Printing In Porcelain

[jutboyd]

Hello, I have a System 30 and am trying to print in porcelain with the Emo-25 head. So far I have had no luck. The first hurdle has been getting the porcelain to stick to a floor surface. I've tried blue tape, glass, glass with hair spray, canvas, paper, wood, a porcelain slab, so far I can't get the clay to stick to a surface. Second hurdle has been Z axis height and material extrusion speed. I use the fine adjustments, but can never really seem to find the sweet spot (doesn't matter yet, since I can't get the clay to stick down), but I can't help but feel also that the extrusion speed is not fast enough to keep up with the X,Y motor movements. So I am asking, has anyone has repeated success with porcelain, if so could you please share your recipes, tips and anything that might help? Thanks in advance

[Davo]

Sorry, I had a reply started but not finished.

I've printed porcelain on a dampened, non-glossy ceramic tile (for easy placement into the kiln). I usually print two skirts, and I edit the gcode so that the move from skirt to actual print is a printing move. Porcelain is sluggish with starts and stops, so the less starting and stopping, the better the print.

I've used 0.5mm with with 0.25mm layer thickness, and 1.6mm width with 0.5mm layer thickness.

I usually print porcelain very, very slowly - 5mm/sec or 30mm/min.

The ambient temperature and humidity will be very important, as you want the porcelain to set up and bear the weight of future layers, but not dry completely and potentially crack.

Overhangs are not pretty, since the porcelain does not fuse to anything before firing.