ColorFabb_HT is best printed with a heated build plate to preven medium to large sized objects from warping at the bottom layer. You don’t need to worry about layer delamination due to warping, but only about making sure the first layer stays nice and flat.
For printers with glassplate as build surface we recommend high temperatures of 110/120C. For most small to medium sized part this should be sufficient.
For bigger parts with a larger flat surface touching the buildplate you might need more adhesion to keep the part from warping. In this case BuildTak plate can help prevent warping.
Printing temperature
The temperature we set when starting a print really depends on the chosen layerheight and print speed.
Flow of material in mm3/s = (layerheight*nozzle width)*print speed
When considering normal settings such as 0.2mm layerheight and 50 mm/s speed we recommend for most machines a processing temperature of 260/280C.
At 0.1mm and 50mm/s temperature might be lower towards 250/270C.
Make sure your machine can reliably work at these elevated temperatures, not all 3D printers are able to go beyond 250C / 260C.
Cooling
In order to get best possible strength from colorFabb_HT we recommend printing without cooling whenever the model geometry allows for this. If your model doesn’t feature overhanging surfaces or fine positive features (pointy bits) then it’s likely your model will print fine without cooling.
This will results in better layer adhesion, but also less issues with warping of the material.
We also like the option of only activating layer cooling for the perimeter lines, the infill is not cooled and therefore should maintain best possible layer adhesion.
Bridging
Most slicers will allow users to set special settings when a bridge is printed in a model. Usually we can set bridging speed, bridging cooling and sometimes also bridging perimeter width (or flow).
We recommend slower printing on bridges, since there’s no material to support the printed line we don’t want to ‘break the melt’ by moving too fast. Slowing down the speed when bridging helps retain the melt strength and also allows the printed line to cool down in mid-air.
Cooling can be set at 100% to help the cool down of the first printed lines.
If you can still see the melt break when printing a bridge, try and increase the flow or bridge perimeter width.
Retraction
Before you start tweaking the retraction values make sure you’ve found the sweet spot in terms of printing temperature and speed for your machine.
PLA retraction values should be a good starting value for most machines. One can expect slightly higher values of retraction speed and retraction length. For more specific values have a look at our table above.
Coasting is a nice option included in Simplify3D. This is the act of stopping the extrusion just before a travel move is triggered, this helps get rid of the pressure in the hot-end and therefor also making a retraction move more effective.
Minimal layer time
If you’re familiar with the minimal layer time setting then you’ll know this is what causes a printer to slow down when printing fine features on a model. Slowing down the print allows each layer to cool down a minimum amount of time. This is of course different for each material, because it depends on how fast a material can dissipate heat and how much heat needs to be dissipated.
For colorFabb_HT it’s also important to adjust the minimum layer time when you want to print without cooling for best layer adhesion.
