Prints coming out terribly

[atoff]

Not sure what's going on, but my prints have been awful lately... anyone tell me what's wrong? I've just recalibrated the bed, re-measured the filament, tightened the belts.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/6HnywN2.jpg[/img]

Filament is Filamex, purchased from faveprices on Ebay. Temps: 195c Noz, 60c Bed. Printing 100% speed at 35mm/s... safe settings. Sliced using Cura.

[atoff]

Just awful results:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/R9CrH1G.jpg[/img]

[DavidF]

looks like you are too high off the bed on your first layer. increacse z height .25mm and try again. post results please...

[atoff]

I will give that a try tomorrow morning and post results, thanks... it's possible my cailbration was off, though I thought I'd been doing that really well. It's tricky, it'll be perfect, then I'll re-test a minute later and it'll be completely off.

[foshon]

If you've changed filament, run the extruder calibration and check the filament diameter.

[atoff]

Extruder calibration? Do you mean the E-steps? I did calibrate the endstop heights, and horizontal radius, and checked the filament diameter. I spent yesterday trying to tweak and test. I ran a print, which came out fine for the most part, just some typical problems with overhangs that I would expect... but I still see the problem mentioned above.
The print was small and with white filament, so it's not as obvious...but it seems like whenever I have to print straight lines the issue occurs, also, the same gaps in the infill at edges.

Here's the print, which looks fine (mind you, it's small, so no straight line stretches).

[img]http://i.imgur.com/iqwCUzr.jpg[/img]

Here's the bottom, again, since it's a small circular area, it's not as pronounced

[img]http://i.imgur.com/UTR0ftJ.jpg[/img]

And here's a better example of the problem, though still not as obvious as the print in my OP.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/cs3O1Bc.jpg[/img]


Could this be an issue with belts? I believe they're nice and taut. Just looking at the thin parts, it appears like there wasn't enough filament extruded, as if perhaps at those places it may not have fed properly, but the gaps on the edges, those are occurring regularly.

[RAMTechRob]

Sorry, I'm a newb, and it looks pretty good to me.

[barnett]

I think Foshon is referring to the filament diameter & extrusion multiplier settings in your slicer. If the slicer thinks your filament is thicker than it really is, your resulting gcode won't extrude enough filament, making the each extruded line too narrow. That's one possible explanation for the gaps you're getting.

Another way to make that bottom layer have wider lines is to get the nozzle closer to the bed so the plastic is more squashed against the surface as DavidF suggested.

[atoff]

I think Foshon is referring to the filament diameter & extrusion multiplier settings in your slicer. If the slicer thinks your filament is thicker than it really is, your resulting gcode won't extrude enough filament, making the each extruded line too narrow. That's one possible explanation for the gaps you're getting.

Another way to make that bottom layer have wider lines is to get the nozzle closer to the bed so the plastic is more squashed against the surface as DavidF suggested.

But both of these issues I've addressed. I've re-calculated the filament diameter about 5 times now, and re-calibrated the height / bed about 3 times. I wonder if it's more an issue with it not being fed properly at times. Maybe the extruder gear slipping, or too much force being needed to pull the filament from the spool?

[lordbinky]

Try to play with your temperature setting a bit, I saw a similar issue I was having and I bumped the heat up 10° and it got alot better. I was using ABS though.

[atoff]

Yeah, I tried going through the temps as well... from 195-210. I'll re-try today with something known to print well.

[geneb]

What's your first layer height set at?

g.

[atoff]

I played around with layer height for a bit, so I've forgotten the original value (believe it was 0.6mm), but I currently have it set for 1mm, which is the same as the other layers.

edit: I think I'm confusing layer height though... I just checked and it appears I have it set to 0 ,which means it's set to have the bottom layer the same as the others, and I tried printing both at 0.1mm and 0.2mm with the same results.

[atoff]

These are my current settings (I JUST now changed the initial layer thickness to 0.2mm):

[img]http://i.imgur.com/NAlTpU0.jpg[/img]


So, yeah, looks like it was 0.1mm with 1mm infill.

[lordbinky]

What is your extruder current set to in the firmware? Using an E3D hotend with ABS on a .6 nozzle, the backpressure is still strong and I have to bump up the temp to 255° to go 60mm/s. The force it takes on the first layer going slow is still alot if it's 230°, strong enough that there is lag in the material when on the first layer when it goes slow, which is what made me start bumping the temps in the first place. And that's with ABS, I haven't used PLA much so I'm fuzzy on how far you can bump it before it gets gummed up.

[atoff]

This is what I have in the EEPROM:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Xz8OFOF.jpg[/img]

Not sure if any of those values are off.

[lordbinky]

The current setting is the config file in the firmware you compile.

[atoff]

I'm confused... isn't the firmware stored on the EEPROM? So wouldn't those be the current settings?

[lordbinky]

Some (but not all) settings are stored in the EEPROM separately from where it stores the uploaded firmware. The firmware is setup so that when the EEPROM option is turned on in firmware, it will use the EEPROM settings instead of the hard coded settings you upload in the firmware.

[atoff]

I'm sorry, not sure where to look for that... the firmware I flashed was just the one provided in the guide. All of the edits made were to the EEPROM.

I'm still having issues with more tweaking done.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/PYwCMfR.jpg[/img]

Also, I'm not sure why my flat surfaces have such thick lines. I'm looking at prints from others, and their surfaces are pretty smooth. For example: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:118950/#files

Why is the resolution so poor in the xy direction? Is this just a Delta thing, or perhaps due to the 0.5mm nozzle of the stock hotend?

[Tinyhead]

I can't remember for sure, but there might be something in the Expert settings that might help you out. Infill overlap or something. You could even try taking your Z0 down just a touch more to see if it fills in the gaps.

[atoff]

I was going to print the bottom of the case, so I'll do that now after lowering the z height even further. Though, I think I have it low as it is... I notice some holes are looking a teensy bit squished, but it may just be an illusion from the horizontal lines. I did see the option with the overfill in Cura... this one was done with Slic3r... I don't see any option like that for Slic3r. I do see "infill before perimeters," which I might try, though I don't think that would really effect it. I get the feeling it's hardware related, of course I can't pinpoint the problem. Trying to look at it logically, and looking at the pattern, but I don't see any consistent indicators. For now, I'll try squishing the filament some more by lowering the z height, will report back, thanks.

[atoff]

Okay, finished printing the bottom part of the case. Lowered the Z height until I couldn't move a piece of paper underneath. Still there are gaps, and the lines are thicker, which tells me it's really being squished into the bed.

I also used the really nice Hilbertcurve infill for the top and bottom layers. At least it looks good. But as you can see from the picture, gaps in the middle where it meets the perimeters, all the way through the layers. This COULD mean the level is convex right? But I don't want to touch that because it really does have the same height at all 4 test points. Same amount of grip on a sheet of paper. Also, looking at the other prints, the faults aren't all in the center. They're all over. But, looking again at this recent picture... looks like the left and right sides are fine... only the top / bottom have gaps... does that indicate anything? Loose belt along the __ axis?

[img]http://i.imgur.com/CALzc10.jpg[/img]

[Tinyhead]

I used to get the same thing using Slic3r. I ended up going to Cura and haven't looked back.

This was the result I would get with slic3r. Much that same as what you're getting. You can see through near the top like yours and this piece is about 5mm thick. This was printed on painters tape too.

Fill not touching edges

Now this is the kind of bottom surface I'm getting:

These are the settings I have in my expert window for Cura. The overhang angle is pretty steep, but the infill overlap and solid fill top and bottom are likely the money makers. Try making sure they're on.

Since you've got the exact same thing going on with your prints that I did, I'm guessing it's not mechanical.

[atoff]

Ah, that is a big difference! Thank you, I'll give those settings a try and see if it fixes things! Can I ask what you have for your Shell Thickness and Fill Bottom / Top Thickness in Basic, and your Initial Layer Thickness in Advanced?