3D Printing - Kossel Clear

3D printing is a whole new world, I liken it to when the first PCs came out in the mid 80's. I feel like a wide-eyed child looking up in awe at his first Christmas tree. More fun to be had by all!

So I went and did it, purchased a Kossel Clear from Blue Eagle Labs. So all this information I am sharing with you here deals with this particular Delta printer. I know nothing of all the other makes and models out there that may have all their own peculiarities. Keep in mind that I am only printing ABS and using a hot bed for all my prints.

I am also OSx software running on an iMAC. I got totally tired of working with my lab's Windows XP laptop which kept loosing the connection to the Arduino, interrupting my work to let me know I have unused icons on my desktop and continually hanging up in the middle of a print. If you are printing from the computer via the USB port using XP, the print will stop when the Windows machine goes to sleep. There may be a setting in there somewhere but who has the time to look over pages and pages of embedded menus to get it to behave.

Most of the information on the NET is informative but a lot of assumptions are made on your level of knowledge of the 3D printing world. Also a lot of information is based on how expensive or cheap it is and folks do work a rounds to save a little bit of money but spend a lot of time fussing with the hardware when they could be enjoying their printer.

Case in point are some that use regular glass on their hot bed and use kapton tape, painters tape, just because it is cheaper then buying a proper borosilicate glass for the hot bed. The ordinary window glass may be cheap but the kapton tape isn't, so why not get the best item that was made for the job and and go from there. When you are calibrating a machine introduce one variable at a time. You don't want too many variables for each test or you'll never get a good print. My advice would be to get a good consistent set of prints first, then you can stray off and experiment with other things. If you have problems with the glass chipping like I did, click on the hot bed issues at the bottom of the page.

I'm just a novice and if you are with me on this then follow me on my adventure to finally.. (Phew !) get a good print as shown below.

good print
This is a reloading ammo tray which is a good test subject because it is a big square 79 mm object with only .1 mm max variance. It is 16mm in height with a max variance of.25mm all the way around. Click on the picture to see the layer details.
  1. Building the Kossel Clear
  2. Calibrating the Kossel Clear
  3. Print hot bed issues including chipping

Questions and Comments contact: 3dPrinterTeam@hallandales.com