Prior to printing with Nylon 12 White Powder, fine-tune your Fuse 1+ 30W printer to set up your prints for success. Fine-tuning the bed temperature prior to printing your first build results in fewer surface defects on your parts caused by variable printer temperatures. This process is run as a diagnostic print, uploaded through PreForm to the printer. The print contains several parts that need to be cleaned and inspected to determine the necessary temperature offset for your printer.

1. If you have previously used the printer with an applied offset, reset the printer’s offset to 0 prior to beginning the fine-tuning process. This can be done by following the directions to Set the bed temperature offset, and setting the printer offset to 0.
2. Update PreForm to its latest version.
3. Download the Nyon 12 White Bed Temperature Tuning Print.
4. Open PreForm and select Job Settings.
5. In the Job Setup window, make sure the correct printer is selected, then select Upload Diagnostic Print.

6. Select the file from your computer. Once the file has successfully uploaded, start the print from your printer.
7. To run the print, 3 kg of powder is required. To load the printer’s hopper with 3 kg of powder, fill the hopper to the 7 L mark.
8. Allow the print to fully cool per Formlabs recommendations.

Once the print completes, parts can be extracted from the build chamber by using the Fuse Sift or the Fuse Depowdering Kit. Excess powder can be sifted with fresh powder and re-used.

Parts should be fully cleaned of powder prior to inspection either by the Fuse Blast or other media blasting solutions. Extract the five plaques with cones. The additional flat plaques in the build are used to create equal cooling and separation between each cone plaque and can be discarded.

Each plaque is listed with the temperature offset it was printed with (-2 ºC, -1 ºC, 0 ºC, +1 ºC, +2 ºC). Line the plaques up from -2 ºC to +2 ºC to prepare for inspection.

To determine the appropriate temperature offset for your printer, look for two things:

• More than one instance but less than six instances of orange peel on a single plaque. This is most visible on the cones.
• No pitting. This is most visible on the side of the plaque opposite the cones.

Rotate the plaques to inspect the cones from all angles. Orange peel appears as a slightly layered surface on the cones. Pitting appears as a tiny dot on the opposite side of the plaques.

After inspecting all five plaques, determine the correct offset temperature that best matches the above criteria, by using the temperature offsets listed on the plaques. This offset can then be manually set on the machine. 

If severe orange peel is present on the hottest plaque, +2 ºC is still too cold. Increase the bed temperature target on the printer to +2 ºC and run the print again. If the coldest plaque (-2 ºC) shows no orange peel, then it is still too hot. Reduce the bed temperature target on the printer to -2 ºC and run the print again.

The Bed Temperature Target can be adjusted by up to ±5 °C in 0.25 °C increments. After completing the Bed Temperature Tuning Print, adjust the Bed Temperature Target on the printer to match the offset determined during the Bed Temperature Tuning inspection.

To adjust the Bed Temperature Target:

1. Ensure that the printer is not running a print job and is currently Idle. The Bed Temperature Target can only be adjusted before a print, not while the print is running.
2. Tap the gear icon on your printer’s touchscreen. The Settings screen appears.
3. Tap Calibration. The Calibration screen appears.
4. Tap Bed Temperature Target. A screen with information about the target temperature appears.
5. Tap Next. The Bed Temperature Target screen appears.

6. Tap + or - to increase or decrease the Temperature Offset.
7. When you are done adjusting the Temperature Offset, tap Next. Confirm the new offset and tap Set.