A useful capability of the H-Series machines is the ability to print directly onto a piece of stock, such as printing a flexible seal on top of a milled connection point.
This tutorial will walk through a basic operation of milling a piece of stock and 3D printing an overhanging feature directly onto the milled surface.
Note: It is important that all tools are properly calibrated and the Dovetail bed is properly leveled.
The first step is to mill the feature out of a piece of stock. (6.4 Generate and Run CNC File) There are 3 operations. The facing operation is optional, but will improve adhesion of the printed part, compared to raw processed plastic stock.
To find stock location, probe the -Y and -X edges of the stock, and set to the G55 WCS (6.3 Setting Workpiece Offsets (WCS)). (In the attached Fusion360 file, you will see that the WCS Offset is "2" in Setup->Post Process, which corresponds to G55). Then probe the top of the stock and enter this Z value into G55.
In most cases, we would want the origin of the part to match between milling and printing operations. Here, however, we will probe the milled feature to find the center, and use that as our 3D printing origin.
On the actual stock, "Find Center of Cavity" with the probe and set it to WCS G56, then probe the surface that will be printed on, and input into the Z value for G56. Make G56 active and confirm that Z=0 at the top surface.
Load the .stl file into Simplify3D (or open attached Factory file) and make sure that the bottom surface is flat to the bed and the X and Y offsets are both 0.
Apply a process to the 3D print (5.1 Setting up a Simplify3D Process).
Reduce the speed of the first layer, either in the Simplify3D process settings or in the Diabase Wizard to ensure that the printed material has enough time to properly adhere to the surface of the part.
Once the slice settings have been chosen, send it over to the Diabase Wizard and ensure that the Skip Homing option has been selected. Also set the Workplace to G56 to tell the machine to use the position that we just found. If these are not selected then the printer runs the risk of crashing into the setup while trying to complete auto bed level.
Send the job the machine and carefully watch the first layer to ensure that there are no problems and all offsets have been set appropriately.
Note: It may be helpful to first run the job without any filament to double check that everything has been properly set up.
