Summary: Tooner is a pontoon boat designed to test the capabilities of your printer while serving as a benchmark for tooning your printer. The boat has several features that you can observe and measure in order to diagnose or tune your printer. First, ensure that your using your slicer’s default settings for a 0.4mm nozzle and 0.2mm layer height. This will be your baseline. After printing the Tooner, you’ll observe and measure the features in order to identify deficiencies and calibrate your printer.

Print Profiles:

1. The first print profile is the original model with default settings in Bambu Studio.
2. The second print profile is the 4-color variant.
3. The third print profile is the original model, with optimized bridging in Bambu Studio. If you're looking for a cleanly bridged canopy, use this one.

Observe/Measure: After your Tooner is printed, you’ll observe the features for visible defects and measure features to ensure accuracy. The following will list the features and how to utilize them in your analysis:

1. Pontoons: The pontoons are the base of the model with limited surface area touching the build plate. These should be able to print without adhesion issues, but are narrows enough that a poorly maintained build plate/defective filament/printer issues will quickly cause lifting. There's debossed text on the bottom of one of the pontoons that is raised by 0.4mm. At the front of the pontoons is a smooth overhanging curved surface that's notoriously difficult to print and easily reveals surface deviations. The bow of the pontoons begins with a 39 degree angle.
   1. Observe the bow of the pontoons for surface deviations which should be clearly identifiable if present. Ensure the body of the pontoon is round. The top of the bow will have layer lines visible where the body slopes into a point.
2. Deck: The deck is bridged across the pontoons, has a raised border (0.3mm above the platform), and is otherwise flat across the entire top surface. The deck front to rear should measure 75mm.
   1. Observe the deck surface for a smooth, flat platform. The border should exhibit visible lines with a relatively flat surface. The sloped sides leading to the pontoons should be smooth and free of deviations.
3. Rails/Seating: The railing form uniform curved walls. The two walls on the left and right have a small section of strings designed into it. The rear has more text that is on the vertical plane and debossed by 0.1mm. The two passenger benches in the front follow the curve of the rails. The passenger bench in the rear has a curve that deviates from the rails which have a 5.1mm fillet. The seat cushions overhang the base by 0.1mm. The seating box depth should be 6.5mm. The seating height from the deck to the top of the cushion should measure 5.6mm. The width of the passenger openings in the railing should measure 8.5mm. The backrest height to the seat cushion should measure 6mm.
   1. Observe the railing to ensure the corners are smoothly rounded, the vertical surfaces are flat and smooth, the strings are mostly straight, with no strays or broken strings. The seating should be smooth with minimal details and slightly rounded edges. There should be clear distinction between the cushion and backrest.
4. Captains Chair: The captain's seat has a console with a very thin visor, a steering wheel, and a crude decorative pattern on the seat cushion. The angle of the console slope where the visor meets is 10 degrees in relation to the deck.
   1. Observe the captain's chair for deviations. The captain's chair should have a very crude pattern on the seat cushion, the console should be smoothly rounded, and the visor should be offset from the edge by 0.1mm and appear smoothly rounded with minimal defects on the rounded corners. The steering wheel should be identifiable, with only minor deviations due to the layers being printed at an angle.
5. Canopy: The canopy consists of 8 poles with a diameter of 1.5mm. The poles start out in 4 groups side by side and separate to distribute across the span at the top. There is a small interface layer that bridges across the poles. On top of that interface layer is the canopy, which bridges from one side of the other. The canopy then has a 45 degree angle in the front and rear and a curved top surface. The canopy should measure 31mm from front to rear. The angled poles are sloped at a 60 degree angle.
   1. Observe the poles for deviations near the bottom. These should show a distinction between the bottom of the pole and the point at which the printer is no longer printing the console visor. After that, the poles should be nicely rounded and smooth until about ¾ of the way to the top. At this point, most printers will begin to exhibit some deviations and skew. This is nominal and intended to show differences between default settings and whatever tooning you're trying to achieve. The awning should be crudely bridged across the two sets of poles. I say crudely because most printers will really struggle at this point on the default settings. You may see some drooping, which is nominal and not a cause for concern. This is also meant to be a clear indicator of improvement or failure when making adjustments. After the bridge is complete, the canopy should be relatively smooth on the front and rear, and rounded on the top with obvious layer steps.

Tooning: What I refer to as tooning is a a combination of calibrating, tuning, and slicing your models. There are two reasons I use this term; one being that calibration is not tuning and tuning is not calibration. The second reason is that how you slice your model has a much more significant impact on how the print job is executed than any amount of fine tuning you hope to do.

As far as the first reason goes, these terms sound like they might mean the same thing or something close, but in reality calibration is what ensures your machine is working accurately, while tuning is ensuring your print job is executed well for a particular sample. To calibrate your machine, you'd measure features that are designed to a specific measurement and compare your results to determine whether your machine is accurate or not. To tune your machine, you first need to know what you're tuning it for. In other words, are you looking to further optimize your bridging? If so, then you're going to be tuning the machine to perform better bridging. To start with, you'll print the Tooner with the default slicer settings as your benchmark. Once you've got that printed out, you can analyze the results and make whatever adjustments you think are needed, then print another Tooner and compare the results. Rinse and repeat.

Slicing your model is another topic all in itself, but goes hand in hand with tuning. Everything from the way your orient the part to the flow ratio of your extrusion lines during bridging will make an impact on how well your printer performs the particular task you're seeking to optimize. There are plenty of solid resources out there that describe slicers and how to use them, but this will take time to master.

OPTIMIZED BRIDGING: I've been doing some of my own tooning on the ole' Bambu Lab X1C, and wanted to share (and document) my results and how I got there. One of my photos will show a series of Tooners with where I started to where I finished. In the beginning, I had a few sagging lines in the front and rear of the canopy, a handful of minor defects, and some layer separation due to the sagging. I finished with a straight, flat underside with only one or two layers of separation on the front and rear angles.

So, what did I change? To start with, I reduced my bridge flow so the initial overhangs on the canopy wouldn't droop. Next, I wanted the walls and infill to bond more tightly together so the canopy has more stability as it's printed, so I increased the infill/wall overlap. Next, those overhang speeds had to change. The bridges were being printed just fine, but the overhangs were drooping a bit. By increasing the overhang speeds to more closely match the overhang speeds, I ended up with the overhang walls at the front and rear of the canopy that didn't droop and held the bridge in place much better. Finally, I switched the order of walls to outer/inner/infill. I did this because the drooping was occurring on only the outermost walls of the canopy at this point. Once I had all of those settings nailed, I ended up with a bridge almost as clean as the deck.

Here were my settings:

1. Bridge Flow: 0.94
2. Wall Order: Outer/Inner/Infill
3. Infill/Wall Overlap: 25%
4. Overhang Speed (25%, 50%): 60 mm/s
5. Overhang Speed (50%, 75%): 50 mm/s
6. Overhang Speed (75%, 100%): 40 mm/s

Anyway, I hope to bring more variants and styles in the near future, but for now let's get the Tooner all over the place!

CHANGELOG

UPDATE (11/11/2023):

Added a colored print profile.

UPDATE (11/9/2023):

Refined some parts of the boat. The canopy was destined to create a single droop in the back that was unavoidable regardless of tuning. It should now be printable under optimal conditions. Added strings in the rails and text on the back and underneath one of the pontoons. I'll be removing the original print profile soon, but the new profile will be available in its' place. Not much difference other than some finishing touches.

INITIAL UPLOAD (11/8/2023):

Tooner, the tune boat is designed to test your printers tuning. After printing, you'll examine the different parts and determine which area your printer may be struggling with in order to improve your print quality. With that said, I designed the awning and poles such that your printer will likely struggle to complete. This is intentional. The point of this is that if the canopy collapses, you've either got an issue with your printer or you have wet/brittle filament. If it barely succeeds, you're likely in a good spot. If you bridge it as well as the primary deck, you've likely tuned your printer better than the average user. I've determined this by testing my own filaments, and the key indicator to me was when I pulled out some PLA from a sealed cereal container with a color changing desiccant packet that clearly had moisture. So, I threw this WAF in the printer and watched it collapse a few times. I threw it in the drier overnight, and the next day my boat succeeded albeit with a few strings and some drooping, but that's a bit expected from PLA Silk. You'll see the successful Tooner in the images.

The reasoning for creating the Tooner was to perform a benchy style test, with some stringing and bridging tests to boot. The primary deck and pontoons should print very well assuming you have no obvious issues with your printer or filament. The canopy and its' poles are another story. Those require a bit more tooning (pun intended). The poles serve to test for stringing as they're very small in diameter and become further spaced apart as it climbs. The canopy is bridged across two very narrow platforms that are bridge across the poles. The canopy is meant to just barely succeed. In fact, you'll like have some drooping strings on the first layer and a few strays where the poles meet the canopy. If these succeed, albeit with a few defects, you can consider your printer in good shape. If these print as well as the primary deck, keep your grubby mits off your printer's HW for now.

When observing the Tooner, you'll want to check for the following:

1. The pontoons should adhere to the build plate without a brim. They should appear as smooth as you'd expect from a 0.2mm layer height, and you should see visible layer changes right where the hull of the pontoons meet the primary body.
2. The deck should bridge fairly well with only minor visible lines directly under the platform. There should be a raised edge around the perimeter of the deck, it should have only minor visible lines, and there should be no severe defects on the 45 degree angle surrounding the deck. Finally, the deck's top surface should be smooth.
3. The railing should be smooth (you'll probably see your print seam somewhere in there).
4. The seating should have a 0.2mm overhang at the edges, which should print great. You should not see any sagging or dropping. The captains chair should have a very crude decorative touch on the seating, and a lightly visible seam going horizontally just beneath the backrest.
5. The console should come out smooth, with a 0.1mm offset where the visor meets the console. The steering wheel should be clearly visible with obvious layer lines.
6. The poles should have a very faint transition right where the console visor ends, followed by a fairly smooth appearance until they reach about ¾ of the way to the awning. At this point, you may see some stray strings, minor stringing, slight defects, or other minor appearance concerns. This is considered nominal. If there's severe stringing, you may need to investigate retraction, filament quality, humidity levels, and there are plenty of printer specific issues that could also contribute. This is just a reference to start from, so you can compare after doing your tuning and confirm whether or not it has improved.
7. The canopy should have obvious dropping on the bottom, followed by a semi-smooth, rounded appearance throughout the primary body. The top should show the obvious 0.2mm layer height lines, and the very top surface should be smooth. The edges surrounding the canopy may appear slightly curled or appear to overhang a bit too far. You can improve this by slowing your printer down, but this is considered nominal and there's really no cause for concern.

Bonus feature: she floats!

My initial tests were done with Polymaker PLA Pro and Bambu Lab PLA Basic.