Low on pictures, big on words. Sorry.
Warning: This is probably only going to be relevant to people with a photon and specifically if you're having issues.
Warning 2: A few hours of developments later this is potentially going to end up a bit rant-y in places, though i'll say in advance that i'm not angry, just frustrated.
I was having an issue with the model printing ok for a while then 'melting'. So i don't know exactly what was happening but about 1/2 way into the job it misprinted 1 or more layers and then various areas of the print just 'clumped'. So unusable.
This is one reason why i stopped printing a few weeks back. I had successfully printed 3 front-ends of the Storm Eagle (SE) then got failure after failure. Without isopropyl alcohol (or even metho) to clean up i couldn't keep going.
So last week I managed to get price raeped at bunnings for 1 litre worth of isoprop (over 2 days because 500ml bottles and restrictions)... because apparently iso is the cure for COVID... so anyway i could now continue printing.
Everything got a good cleanup and i put on a new FEP film for thoroughness sake. I printed out the last of 4 SE front-ends, 2 SE back-ends and then had a 'melt' failure. Annoying because obviously it CAN work it just ISN'T.
Aside from the wasted resin this is an annoying waste of time as you don't realise the 5 hour print is stuffed until it's complete... more or less.
[Later development comments in maroon] Last was a melty print.
[and for what it's worth 'Blogger' programmers i am hating the latest bunch of changes you suddenly forced on the site. Picture handling is absolute slop. Why is everyone insisting on ruining their sites this year??]
So this is a fairly substantial print. Took between 5-6 hours and weighs about... 2 golf balls worth... maybe as much as a block of butter... slightly less than a cricket ball... a half full mug of tea...
I have no solid theories about this. My number one guess is that the FEP film is bodgy. Alternately it could be current related, such that if an appliance was turned on in the house (the clothes drier might have been put on around that 'layer') that it maybe cause the LCD to open for a layer or two... but i feel this is really grasping at straws.Regardless, it's clearly a waste of resin, so now i'm not only wasting clean up materials (towels/iso/gloves etc) at an unnecessary rate but need to think about whether i have enough resin to complete this project... or if i actually want to.
Another failure like this and i'll be hard pressed printing off the remaining models with the resin i have and i have no idea as to current online availability. bah!!
In this pic there is a print 'shadow area' loosely stuck on the film.
An annoying aspect of this is that i printed literally 2 armies using a single FEP last time, so this batch or thickness or something is really giving me grief.
Alternately something could be awry with the FEP and resin combination [sigh] though i think i printed plenty of Soy resin previously.
Second issue...
At this stage i started getting the 'print one layer then restart' madness that i had experienced previously quite a while back. This is slightly different to the 'memory' error, and totally different again to the 'melt prints'.
This guy had exactly the same thing happening, and there are numerous reports of it on the web...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfYlq4q6onI
I tried starting jobs repeatedly over the course of the day and with different models (well past off-peak hours if such concepts are still around these days). This is annoying because aside from being a waste of time, it's a waste of clean up resources; paper towels and isoprop, both of which are in short supply. I'm not so much bothered by the cost though obviously it gets to a stage where printing is an unattractive option, but more by the unavailability of the resources required.
I went web researching again because time had past since I last looked at this issues - the model is more common now days and perhaps someone had some answers.
A common (and only relative to the small amount of feedback given) response is that it was related to the power brick, and/or motherboard. An usually linked to some kind of (electrical) current issue.
As the oven was running in the house and also the dishwasher, i thought this might be plausible. My previous successful prints were during times of low draw. However, i tried after all the big current draw was off and no joy still. I would also have thought that any current issues would have manifested in other appliances before something as light-weight as the printer which has a low-draw uv lamp, a smaller stepper motor and an (eq-)arduino.
I also noticed a reply suggesting that the vat being in contact with the main (red) plate of the printer was creating (to simplify) a 'short circuit'. It suggested putting some tape under the vat to stop the metal on metal contact. Doesn't explain the previous successful prints but i thought i'd give it a try.
Got a pic since i had to abort the session and clean everything up. This is standard electrical insulation tape rather that the ultra-thin specialty tape recommended in the article i read.
This (pic) is kind of the same but 'in reverse' (and also done for a different purpose). Here the tape is stuck on the main plate and the vat sits on the tape not directly on the plate.
I may end up doing this method instead anyway as the idea is to stop resin spilling into the guts of the machine if the FEP film has a major rupture.
I noticed when putting on the tape that the bolts holding the FEP frame to the vat were slightly loose and probably just protruding beyond the vat's bottom 'face'.
BTW This shouldn't affect the printing functionality if you already have the build plate face already 'zeroed'. You won't be able to do the 'paper test' because of the tape (which you can remove obviously to do the test), but it shouldn't really affect the z-position of the build face.
So with these two modifications/fixes/just setting it up correct finally, i have managed 3.x successful prints (the AT 'coin' as a quicker test print, then 2 more SE back-ends) and another (different model - which worked) on the way (meaning i did a power off and usb swap, which seems risky for the memory error... so many little niggles).
It is possible that tightening the bolts so they are flush or inside the vat face resolved the issue. perhaps it was pushing onto the main plate and pushing some electronics or something (dunno).
Similarly perhaps the bolts were making the 'short circuiting' connect from the vat to the main plate (dunno).
Alternately maybe the tape was stopping a 'short circuit' from the vat body to the main plate (dunno).
Either way, so far the mod seems to be helping... though i totally expect to jinx myself and have the thing stop print next job [hahaha, well i called it but for a different error]. Anyway i will continue printing as much as possible as quickly as possible while the house of cards is in it's precarious balance. I know it's 'hobby' level stuff (where you 'expect' niggles and an amount of tweaking not required with 'commercial' grade stuff) but it's still annoying when you're paying for a product that should be capable (and proves itself so... sometimes) and is now a mature enough technology to be capable of what it's advertised to do.
I haven't heard a lot of feedback from other people i personally know who have the photon, and i'm aware of 4 with them. One person sent theirs back, thought i suspect they didn't have any patience whatsoever for tweaking. The other 3 haven't reported any 'issues'. Maybe they're already tightening the screws already.... dunno.
Anyway, there are now more cases and suggested solutions for this (and other) niggles on the web which I can at least try. I'm not convinced that my machine's motherboard is dodgy - due mainly to successful jobs. Though perhaps there is 'extra strain' pulling off the first set layer and perhaps some current drain from the metal bits too. 'bad wiring' appears to be the smoking gun at the (always) early stage of the print, but it could be a combination of a dozen different variables... egad!
BTW the 'memory' error generally happen by about 8% into the print.
So tomorrow i'll replace the FEP film and have another go. Just sick of wasting resources with this sub-par gadget. I have a feeling that the newer versions are getting more reliable... or at least i hope that's the case.
I guess the 'rant' part is aimed toward people considering resin. Be aware that these gizmos can give you a lot of grief. In hindsight i'd potentially consider outsourcing the actual printing of stuff to someone else given it's so fricken frustrating. I like being able to produce the models of my choosing but there's no reason you can't make the models and get some printer co. to actually do the shitty part. printing is no ecstatic joy-fest - it's a crap job.
While there are 3rd party manufactures that are probably on par (given so much wastage) in terms of model value, one of the advantages of model/print-your-own is being able to have multi-pose infantry, rather than the ranks of same-same models. It really makes a difference to the visual composition and individuality of the army... however... if you can get your stuff printed elsewhere PLEASE do the research and work out whether it's really worth the frustration. Previously there weren't printers available, but that's now changing and it's worth keeping an eye on.
I'll probably endeavour to finish off this army. And i have a queue of at least 2 others i wouldn't mind building. but i'll be giving serious thought to how that these builds are executed. Depending on how much the hardware tests my patience there might only be one option if the printer ends up smashed to small pieces on my garage floor.
Ok consider it this way: If you had a microwave and you put in a meal to cook for 10 minutes, then at 9 minutes in it decides to really nuke the hell out of it for no obvious reason, but then you couldn't tell because it was in an enclosed container. That kind of frustrating, but this meal takes 5 hours to cook... and the ingredients in your dish are currently rare and/or unavailable... and you're hungry.
[2020-05-11-a] Replaced the FEP just now. Took half and hour and managed not to puncture the film. Made sure the screws were all recessed below the vat edge, and applied tape to the bottom of the vat. Am waiting for the temperature to warm up a bit because it's bloody cold and i don't want to give this jalopy any excuse to waste my resin.
[2020-05-11-b] Set the print job off at 10:30am. There was an extra set of 'beeps' after the first layer but it looked to be printing. Turns out that at 1.5 hours it had a memory failure. Had 'print shadow' on the failed print. Cleaned up and triggered it off again around 2pm, currently waiting, at about 48%, at 5pm. Made sure not to over-tighten the vat screws (holding it to the main plate) in case there's some kind of pressure on the plate causing an electrical failure. Reset the usb and so on obviously. Just so frustrating because i can physically see a perfectly printed version of this model on the shelf. Hence the practice of when things are working just trying to bang out as much stuff as possible before 'failure season'...
[2020-05-11-c]
Sadly my patience is not infinite, so here ends my journey with the photon printer.
the previously running model failed (uv spill/mutation). i tried other models and got memory failures and then power failures after 1 or 2 layers. just too damn hard to waste my hobby time on.
i'm out of gloves, i'm out of paper towels, i'm low on resin and isopropyl, and i'm out of patience. so it's back in the box.
i don't know why it's just turned into a complete dog now. i guess at some stage i might unbox it, pull it apart and see if there's 'loose wiring' or something. or i might just poke myself in the eye repeatedly instead.
no idea how i'm going to finish off the current project...
if i do start printing again it will be with a different printer and company.
this might seem harsh after 'successfully' building 1 large (templars) and almost 2 small (custodes/deathguard) armies with it, but it has repeatedly been a struggle to get it to operate (my version of) correctly and consistently, and the 'success' came with cycles of failures and annoyance.
it had memory and printing issues almost from the start, which have degraded further over time. i don't think i've treated it harshly or really pushed its limits or capabilities.
[2020-05-12] found this...
https://github.com/Photonsters/anycubic-photon-docs/blob/master/known-issues/photon-known-issues.md
...that's 22 main/highlighted issues. Imagine if that was for your household microwave instead.
Based on this list (and that it comes with some suggestions) i will probably try a couple of things in the future sometime. Can't really afford to spring for a new printer at this stage. Regretting ordering a new pot of resin early yesterday... oh well.
Just checked and it is about a year (to the month 2019-05-15) since i got it... here. It spent a lot of that time in the box, either awaiting resin to arrive or between projects. just musing.
[2020-05-13] i started trying a couple of other new 'fixes' i found on the new list, but nothing helped.
on a 'why the hell not' whim, and with two days do go on (maybe) a year warranty... i sent an email to the anycubic support place.
their very quick response - "we'll send a new motherboard...what's your address?"
can't really complain about that type of support, can you?
guess they've had quite a few and are done trying to talk you through fixes. easier to throw a replacement bit at it.
Am actually looking forward to seeing if it work. And, if it work that really changes things because - aside from these electronic niggles - it's actually a pretty solid and simple little unit to use.
[2020-05-19 a] new electronics arrived as promised.
[2020-05-19 b] installed new board and fired off a print. first print didn't stick to print face, cleaned up, restarted. second job completed but had the phantom debris throughout the print.
my conclusion is that the memory issues are resolved (hopefully) but the mutant prints are not related. will try removing the tape and putting on a new FEP transparency (without the extra play, might have started once i started doing that).
Until next time...
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