And the spool credit goes to...

 ... Scott Rippetoe

aka MrRip: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:376

And, another shoutout to  The 3D Printing Professor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFbfOLvHYSM

  

3D Progress

  This amazing printer, the FlashForge Creator Max 2, comes with a flexible build plate that is awesome because then, after printing, you can just remove the magnetic plate, bend it, and the newly printed part pops off. Without it, you have to use a paint scraper to get the part off the printing bed, which sounds easier than it is. But, to make the flexible plate work, you have to print a spacer and place it inside the printer. The white part you see in the top picture is that part. I'll confess that I'm not exactly sure why this helps, because during printing today, I never saw that part get anywhere close to the extruders or the print bed. But, I think it is so the extruders are the proper distance from the bed. If I can be more clear about it in the future, I'll let you know.

    The bottom picture is of today's test print, which is also the final test. It's a nice, solid print. It has a couple of irregularities, and I will try to solve them the old fashioned way (filing), but this is a huge improvement over my first try for this part. The funky thing on the left is a shell that is printed around the real part. I think its purpose is to make sure that the stream of plastic coming from the extruder has a clean start. The shell (I think) is  a wiping system so that every layer on the part starts cleanly.

   Next up, I will print new spools for the filaments, so that I can use any brand of filaments instead of just FlashForge's brand. And then, it is on to Foxy Roxy's fingers :)

   

 

In Action

 

Progress

The top picture is how the day started out, and the bottom was how it ended, so there is progress. I think the calibration was wrong for the first print (the blue and white fellow in the back). I reset everything and then decided to print these two little Benchy Boats. On the first try, the white one was going fine, but the blue one...not so much. I just happened to look at the back of the machine and noticed that the blue spool of filament was all twisted up. (I forgot to take a picture!) I fixed it, and the boats printed really well. But now, I'm not sure whether the problem was the calibration or the spool, darn it. I'll try the little head again next. If that works, I'll move on to printing Roxy's fingers :)

 

Fail

Well, when this little video was taken at the start of the print, I had high hopes I would get a flawless test print, and I'd be on my way. Four hours later, it came off the pate in two pieces, as a result of the printing getting really thin, or not adhering properly to the previous layers. You can sort of tell how it should look in the bottom photo. I think the trouble might have been in the calibration, so I reset everything. I'll give it another try on Wednesday. I always have to do things more than once, so I'm right on schedule :)

 

 

Blessed are the YouTubers

 Well, that user manual is pretty tricky to figure out. Luckily for me, the are some awesome YouTubers who have made some wonderful videos that are helping to explain things a little better (with video illustrations). Here is a shoutout to 3DPrinting Professor and Partsbuilt 3D. Both helped me to figure out how the heck to start with the Creator Max 2. The printer is all calibrated, leveled and ready to go. It'll take about 4 hours to make a test print, and I am hoping to give it a go tomorrow.

FlashForge Creator Max 2

And, here it is! It's pretty much assembled, and next, I will turn it on and go through the calibration instructions. Below is an example from the instruction manual. 

Wish me luck.