Cooling ABS and PLA with Skeinforge
Before we begin this recipe, let's first look at what happens with a test model when we don't use cooling methods. Keep in mind, that the rate of cooling is also affected by the ambient temperature of the build environment, and also how well you set your extrusion temperature for the material you are using.
In the preceding and the following image, we can see the result of using ABS and PLA filament to print the model without any cooling setting with the slicer:
We can clearly see that with both slicers, we have a problem with cooling at the top with both ABS and PLA filament. When printing with PLA, it's common to utilize a fan to cool the extrusion. We can see how much effect adding a fan can produce by keeping the cooling features OFF on slicer and printing with only a fan blowing.
There's a slight distortion of the last step on the model, but it's almost perfect. With all of the following recipes, we'll use a fan when printing...
