3D Printing

Application

Mars Rover

Electric Screw driver

Creality CR 6 SE Specification

3D Printing Slicers

CR 6 SE Community Firmware

Testing

Application

Creality CR 6 SE Specification

Single extruder, 1.75mm filament device
Minimum layer size of 0.1mm
Build volume of 235 x 235 x 250 mm
Hot end maximum temperature of 260C
Print speed 80-100mm/s
110mm colour touchscreen for control, English and Chinese language interfaces provided
Heated print surface, up to 110C
350W power supply
Modular nozzles for straightforward swapping
Easy assembly, Creality says it can be completed in only five minute

3D Printing Slicers

Ultimaker Cura 5.1.0

Overall, the Cura user interface and user experience is very positive. It’s easy to learn and users can start out slow before heading to advanced and customized operation.

Intuitive interface: Cura maintains a clean and neat layout with the majority of the space dedicated to viewing the build area and the model. The settings are tucked away in drop-down style menus with further subheadings that logically divide them.
Dark theme: Another neat feature is the dark theme, which definitely makes using it easier on the eyes.
Visual queues: The settings panel on the left lights up when the model is selected, giving you a very subtle hint to check out the movement settings.
Print estimations: It’s extremely useful to see the estimated print time icon that can be found above the slice button after the slicing is complete. This allows the user to tune and optimize their settings further based on which part of the print consumes the maximum time.
Preview animation: The animation under the preview option helps you check if you forgot anything before starting a print, like activating support structures.
Workflow extensions: There are many extensions that can be added, including one to help save file names systematically, or you can add an SBC or OctoPi to upload prints directly.

PrusaSlicer 2.5.0

PrusaSlicer’s interface is simple yet effective. It’s organization, which employs modes, categories, and views, is centered around intuitive access and adjustment of settings and profiles.

Setting levels: PrusaSlicer’s settings are visible according to the user’s understanding of the machine, from simple to expert. This helps clear the clutter and lets you focus on settings that are important.
Setting groups: Prusa’s strategy of having their settings in three distinct buckets and then further subdividing keeps things a bit more organized.
Smart manipulation: PrusaSlicer has an arrange command that automatically arranges models on the build plate in an optimized position. This is very useful when you’re printing multiple parts at the same time.
Easy G-code insertion: The sliding bars on the side of the preview view is an intuitive way to add a pause or other custom G-code commands.
Simple layer adjustment: The variable layer height feature has a neat sliding bar as well, which makes it simple to set your layer heights.

CR 6 SE Community Firmware

Start a print without drooping filament on the build plate while homing

The auto-bed leveling feature of the Creality CR-6 SE uses a strain gauge connected to the hot-end for leveling. This is also used for homing the hotbed - in combination with the optical Z-endstop the nozzle strain gauge status is probed to determine the zero position for the Z axis. In the default Cura start code, the nozzle is fully heated up to printing temperature which causes some filament to droop out when homing, leaving residue on the bed.

The new gcode will first home the nozzle, then heat up, and then draw a purge line. Any filament that droops at the side won’t stick to the bed.

The most important changes:

The purge line is now at the side of the bed
Preheating the nozzle before homing already happens in firmware. So has been removed.
The firmware has now an interface for acceleration parameters, so those have been removed as well from the start gcode.

Testing

To test the 3D printer we first determined the optimal printing temperature for the SUNLU Grey PLA+ which has a printing tempurature of 200-235°C. After finding the printing temperature, we print a calibration cube and a Benchy to determine our 3D printers accuracy

Temp Tower

A temp tower is used to evaluate the performance of a particular filament at different printing temperatures. By looking at the final 3D printed temperature tower, the optimal printing temperature for a particular filament is determined.

Our temp tower tested printing temperatures between 200-230°C in -5°C inclement. The temp tower shows stringing between 215-230°C, with blob seen between 210-230°C. The optimal temperature is seen to be 205°C, but minor blobbing and loss of detail are seen at all temperatures.

Calibration Cube

A calibration cube helps calibrate and troubleshoot your 3D printer’s settings to achieve maximum precision and accuracy. Various issues can occur which can be corrected with a little bit of tweaking. Some of the most common issues and their solutions are:

Elephant’s Foot
Z-Axis Wobbling
Ghosting or Ringing Texture

Our first calibration cube suffered from elephant's foot and minor blobbing on the middle points of the X and Y.

To reduce the chance of the initial layers bulging out

the bed temperature can be reduced
A raft can be added to the model
The bed needs to be checked if it is levelled
The nozzle needs to be checked if it is the correct height from the bed

Blobbing could occur if the nozzle is too close to the bed. this can be changed by using a piece of paper to check the z-axis when the nozzle and bed are heated.