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I'm not looking for any miracles on my retraction settings but perhaps they could be adjusted a little better. Can anyone offer some advice on how I might be able to reduce the amount of the strands going across parts and features on a Rostock Max v2 (or an Orion)? I sliced these parts with Simplify 3D.

Ref parts:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:39564/#files" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I have never used simplify, but doing a wipe equal to your retract is typically something that will help with stringing... what wipe will do is backtract Xmm along the path it just printed while retracting, to wipe the nozzle to try to clean it before a travel move... that should help with some, but your retract settings look good to me, I would just add a wipe.

Guanu

Alright, I'll give it a shot. Thank-you.

Update: I think I got a small improvement by turning on the wipe feature. I still got strands but they were very fine. A little easier to break away. I'm not really all that concerned with the strands in the small holes. That had more to do with what the strands looked like.

Your playing with basically 5 variables, the easy way to tune is to make up a model with say 4 small cylinders and try various values, I prefer to set retract speed in the 40-50mm/s range and tune retract first, when increasing it doesn't make a significant difference I move to the other values.
The variables are

retract - obviously dictates how much is being pulled back I find at least 3mm to get some useful effect and prefer 5
retract speed - the more you retract the faster you need to do it, though I haven't really found any advantage over about 40mm/s
movement speed - the faster you move the head when not printing the less chance there is to drop plastic
wipe - mentioned above, can really help, but can introduce some artifacts
hotend temperature - For PLA in particular, the colder you print the less strings you'll see, after going through a rubbery phase, the hotter PLA gets the more liquid like it is and the more prone to stringing - keep dropping it in say 5 degree increments until you can no longer print reliably.

ah yea, didnt see your x/y movement speed is set to 70mm/sec (4200mm/min).. I run my machines with a 250mm/sec movement... so that would be 15000mm/min for x/y movement.. that would also help... thanks poly for gettin me to look at that...

just a side note, the older .83 firmware was limited on the movement speeds, but the .91 firmware was redesigned and can run faster.. here at the shop we have ran it up to 500mm/sec for travel and it was able to handle it, but typically we keep it around the 300mm/sec range...

Guanu

Thanks for the tips. I changed some of my settings and saved them but haven't had a chance to print anything yet. I'll print something the first chance I get and report back.

Well, with your suggestions I was able to reduce the strings a bit more. I think I'm happy with what I have now. Thanks everyone.

I think your settings are really good, that part looks like ABS instead of PLA, I see no strings.
Good job!