Just got up and running tonight! Started off great, got all the settings loaded into slicer that were posted on the site and it took off and started printing!!! Now, I don’t happen to have a picture on hand, but my prints look like layers of stacked paper, with little air gaps inbetween. I will print out the entire part, but it isn’t very strong. To me, it looks like z is going up to high each step. Also, on each layer, the infill doesn’t quite reach the perimeter. Where do I start looking in my settings to correct the issue? I compared a print from my simple metal to the same print from the mpcnc, and the mp is a bit taller as well, but no wider. Using repetier host, 208 degree with PLA. Using all the parts from the kit, including import extruder.’
Also, I mounted a dial indicator on my z and moved around, and in a 10"x10" area, I am leveled to the extruder within .015" (sorry indicator doesn’t read metric). Also, I have a piece of glass laid down with tape on top of the table for a flatter surface. Prints are sticking better than fine.
looks like an extrusion multiplier issue to me. PLA usually likes around 95% multiplier. but just keep upping it until it fills in.
as far as the infill, that can be solved by extrusion multiplier (try that first) if after you resolve that it doesnt work, there is a value called infill overlap. that can help
You are using my hardware bundle and extruder? How much taller are the parts than they should be? If you have calipers you can tell it to move up or down 20mm and verify the actual distance. If this is wrong the prints will not work. But honestly this should not be wrong if you are using all my parts. Did you change anything?
I didn’t change anything as far as I know, I did go through and enter all your slicer settings, but when I have gone back to try to change some things around, it doesn’t seem to have any effect on the print. So I’m not sure if I’m not doing things in the right order or not. One thing that seems strange are the numbers at the beginning of the gcode. I will copy and paste a few of the settings from it, maybe it will help. This is all the electronics from your hardware kit. Another thing I noticed, on each individual layer, the perimeter is not touching the infill area in some places…
Looks like you nozzle size might be wrong. Double check
and
After each screen hit save, then before you slice make sure you are using the setting you saved. Slicer has a sort of quick change function.
The 3 red arrows are the names for the 3 tabs in the settings screen, all 3 need to be whatever you saved them as.
The other option is the extruder driver might need to be turned up. Some of the extruder steppers seem to need more power. So if those setting don’t work we can try this next. If the extruder is barely pulling the filament this could be the problem. I have some that need twice the power as normal.
I will say the extruder does seem like its pretty “weak” compared to my printrbot. That thing will rip it right out of my hand. But I did measure z, and it is moving correctly. I also measured my extruded filament, and its exactly .4mm. Hatchbox PLA filament measures 1.75mm to 1.76mm.
I will try another quick print just to double check everything after saving everything again.
Well unfortunately the driver voltage wasn’t the issue. The print on the left is at .9v (for the sake of trying something) and the one on the right was at .5v. Nothing else was changed, I just printed two in a row and raised the voltage. So guess I need to keep hunting for the issue. Any other suggestions? Thanks for all your quick troubleshooting help, this has been one of the most rewarding projects I have had!
The dimensions are correct though, so we can eliminate one issue?
Any other filament you can try? When I worked at robo we got in a batch of ABS marked as PLA, similar issues. or could that be really old PLA exposed to the humidity for a long time?
Extrusion test, match 100mm on the filament, lift the nozzle off the bed and extrude 100mm and make sure it matches? I hope they didn’t change the drive gear size on me that will be a pain to figure out.
Yes, the part dimensions are correct coming out correct. Last night when I had that issue I had just opened the garage door, and things were too cold (it was 2 degrees F last night). I keep it about 70 in here normally.
The filament is brand new, I printed about half the parts out for this machine from it last week and it was the best printing filament out of what I got.
Extrusion test:
Well, this was interesting. I raised up 100mm. Extruded 100 manually in repetier, and it looks like about 1000 came out. So then I tried 10, and it just went down to the table and stopped. Strange. When I’m printing though, it doesn’t seem like its using very much filament though. I made a little gear for my printrbot so I could monitor how fast it was using filament, and on this when I have put “marker marks” on the filament it seems to be using it much slower, and adjusting the driver voltage didn’t change that.
I measured the 1000mm piece of filament that extruded in several places just for the heck of it. It measured from .40 - .50 with .47mm being the average. Not sure if that means anything. I’m still pretty new to 3d printing.
I was expecting 50mm to be used on the 100mm test. You measured the cold side right, raw filament. It will extrude a bunch so 1000 kinda seems right on the hot side. Your parts look severely under extruded.
Maybe that one has a .5mm nozzle on it. It should not but give that a try. Change your slicer to .5mm and see if it looks better, that might actually explain the fill not touching the perimeters as well.
OK- so here is what I found after doing your test right.
If i extruded 10mm manually from repetier, it would pull in 10mm from the cold side. Extrude 20, it would pull 20 from the cold side.
Before I did that, I tried using .5 for nozzle size. Made the parts worse, infill further from perimeter. Then I got the bright idea to try .35, yeah it made it better as far as the borders but then I remembered I bought a pack of .4mm drill bits. It fit perfectly into the nozzle.
This is driving me crazy! Everything seems to be right!
Ok got it loaded… This is probably a dumb question but I ran into it earlier when I tried to print from other code… When I get it all loaded and click print, it says “heating extruder”, but never heats it up. How do I make it actually heat it up? When I was running other things through the slicer, it would say heating extruder and actually heat up. Even if I try to manually check it on, it won’t start. What’s going on?
Well it printed nicely. Its a relief to rule out hardware/firmware/extruder issues. Now to try to figure out what the heck is going on in my settings somewhere… I have gone through them over and over again. Any suggestions? Thanks very much for all your help. Never could have gotten this far without your support.
I went through and checked every setting, in every profile, and changed all of them to your recommended settings. Still printed badly. So I went and bombed out every config. file that had been saved, and started fresh. Now its printing nicely. Strange. But I really have no idea what was wrong. Its like it had it stuck in its brain to only do one thing, no matter what setting I changed. I reeaaalllyyy appreciate all your help. Can’t wait to show you guys a pic when I get the wiring all done up.
