gaps in print

[stonewater]

hi everyone,

got a question. this is a fan shroud for my V1 max. if you look at the top of the print you can see a gap in a couple of spots in the print. I am using mattecontrol as the slicer, printing in the fine setting using all the defaults except a higher number of skirts at the beginning of the print. standard 25 MM fan on the extruder, no other cooling heated bed. pla temp 215 bed temp 60 .

[KAS]

Honestly you're going to want that part printed in ABS.

[Nylocke]

What you're likely running into is known as the thin wall problem. Or just extrusion issues. Either way KAS is right, you will want it in ABS.

I'm somewhat doubting thats PLA, 215C, especially on the stock hotend, is really hot for PLA. I only print my CFPLA at that temp.

[stonewater]

thanks for the reply guys, I am still trying to get the kinks worked out of the machine... the shroud seemed to be a good print to work with as it has many curves and overhangs, but is not to big. yes I am at 215.... 210 is the default number that was in mattercontrol for PLA. it is botfeeder PLA. says PLA on the spool 1.75 I know what ABS smells like, this has zero smell. it would not even melt very well at 180, the extruder grub gear just ground into the filament, and I could not get the layers to stick together till I set it to 215. my thermo may be off I have not measured with an external thermocouple yet.

I measured the extruder it does feed 100.08 MM when I tell it to extrude 100MM cold out of the Bowden tube when removed from the connector. measured with a digital vernier caliper with a new battery. so its feeding the right amount of filament. I will research "thin wall" problem and get a thermocouple to measure my hot end true temp.

Thanks guys

[Dale Eason]

I'm a newbie at this only been printing ABS and for only 2 weeks. However ABS does not smell at least for me. I have heard the PLA does smell. So with that info and the temp info you posted I think it is ABS you are printing. However because I'm a newbie I have no idea about those gaps. Sorry.

Dale Eason

[KAS]

I'm not sure about the smell thing(I have a messed up sense of smell). Reason for printing the peek shroud in ABS is the temperatures it's exposed to. PLA melts at a lower temp vs ABS.

The lighter test is a good way to determine the type of filament you have. It's also suggested that you do this for every spool you own/purchase just to verify.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvg3u89EJwA[/youtube]

[teoman]

If you have the stock nozzle, it is 0.5mm

Now if you have a wall that is 2.3mm how is the machine supposed to do that? It will place 2 layers (0.5+0.5 = 1mm) at one side and 2 layers on the other side, but it cannot do the remainder 0.3mm as the nozzle is too big.

[Dale Eason]

I think it can do a .3 mm layer because that is governed by the Z height of the extruder over the previous layer. I know my first layer is .3 mm as measured by caliper and my nozzle diameter is .5 mm.

[Dale Eason]

Maybe it is not extruding enough because the extruder steps per mm are slightly too low.
I recently printed a 20 mm diameter disk .3 mm high as a test since that would produce only one layer. I was surprised to discover that each extruder path had a small gap on either side. The fix was to increase the extruder steps per mm by about 5 percent from the manual suggested setting. That fixed it. I then adjusted the Z height by .05 mm to get that layer height to .3.

You could try printed a disk like that as well for a test.

Dale

[stonewater]

Dale,

thanks for the responce, will do as you suggest.

Tom C