Warping Wheels

It might have been all quiet on the western front, but while I might not have been blogging about it I have been trying some new an interesting things. The Hull Pixel Bot is still in progress. I had a challenging time with printing the "alloy" wheel parts as they kept warping away from the bed. I tried to keep the room temperature more consistent, but that didn't help much. The build-tac just didn't seem to be sticky enough.
A round wheel with circular cutouts printed from a bright blue plastic
Looks fine from this angle
The edge of a wheel with a warped shape.
No so good from this one
As with many projects I did a bit of Googling and found a suggestion to coat the print bed with white glue. I have found that this does really improve the print adhesion, but leads to a couple of problems of its own. The glue is cooked by the print nozzle on the first pass, lowering the print head temperature and if I am not careful causing issues with the first layer of the raft. It is also getting squashed in places so that the glue is joining the raft and the print, making it difficult to separate and leading to some rough finishes.

The sharper eyed among you might spot my mouse mat in the background, which has the logo of the most awesome Hacksmith who I mentioned before as one of my favorite YouTubers. It is possibly the most expensive mouse mat I have ever owned, as I had to pay international shipping and import tax on it, but it looks great and I am chuffed to be supporting someone making inspiring videos.

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