As I am increasing my steps / mm to achieve an accurate size match, I get a coarser, gaped, bad corners, and pinched middle print.
do I also increase ext to match via a greater mm/sec?
actually, what other parameters are an integral part of the process along with
the increase in steps/mm. fyi both axis are running at 64.6 steps/mm to achieve the
closest accuracy yet.
increasing steps/mm causes coarse prints
Re: increasing steps/mm causes coarse prints
What is your layer height?
Reducing Layer height in Slic3r or equivalent will "squish" the extruded material into the previous layer and spread it. Your extruded material should be squished onto the previous layer and not just set on top. There is some adjusting you will need to do to get good squish with out dragging through the previous layer and balling it up. Somewhere between .3 and .4 layer height seems to be the sweetspot for me using PLA. Right now I am running .3 for first layer and .33 for the other layers.
Have you calibrated Z?
Have you calibrated the extruder?
Are you printing on the bed supplied with your machine or something else? If your surface isn't perfectly level and flat you will see variation as the nozzle distance moves from a high spot to a low spot. I have a piece of glass on top of the stock table and this provides sufficient flatness and level for decent prints. Not sure the stock table is level enough (mine has some warping to it and is bowed in the middle).
FYI. My X and Y are in the same ballpark you reported. Your Z should be very different.
Reducing Layer height in Slic3r or equivalent will "squish" the extruded material into the previous layer and spread it. Your extruded material should be squished onto the previous layer and not just set on top. There is some adjusting you will need to do to get good squish with out dragging through the previous layer and balling it up. Somewhere between .3 and .4 layer height seems to be the sweetspot for me using PLA. Right now I am running .3 for first layer and .33 for the other layers.
Have you calibrated Z?
Have you calibrated the extruder?
Are you printing on the bed supplied with your machine or something else? If your surface isn't perfectly level and flat you will see variation as the nozzle distance moves from a high spot to a low spot. I have a piece of glass on top of the stock table and this provides sufficient flatness and level for decent prints. Not sure the stock table is level enough (mine has some warping to it and is bowed in the middle).
FYI. My X and Y are in the same ballpark you reported. Your Z should be very different.
Re: increasing steps/mm causes coarse prints
thanks for the quick reply.
z is calibrated -- That was the easiest to do and I have not seen a variance in tolerance since that was completed
The platen has been replaced with 5/16 aluminum plate- checked for flat against a granite plate- though I have not yet indicated
the mounted variance. However, it appears to be very close as the heated platen shows minimal variance when check by
distorted reflection method.
my spacing is .4 though calibrating the ext is something I need to investigate and could be the cause of the results.
The print shows signs of the feed rate being too high for the ejection of the filament, similar to drag lag on a wire EDM.
Is this an AH-HA moment? Maybe.
thanks
Steve
z is calibrated -- That was the easiest to do and I have not seen a variance in tolerance since that was completed
The platen has been replaced with 5/16 aluminum plate- checked for flat against a granite plate- though I have not yet indicated
the mounted variance. However, it appears to be very close as the heated platen shows minimal variance when check by
distorted reflection method.
my spacing is .4 though calibrating the ext is something I need to investigate and could be the cause of the results.
The print shows signs of the feed rate being too high for the ejection of the filament, similar to drag lag on a wire EDM.
Is this an AH-HA moment? Maybe.
thanks
Steve