The force is strong in this one

I printed a large Yoda < http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12288 > for a coworker in white PLA. Aspects of it make this my best print yet, and yet it looks pretty bad in some ways.

First, it took 3 different slices and about 10 starts before I could get Yoda to stick to the bed. Lots of issues, too fast, not close enough, etc. All part of the learning curve.

Yoda wouldn't let go of the bed! I ended up breaking the glass to get him off.

The people over on the Makergear IRC channel helped my identify one of the print quality issues as Z wobble. This would be the notched or groovy look that is much bigger than the individual layers. And sure enough, I have a bent Z rod. I knocked the bearings off of the bottom of the Z rods to help let them wander. But the long term solution is new rods that are straight.

A fun print, as always. And showing me that I don't have my printer dialed in yet.

In album July 13, 2012 (11 photos)

Blurry shot, but you can see the support under Yoda’s right ear. There is supposed to be some under his left ear as well. It only stuck for about 5 layers and then got knocked loose.

The support material didn’t print so well for half of what was suppose to print. Like under his chin and left ear.

I broke my glass trying to get Yoda loose. When I finally got him to stick, he REALLY stuck!

Prying glass shards loose.

Yoda in all of his Yoda Yodaness!

All the little warts are from when the support material that was suppose to print didn’t have a place to go and stuck onto the nozzle and got cleaned off as the nozzle entered the printed space again.