GrabCAD Print wrecking print trays
I recently started using GrabCAD Print software to run our Fortis 250mc printer, it seemed to setup very easily and the prints come out ok.
Although the problem is the software is adding an extra first layer of ABS plastic before it starts printing the soluble support material. This melts into the tray permanently which essentially wrecks it, as its impossible to remove.
Our older Fortis printer when used with the Catalyst software prints support first, so we can re-use a tray a few times before its scrap.
Can't seem to find the settings to get rid of this and it seems like a bug. Anyone else have this problem?
5 Answer
Hi Chris-
Sorry to hear you're having some frustration. The behavior you're seeing is not a bug, and is just the way that the Fortus 250mc is designed to work. The legacy software for this printer, Insight and Control Center, work in the same way, since they share the same core process for build processing with GrabCAD Print. With the latest GrabCAD Print update, version 1.11, you will notice that calibration touchpoints are shown on the tray. If you avoid printing in these areas, the tray will not be rejected by the printer if you try to reuse it, but please keep in mind that the trays are a consumable. A failed print can be more costly than a new tray. If you have any more feedback or concerns about GrabCAD Print please feel free to reach out to me directly at print@grabcad.com
Best,
-Danny
Hi Chris, FDM support engineer here. The purpose of this layer is to anchor the part and prevent heat-induced warping, which is a bigger problem for parts that have a large cross-sectional area. Unfortunately this is the side the effect, but as Danny mentioned we've optimized for reliability over cost.
For our test prints we use a chisel to scrape the material off, though I usually work with ASA, so I'm not sure if that would work for you
Hi Folks, I appreciate the responses. At least we know its not a bug, but as a feature it doesn't seem well thought out at all.
For example if I print a tiny part on a fresh new tray and it happens to land on one of the touch off points that the printer uses for calibration of the Z flatness, then the calibration will fail and the tray is rendered scrap.
So this requires the user to remember where prints were made previously and guess where not to put a new part on a used tray.
This feature of laying down ABS first seems poorly thought through, if the calibration was done OFF tray and wouldn't hit any remaining plastic it would make things easier, and if the software showed a ghosted image of previous prints so placing new parts on an old tray would be trivial.
As it is now it looks like a half baked idea to force users to consume more trays and at the same time inconvenience them by spending more time and effort to use the printer.
At my company we purchased a Stratasys F170 last year 2017. Grab CAD print came with the machine so i haven't used any other software with this printer. In the beginning it used to print the first layer as support unless you had the layer resolution set to .005" then it would print the first layer as model material. In one of the new updates all layer resolutions (.005", .007", .010", .013") now print the first layer as model material. Its annoying but that's not my biggest complaint about the change. Main thing that bothers me is the manual print calibration scale prints as model material. When ever i put a new try in i like to do a calibration. If i do a calibration after putting a new tray in the calibration scale is now irremovable from the new tray. If i want to use a new tray i can only do a auto calibration that doesn't print off the calibration scale. I feel there should be an option to pick what material the first layer is.
I have noticed the same thing. When we first got our f170 the initial layers were composed of support material and that made the trays easy to clean. It worked fine - we had no failed prints even when re-using the print trays. Recently something has changed and the printer puts down a layer of model material first which is impossible to remove (at least in the case of ABS). Is there any way of reverting to the original method?
