Filament Blending - FAIL

Hello Everyone,

Lately I've been very active with my Ender 3 V2 3D printer, but have not been posting any content due to the tedious nature of dialing in so many settings . I will try to correct this and post more, but there are also digital property rights associated to almost everything I am printing. To circumvent this and make posts, the content must be related to a tutorial based guide of sorts, to mitigate the the reason for post payment.

I'm not sure if this makes sense, but I don't want to get sued, so it's a touchy subject. I'm open to thoughts, opinions, and knowledge regarding the legalities.

The design in this post is not mine. If you like it, please consider tipping the designer here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1618833

Any and all upvotes on this post will be considered subject matter of FILAMENT BLENDING , and all associated rewards on this post will be considered reward for discussing this topic, and not for the design shown in this post.

So let's take a look at what I tried to do.

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The viewer can see I connected some filament to a roll that's almost out.

Why?

Because it's a cool idea that's why!

I'm not the first to think of it, and it's practical for using up small amounts of filament, and making cool color change effects, but there are things to consider, like:

• Filaments melt at different temps. (Will affect print quality/layering)
• Filament Retracts (Push pull machine method to reduce globs/stringing, hard on the filament joint.)
• Bowden tube only allows for maybe 1 millimeter deviance (Can cause jam)
• Filament joint can snap. (Better be watching your printer)

There might be some more aspects to consider that I'm not thinking of, but these are the primary considerations.

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The filament must go through that hole. That should be easy, but the bowden tube on the other end might be problematic.

In case anyone is wondering the connection method of the filament.

A lighter, and a brain crazy enough to pinch molten PLA, that's me!

I simply used my fingers and molded it together. It's hot to the touch, but a lifetime of tinkering mechanically has made me impervious to the negative mental impacts of finger burns. (I didn't get burned, it's comparable to hot glue from a glue gun.)

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Things were looking great at this point, and retracts were minimal.

Here's a better look at the EXTRUDER (The red metal piece) and you can see the BOWDEN TUBE (blue tube) that I was speaking of.

This was my main worry, because it was obvious I "coupled" the filament, and there was a visible "bulge".

My fears came true...

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To the trained eye, the blockage is easily visible.

Let's pull the filament out some and inspect further..

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Now I trust even the untrained eye can see the problem.

When PLA (Polylactic acid) hardens, you're working with something that is not much different than hard plastic, and there is no "mushy" feeling to it.

So this will certainly not condense and go through the tube. It's a JAM.

I watched the nozzle and it stopped extruding.

Game over,
Try again.

Bonsai Planter by marnix92

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Sadly this is a failed print, but can anyone see the positive here?

I can, look at that layering! It's perfect! :)

What you see is printed at 0.12 mm layer height (Which is the highest resolution I've had success printing at.)

So despite this fail, I see some positive. I am going to try again with the filament blend, adopting new methods to melting and connecting.
I'm open to ideas and advice from folks who have experience in this field.

I think I'll leave it there for now.

What should I print next? I will probably print this planter to a full complete print, because it's pretty cool, and in terms of Bonsai planters, this one is designed with printing simplicity in mind.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you are all having a great day! ~~@print3dpro