First Dice Attempts

The first die attempt came out as a blob

On the first die, I used a full object support base and "nail" shaped supports. These nail supports were 1 mm diameters at the bottom, 0.5 mm in the middle, and 0.2 mm at the top, and about 3 mm after the base. Unfortunately, the supports did not turn out, causing the bottom layers of the die to drift until they created a base themselves for the rest of the layers.

Comparing the lift threads with the object Z-wobble

There was pretty heavy ripples going down the vertical sides of the object. After a day, I realized my lift was probably moving in the x and y directions as the lift went lower. To verify the wobble came from the stepper and actuator rotation, I compared the wobble with the threads of the lift. Definitely a match! But where was the misalignment? Turning the actuator by hand where the stepper connected didn't cause the lift to wobble, and the stepper motor rotated perfectly on axis while disconnected from the lift. Putting the stepper back on without the coupling showed the problem: the actuator threaded rod is ever so slightly bent, moving side to side about 0.5 mm.

I loosened the stepper motor from its support plate to allow for this misalignment. The stepper motor was immediately more quiet while moving the lift, though it sometimes popped when changing directions.

Die attempt 2

Having alleviated part of the wobble, I tried another die. This time, the wobble was much better. I used thicker supports with 2 mm bottoms, 1 mm middles, and 0.8 mm tops. These supports were 5 mm tall, but I omitted the object support plate after some online reading (the base plate tends to shrink on the lift, unstick, and then float around). Unfortunately, only 1 of the supports turned out, and my bottom side turned out curled. I'm not sure why my supports only had the bottom print. Perhaps each 1 micron pixel gets energy from neighboring pixels, preventing small diameters? Or perhaps the bottom die layer shrunk and pulled apart the supports from the top?

The 2 mm bases of the supports printed, but not the middle 1 mm section

Viewing the 1 complete support and bottom layer