. My way is after each print, clean it with IPA and once every 1 or 2 months (sometimes even 3) I'll clean them with warm water and dish soap. No issues here with adhesion and my printers are printing every day 🙂
Also it helps to get the temperatures further together, so I print PLA on 235° ... also some PETG and PLA doesn't want to stick at all, even with the best settings, so just switch to another Brand if you got the option. Also crank up the Filament Flush settings in the area of ~600. Cause if you use Black and White filament, the flush from White to Black is very little and you print with some PLA&PETG Mixture which doesn't work at all.
Would it make sense/be possible to use PVA for the separator level? IIUC, that's water soluble and should just dissolve, leaving the PLA layers behind without having to snap them apart at all. Honestly, that's where I thought this was headed when I read the announcement...
That would work so long as temperatures aren't crazy different and they bond.. petg is crazy cheap so I'm failing to see how that is better unless it's an inaccessible or delicate area, also waterlogged prints if it seeps in.
How about copy & paste multiple boards and move them over another with small gaps, then add supports and choose PETG for the supports? It should fill the gaps with PETG supports and bring the same result. (but you can do it easily by yourself for every object)
What about instead of PETG using Bambu's PLA support interface material? Only asking because I got like 2 rolls of that stuff free once, and never really used it haha.
Wouldn't it be even better if you just alternated PETG and PLA tiles (or at least have the option). i.e. even layer tiles pla, and odd layer tiles petg. You'd have less poop waste and shorter time due to less switching.
It was my thought as well before watching. So just a layer or two of the other type of material? You could probably insert a pause and paint over the top layer with a sharpie before continuing.
Functionally better, aesthetically worse, unless you have matching colors for each. They are nearly identical in price else if there was a huge discrepancy, use the expensive one as the interface material. Both methods have pros and cons.
Just tested this... I used the generator to set up a single test unit or 2 layers. Used the ironing profile so we don't have to deal with the separator and multilateral towers but also set the gap to 0 mm. After some strange layer splits I found some detail online saying that with a single extruder you'll need to set your flushing volumes to at least 800 between materials. (The slicer saw that I had both PLA and PETG as white and so assumed a far lowers value, 160 or so.) After that change, the test came out perfect... the top layer coming off clean and both without any print issues. Good to know 👍 4 points I've realised though: 1- The slower print speed of PETG means you lose any benefit of saving switching time as soon as you go over around 6x6. But you still save on the poop... I'm getting very similar estimates on a 7x7 grid. 2- You need to try end with PLA as the slicer won't do an 800 flush at the start of the print. If you ended with PETG and start your next print with PLA, the first layer will likely have some problems when removing the print. 3- Surprisingly, both MM options seem faster than ironing on my side so I wonder if I can rather up my PLA printing speeds or fix some other local setting 🤔 4- You'll need to split to part instead of object to keep their heights. This means you'll also need to manually set each PETG layer. Not a big thing but might be too much of a hassle for some.
You don't have to have the "tabs" that you place on the bed in the first layer. Export your tiles as their own STL, then the interface as it's own STL. Then, you import both of them into your slicer at the same time, it will ask you "Load these files as a single object with multiple parts?". Choose yes, and then your interface object still keeps it's offset from the bed, and allows you to assign it a different filament. I stacked 10 tiles, and 9 interface layers in Blender, then exported each object separately (19 STLs total), giving them names like Tile1, Tile2, Tile3, and Interface1, Interface2, Interface3, etc. If I want a stack of 5, I import Tiles1-5, and Interface1-4, then select yes to load all as one object. This gives ability to print 2-10 stacked tiles at a time pretty easily. Thank you for all your hard work on this project! I'll be donating as it gets more fleshed out.
Hi, really love your design of multi board system. Do you have any plan to join the MakerWorld of bambu lab? It's easy and convenience for newbie, just printing with a cell phone app
I also merge the objects, rather than the two little disc hack to keep the objects (now parts) at their respective heights. Oh and I didn't use the sample file but just did this all myself in the slicer, with a two layer (0.4mm) PETG separator. Yes, it was tedious! ;-)
I'm very surprised the ironing is faster. One should be flushing at least 700mm³ of filament between PLA and PETG, which is a lot so I suppose I could see 18 filament changes taking a while, but still
the speed of iron vs multi-material is gonna depend a lot on what your ironing speed is set to, or for multi-material if you have a tool-changer like the Prusa XL or a filament-changer like a Prusa MMU or Bambu AMS
Another slightly easier method is to simply leave a 0.4mm gap between each object (use merge to fix them in vertical place) then enable support set PETG, 0mm gap, 0mm interface layer spacing etc. You still want a height range modifier spanning the infill and first layer above of each new part to reduce speed to 60mm/s (see my other comments.) Oh and you have to set the support threshold angle thingy to like 1 degree, unless you want material changes every layer! It's a bit messy, so I prefer the separate interface object/part method overall.
Rather than the over extruding bandaid, I get best results by setting a height range modifier spanning my two PETG layers and the first layer of the next PLA layer. I set the all speeds for that modifier to 60mm/s and disable slow down for overhangs. mThe slower speed gives the extra bonding between PLA and PETG, in a similar way to having a lower first layer speed on the build plate. I tried setting just the PETG art slower but found I needed to reduce the first layer of the PLA on top of PETG as well for most reliable results.
1:58 Am I reading that right? It's an extra 30 minutes? On a *2046* minute job? The tradeoff is an extra 1.47%... it makes less sense for the second example, where doing it single material + ironing is *13.5%* faster than multi-material - but if it's an extra30 minutes on a day long job? That's not so bad at all.
Fantasitc!!! Just tried the test and it work perfect! Doing a 8x8x4 multi-material now! Thanks!!!
Oh thank you, I never would have realized the bed would toggle temperatures from this(and possibly cause a part release mid-print). I've made a custom 'petg-interface' filament profile just for this now. Also the extrusion multiplier info is the cherry on top, I've been wanting to do something like this with my AMS but just got it, and wanted to be cautious.
❤ Love the updates.
Great video! I’ve tried testing stacking in the past using fusion 360 and Bambu studio- had a bit of success but also some issues. A lot of good tips here that I think will help me dial in my settings. Thanks!
I'm trying to calculate just how much material it would take to cover a certain square footage (would be cool to have a calculator on the site [ Full Stack Web Dev here if you need help ])
Was going to use your screenshots at 1:55 but am a bit confused by the verbage. You said 8x8, but in text it says 3x3. I'm not really sure what is going on there, but your 4x4 screenshots are 1/4 the spoken 8x8 screenshots, so I am going to guess the text is wrong and the tiles are 8x8 as those calculations make sense... Perhaps the 3x3 was the layout of the tiles themselves and not the dimensions of the tiles since there's 9 of them... A graphical representation would've been helpful here, but I think this is right :)
BTW: It came out roughly to 1.29g / sq. inch for those also wanting to do some cost calculations. This means around 6kg of material for a 4'x8' sheet.
If you don't want to manually change filaments, the "ironing" method does work. Just don't wait too long to pry them apart, or you find out how hard PLA edges are!. I printed out a 4 layer stack of corners, then an 8 layer stack of core tiles.
Dish soap and occasionally gluestick are the goat imo.
You can place two negative part modifiers on the pillar disks and avoid that unnecessary first material change.
Any word on a multipoint date? I want to get printing again 😁
Why don’t you use the water solvable support filament as the separating layer?
Do you have the multiboard tile generator for multimaterial stacking?
I agree that dish soap cleans very well, but that takes way more time than cleaning with IPA. My way is after each print, clean it with IPA and once every 1 or 2 months (sometimes even 3) I'll clean them with warm water and dish soap. No issues here with adhesion and my printers are printing every day 🙂
I wonder if overextruding might be the answer to the problem of using another material for support interfaces...
Also it helps to get the temperatures further together, so I print PLA on 235° ... also some PETG and PLA doesn't want to stick at all, even with the best settings, so just switch to another Brand if you got the option. Also crank up the Filament Flush settings in the area of ~600. Cause if you use Black and White filament, the flush from White to Black is very little and you print with some PLA&PETG Mixture which doesn't work at all.
Would it make sense/be possible to use PVA for the separator level? IIUC, that's water soluble and should just dissolve, leaving the PLA layers behind without having to snap them apart at all.
Honestly, that's where I thought this was headed when I read the announcement...
That would work so long as temperatures aren't crazy different and they bond.. petg is crazy cheap so I'm failing to see how that is better unless it's an inaccessible or delicate area, also waterlogged prints if it seeps in.
my stack print file doesn't have the interface layers
I wanted to use TPU but it doesnt go with the Anycubic Ace pro. And have you heard about water dissolvable PLA? Would that work?
How about copy & paste multiple boards and move them over another with small gaps, then add supports and choose PETG for the supports?
It should fill the gaps with PETG supports and bring the same result. (but you can do it easily by yourself for every object)
What about instead of PETG using Bambu's PLA support interface material? Only asking because I got like 2 rolls of that stuff free once, and never really used it haha.
Wouldn't it be even better if you just alternated PETG and PLA tiles (or at least have the option). i.e. even layer tiles pla, and odd layer tiles petg. You'd have less poop waste and shorter time due to less switching.
It was my thought as well before watching. So just a layer or two of the other type of material? You could probably insert a pause and paint over the top layer with a sharpie before continuing.
Functionally better, aesthetically worse, unless you have matching colors for each. They are nearly identical in price else if there was a huge discrepancy, use the expensive one as the interface material. Both methods have pros and cons.
Just tested this... I used the generator to set up a single test unit or 2 layers. Used the ironing profile so we don't have to deal with the separator and multilateral towers but also set the gap to 0 mm. After some strange layer splits I found some detail online saying that with a single extruder you'll need to set your flushing volumes to at least 800 between materials. (The slicer saw that I had both PLA and PETG as white and so assumed a far lowers value, 160 or so.)
After that change, the test came out perfect... the top layer coming off clean and both without any print issues. Good to know 👍
4 points I've realised though:
1- The slower print speed of PETG means you lose any benefit of saving switching time as soon as you go over around 6x6. But you still save on the poop... I'm getting very similar estimates on a 7x7 grid.
2- You need to try end with PLA as the slicer won't do an 800 flush at the start of the print. If you ended with PETG and start your next print with PLA, the first layer will likely have some problems when removing the print.
3- Surprisingly, both MM options seem faster than ironing on my side so I wonder if I can rather up my PLA printing speeds or fix some other local setting 🤔
4- You'll need to split to part instead of object to keep their heights. This means you'll also need to manually set each PETG layer. Not a big thing but might be too much of a hassle for some.
You don't have to have the "tabs" that you place on the bed in the first layer. Export your tiles as their own STL, then the interface as it's own STL. Then, you import both of them into your slicer at the same time, it will ask you "Load these files as a single object with multiple parts?". Choose yes, and then your interface object still keeps it's offset from the bed, and allows you to assign it a different filament. I stacked 10 tiles, and 9 interface layers in Blender, then exported each object separately (19 STLs total), giving them names like Tile1, Tile2, Tile3, and Interface1, Interface2, Interface3, etc. If I want a stack of 5, I import Tiles1-5, and Interface1-4, then select yes to load all as one object. This gives ability to print 2-10 stacked tiles at a time pretty easily.
Thank you for all your hard work on this project! I'll be donating as it gets more fleshed out.
Hi, really love your design of multi board system. Do you have any plan to join the MakerWorld of bambu lab? It's easy and convenience for newbie, just printing with a cell phone app
I also merge the objects, rather than the two little disc hack to keep the objects (now parts) at their respective heights. Oh and I didn't use the sample file but just did this all myself in the slicer, with a two layer (0.4mm) PETG separator. Yes, it was tedious! ;-)
Can 100% confirm, dish soap water does give you back perfect bed adhesion 😄👌
I'm very surprised the ironing is faster. One should be flushing at least 700mm³ of filament between PLA and PETG, which is a lot so I suppose I could see 18 filament changes taking a while, but still
the speed of iron vs multi-material is gonna depend a lot on what your ironing speed is set to, or for multi-material if you have a tool-changer like the Prusa XL or a filament-changer like a Prusa MMU or Bambu AMS
Another slightly easier method is to simply leave a 0.4mm gap between each object (use merge to fix them in vertical place) then enable support set PETG, 0mm gap, 0mm interface layer spacing etc. You still want a height range modifier spanning the infill and first layer above of each new part to reduce speed to 60mm/s (see my other comments.) Oh and you have to set the support threshold angle thingy to like 1 degree, unless you want material changes every layer! It's a bit messy, so I prefer the separate interface object/part method overall.
I use glass cleaner and never had a problem after that.
Rather than the over extruding bandaid, I get best results by setting a height range modifier spanning my two PETG layers and the first layer of the next PLA layer. I set the all speeds for that modifier to 60mm/s and disable slow down for overhangs. mThe slower speed gives the extra bonding between PLA and PETG, in a similar way to having a lower first layer speed on the build plate. I tried setting just the PETG art slower but found I needed to reduce the first layer of the PLA on top of PETG as well for most reliable results.
1:58 Am I reading that right? It's an extra 30 minutes? On a *2046* minute job? The tradeoff is an extra 1.47%...
it makes less sense for the second example, where doing it single material + ironing is *13.5%* faster than multi-material - but if it's an extra30 minutes on a day long job? That's not so bad at all.
30 mins extra? I would hardly say "the tradeoff doesn't look right" - I'll take that any day
im tired of hearing about multiboard, i want to see some of the cool stuff again like precision modeling or even the artistic stuff
No