Basic Printer Operation
How to print a basic part with the MarkForged II 3D printer.
Last updated
How to print a basic part with the MarkForged II 3D printer.
Last updated
The first step to printing on the MarkForged II 3D printer is to upload your part file to MarkForged's online software called Eiger. Which is accessible via the link below.
In order to upload a part it must first be saved in the STL file format. Do this by pressing "Save as" in your program and selecting STL (*.stl) in the "Save as type" drop down menu. This will compress the native 3D file into a collection of triangles which may cause you to lose accuracy in your part. The Options button under the "Save as type" banner will allow you to increase the detail of the STL file approximation if the standard setting is too rough. As a general rule the quick settings are quite effective for a general course or fine estimation.
Once you have your STL file you wish to upload, find the "Import STL" button in Eiger as shown below.
From there, you can press the hashed "Upload file" box to open a File Explorer to choose your file or drag and drop a file into the same box. Eiger will open your file in "Part View", which shows the exterior of your part with an options shade to the right hand side of the screen.
In the Neuromnt Lab, we will use Onyx as the base material and leave Reinforcement Material set to None unless we are sure we want to reinforce the part for a stress load. If reinforcement is desired, we will be using Carbon Fiber for this in the lab.
Under the Settings tab of the above menu, the most important option is "Use Supports". This will create supports for any section of your part, Eiger deems to be floating in air. For basic usage this should be left on unless intentionally desire a gap.
The infill tab namely allows you to alter the internal construction of your part. The Fill Pattern drop down menu offers four options for infill type. The default is triangular, the fastest of the four. Hexagonal and rectangular will both use less material than triangular and have varying strength characteristics but will take more time to complete. Solid infill is simply filling out the entire interior will material and will yield the densest but also the costliest in terms of time and material. Fill Density can also be manually adjusted to increase strength of a part, however the defaults are perfectly adequate for most applications. The Roof & Floor Layers and Wall Layers options determine how thick those outside levels will be, default is generally fine here.
For the basic part view of your file you can click and drag to rotate into different viewing angles to ensure it is correct. Any side of the part you hover over will be illuminated blue. Click a side to orient it face-down so it is the contact side with the print bed. As a general rule, you want the largest surface area to be your contact side.
This concludes the preliminary options and procedure required for the basic printing of a part. In order to print your part you must either press the calculate details or the save button. The calculate details button will give you information prior to printing such as: time to complete, weight, material amount, and cost. The save button on the bottom right will accomplish the same thing but save your file or changes to your cloud folder in the Eiger software.
A similar section of the site will be opened. For the Neuromnt lab we want to leave the options as Desktop Series for the printer type and Export Build for select printer. Press the Export Build button and your print file will be downloaded onto your PC as an MFP file.
All of the prior steps have been in the pursuit of a file type the printer can understand, which we now have. In the Neuromnt lab, the printers are not connected to the network so the easiest way to print will be to connect your PC to the printer via USB. The file transfer can be done as simply as if the printer was a USB drive. (Windows will warn you the device is not working correctly when you connect the USB, ignore this)
Once you have copied you file onto the printer, you are now done working on the PC. Move to the 3D printer press the menu button on the home touchscreen on the printer behind the plastic safety shield. The menu button is on the top right of the home screen and looks like three, small, horizontal bars.
Press the storage button on the top right of the tiled menu. Then press the top left button marked "Print from Storage" and select your file's name from the options presented. This will begin the printing procedure.
One thing to be wary of when it comes to basic printing is the purge line sequence. This is done when the printer has set for a period of time it deems long enough to think some moisture has been absorbed by the un-extruded material in the print line. It will run the purge procedure and print a thick line of filament towards the back of the print bed before printing any part layers. This may curve upwards and snag the ribbon cable connecting the print head. My recommendation is to open the top hatch of the printer and carefully remove the purged line but simply pulling on the upward curving end. This can be done safely by simply pressing the pause button on the touchscreen on the printer and resuming the print once the potential obstruction has been moved.
Another thing is the general accuracy of the printer. The printer can print accurately down to a tenth of a millimeter. Using measurements beyond that may get you a small amount of extra dimension on a print in a pinch, however any measurement underneath the rated accuracy may be inconsistent in results.