Hello folks! First post here, wanting to share some insight with you that i have learned after the past few days of printing out several of the bookmarks offered here on my Thangs. Some of them I LOVE! Some of them... not so much. Here's why:
This was my first bookmark print. And I have to say, I was rather impressed! This was printed at 90% of the model file size to fit my Sovol SV06 print bed. It didn't turn out as great as I had wanted it to, but I think that was more my settings and tuning than the actual model. (I had to back off my Z Height by .01 and my retraction still needs work for the stringing.) But all in all, this is what made me decide to push forward with making more!
Here is my second print, and MAN DO I LOVE THIS ONE. Printed at 70% and with ironing activated (at 150mm/s), it was a bit smaller than I wanted it to be, and the stringing was rather bad (haven't hit it with my heat gun. I'm scared to, haha. Comment if you want that to be another post!) Likewise, it took almost an extra 2 hours for the ironing. But I LOVED how it turned out! The detail, color combination, the model, everything. I went from black to bronze to gold to white and I LOVE the color scheme, especially fit for the Paladin! All in all, I was a fan. The ironing gave it some nice flat areas that contrasted with the raises, and I enjoyed the ironing affect, though the stringing is noticeable.
Third print... YIKES!!! Ironing and Z Hop active... I will never use Z Hop for a bookmark again. I love the model, and the colors as they blend well. However, the Z Hop ruined this bookmark. I'll keep it for science, but wowzers. I printed this at 80% and I really like the size it's at. It's a nice size to hold in your hand and fidget with while you read and also a good size for several sizes of books. So far I had learned quite a bit, but I wasn't done.
Print four, I LOVE how this turned out. I turned off Ironing and Z Hop (obviously) which reduced the time this took (about 3 hours on my Sovol, but probably a lot less on a Prusa or Bambu.) It turned out very much like a painting with strokes and rises and falls. Would it have turned out better with ironing? Maybe with how big of sections of light and dark there are. But I guess that depends how much time you want them to take. For me, I believe not ironing is growing on me. (Maybe I'll do another post and make this bookmark again with ironing to compare. Comment and let me know if that's a good idea.)
Lastly, for now, came print 5. And... I'm not sure how I feel about it. For the base I used black, and the top white, but the second base color I used a three colored filament and then did pink on top of that. I guess this turned out to be a lesson in color theory because the three color filament did NOT turn out well on this print. (Guess it will just be for flexis and the like, haha.) Likewise, I wonder if, with the big swaths of black, if ironing would help the ridges, but I'm not sure if I dislike them or not. All I know is that single, and even some double, color filaments are the go to. (I used double color filament for the base for the first 4 prints as it was all I had, but I had some black come in before this last print.)
Here is the back of them to show to base layers. Blue/Black on the left, White/Black on the right, just black in the middle.
And that's that! I will print some more and post more for you to see as we go along. I hope you learned something, as I know I have! Still learning, but we will keep learning together. Now, get printing!
- Brandon