close up details of the above
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sorry for the multiple, single answers - but the forum didnât let me post more than one photo per reply.
Looking at the above tests/results:
- the parts I used as example are items which I am currently anyway printing, I wanted to see how the Apoller performs for ASA and ABS, both for thin walled parts with fine details, edges and corners - and for larger parts with round and smooth surfaces.
my personal impression is the following:
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the results of MEK are better than the results of Acetone smoothing, the best results were the combination of ASA with MEK
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smoothing items with fine details and thin walls doesnât work as well as smoothing objects with larger, rounder features
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for the thin walled items, I actually found that smoothing was more counter productive, layering and steps became a lot more visible after smoothing (see above photos), especially the stepping at the top surface became a lot more pronounced
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for the larger items, smoothing worked quite well, and managed to smooth most of the layering out of the model, although it didnât manage to completely eliminate steps and top surface printing patterns
The parts which I used for testing were not treated before in any way, they were printed with black Ultimaker ABS and black Fillamentum extrafill traffic ASA.
I used some parts which I was anyway working on, so didnât select anything which would be specifically suited or unsuited for smoothing - just some print files which I had at hand.
Overall I would say that it seems quite suitable for larger parts, with big surface features - but rather contra productive for smaller, thin walled items.
I am looking forward to hear other peopleâs thoughts and see what other people have experienced with the Apoller.
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here some more photos, this is printed on an Ultimaker 3 with normal settings (layer height of 0.15mm) with black Ultimaker ABS.
Smoothing was done with MEK on ânormalâ smoothing setting.
I find that I get a bit better results if an object is placed on the glass table, compared to the object hanging down from the top of the smoothing chamber.
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