So… if it’s something that’s going to set on a shelf or something like a wh figurine, you don’t need to prime with acrylic or enamel.

If it’s something that’s going the handled (like say, a cosplay prop,) your mileage will vary.

I’d recommend printing off small test parts to see how the paint cures and such. I use small shot-glass-size vase mode prints. (Any one the vases will work, but I suggest anything with more complex contours and a few hard edges.)

Then they get double use as a glue pot when I’m doing glueups with barges cement or similar adhesives (and painting too.)

If you find you do need primer… the stuff I’ve found to work best is rustoleum filler-primer. (Yes. The spray can.) you’ll lose surface details, since it’s designed to fill that in, but makes a wonderful foundation.

Also scuff the surface with a coarse sand paper before you do anything else. This will give whatever base layer you’re using a bit more to bite into.

i;ve never used pressurized vapor baths, for anything. I’d certainly stay away from pressurized vapor baths using heated solvents that are also rather flammable (that’s… got some exciting possibilities that I would let my worst enemy do first.) I’d use picture glass (or cheap ikea mirrors.) to build up a box. set it up outside where the vapors aren’t a problem.

alternatively, a cheap-ass-fuck stock pot with a glass lid will also work fine, but don’t seal it… and certainly don’t use it for food when you’re done.

as for if it should boil, it’s boinling point is about 80 deg. C, so if you’re seeing boiling, you either have somewhat impure MEK (which is fine,) or your temp measurement is off. It should still put enough vapor into the box that you can see it working though… it’ll just work faster. its less advised to boil it off because, well. it works too fast usually.

please tell me you’re doing all of this outside or with a ginormous fume hood that goes outside. (seriously, MEK is not to be underestimated.)

For what it’s worth, if you have a pressure vessel and you want to make it go differently, reducing the pressure will have better effect (or so I’m told.)

I’ve not used MEK personally, all of my petg parts are structural. What I’m seeing online says 60-80c.

What I’d do is kick it up by 5c at a time.

swap in failed test prints and see how that changes things. Keep in mind if you stay in the cold range and give it more time, it might create a better finish.

Too hot and it’ll start melting.

Maybe also “priming” the chamber with a heat gun so the air is also warm. (Do this before placing the MEK!)

Also, a small hole someplace that’ll get covered and a toothpick to lift the part will help retain its shape.

a MEK vapor bath would likely give you a smooth finish. But, Uhm, personally the raw print is probably preferable as MEK is some nasty shit. (not so nasty you can’t buy it at your local big box hardware store, but it’s not something you can just pour into a kitchen pot and be safe around.)

it would work similar to an acetone vapor bath for ABS.

Very few printers are going to be able to do 90 degree overhangs even close to nicely. Bridging? Sure. With significant overhangs, it’s always going to wiggle a bit until you get some more layers.

If OP weren’t using this to get as close as possible, I’d say the answer was organic supports coming in from the bed.

it has three hands.

It’s definitely being under extruded. As to what’s causing that, my first guess would have been a clogged nozzle… but if it’s happening not-at-random, it’s probably not that.

is there a way to see a log of hot end temps across the prior prints? it could be that something is causing the the machine to speed up putting out more plastic and the hot end struggling to keep up, though I’m just spitballing here.

if I want to torture myself and, hum, make a custom multicolor filament, yeah.

I prefer to respect myself, so I have a sign saying “Don’t” on the box of junk with the splicer and similarly bad ideas.

It’s been modded, which is always a crapshoot. It could be a stellar printer, or they’re lying, or they think it prints amazballs, but has really low standards. Or it could be even more amazing and their standards are just straight up OCD.

From what they say, the mods are fairly common for creality printers.

It’s also super common to mod your printers, especially lower-end brands like reality.

I would suggest asking if they could do a test print- and give them the filament to do it with. Something like a Benchy won’t take too long, or too much filament. Also if it comes out nice ask for what they used as print settings.

If it prints well, 150 is a spectacular deal.

That said, I wouldn’t suggest entering non a used printer. Too many things to go wrong. (I’d also suggest avoiding the lowest end of printers.)

I’m gonna say windows is more like a cybertruck truck. Full of bloat, spyware, and half the features are not like to slice a finger off than do what it’s supposed to- and definitely not bullet proof.

You realize you can set up commands that get ran on start up, right?

Including one to update apt or whatever package manager and then upgrade.

Most versions of Linux can handle installation with no user input, or leaving the session. Kernel updates require a restart, but the update is already installed.

(Whether you should or not is an entirely different matter.)

Your grandma is one of the cool ones.

It’s a walled garden, so maybe more like those rideshare e bikes or scooters.

I dunno. I won’t mock a person for using Mac.

Microsoft would be more like a cybertruck. Complete with the catching fire bits.

its not uncommon to start high and come down a bit. PLA+ typically has it’s glass transition right around there, and you do not want to be above that.

check the actual surface temperature, if you can, since most beds, the surface will be cooler than what the probe under it is saying, but typically you want 55ish for printing temp.

another way you can check is to just set some scrap plastic of the same filament on it. If it goes rubbery and pliant, its too high. the tricky thing about glass transition is it’s not a single point, it’s more of a small range, where, approaching it, it starts getting noticeably softer until it stops changing as much.

My guess is it’s warping from thermal contraction as it cools. PLA is easier to print with than, say, ABS, because it doesn’t contract as it cools quite as much, but it still contracts some, and each successive layer, it’s like layering on rubber bands, until it pulls off.

there’s several things that can help it. The first is to use a heated bed. (you want to set it for moderately below the glass transition temperature PLA+ is typically around 50-60 in actual temp. I’d suggest measuring the actual surface temp with an IR thermometer… if it’s glossy, take a sheet of paper or a single-layer bed leveling test print and place it on top.

If you’re already using a heated bed and the temp checks out, the next option is to print a brim up around the part. this increases the surface area. Additionally you can increase the skirt height to create a wall that traps air and keeps the part warmish (slightly lower than bed temp, typically.) You don’t need to go all the way up, even an inch will help.

Going a step further, you can set up a box over the printer as a make shift enclosure. Or, if you’re looking for a more permanent solution, I like using rigid insulation foam- you can get it from your big box hardware store for pretty cheap. 1/4" 1/2" sizes are easy to work with and you can use PVA glue to hold it together, or most epoxies. (hot glue if you’re careful, but it’ll melt if you put too much on.) for just a one-off project, you can cut it using a box cutter, but if you use it a lot, there’s hot knife cutters (or wire cutters,) that work wonders… but that’s another topic.

The thing is… arch…. You can actually fix. Most times.

Unlike the proverbial him.

(Not that you should have to.)

this is probably more for things that people won’t bother stealing. I certainly wouldn’t be trusting my phone to it.

I’d also be worried about it getting covered and misplaced/lost. piles of sand look much like another.

Could be a fun geocaching thingamabob, though.

Edit: I’d also suggest sticking a silicone o-ring on the lid. you can make them pretty easily using fish tank air-hose tubing. Pump it full of calk. If you want a solid ring, let it cure, then blow it out with an air-blower nozzle on an air compressor. If you want a hollow ring, which for this would be best, I think; blow out the tubing before it sets. then blow it out again. cut the ends on a bias and then glue them with more calk.

For this, you’d never know when a kid comes running over with a giant pale of water.

Yes. The nozzle.

The one part that puts a consistent pattern into the filament as it extrudes that can be corrected for variation from temps and materials and whatever else.

Unless you’re printing abrasives, your brass nozzles doesn’t wear that quickly and defects from the boring out during production will translate to patterns in the surface.

Most fdm printers might be accurate to .1mm, with the best getting to around .05mm in z and any measurement below that is basically random noise, so you have finite limits on how precise you can get measuring defects.

This means that well tuned printers will generally be close enough that it’s hard to differentiate between them.

Now imagine a pattern in an introduced by a warped lead screw, as an example. Sure this is cyclic. But its height is dependent on the lead screw’s thread lead. A T8x8 has an 8mm lead and this pattern will repeat every 8mm in height, with a consistent layer count between them.

As will basically every printer using a t8x8 screw. Printing at that same layer thickness. Which is pretty much every printer on the market. There might be some slop with backlash, but that’s not going to show up accurately enough.

And yes. You can swap out nozzles, just like you can belts and lead screws and every other part. Unlike most parts, though, the microscopic striations coming off the nozzle aren’t as inconsistent as say belt tightness.

I’m rather skeptical as well, but if there’s a defect on the nozzle causing stations in the extrusion, that might do it.

Otherwise they might get lucky, but I doubt it.

Resin printers might have something else, but it’s hard to imagine what. (Maybe dead pixels?)

yes. And then it’s literally just a… reboot.

You don’t sit there waiting for it to install. It’s just restarting the kernel so the newly-installed version takes over. (and generally it only applies to the kernel updates.)