So I finally got a prusa mendel working. I'm using sanguinololu with stepsticks, marlin firmware, pronterface, and slic3r. I briefly used repetierhost which was very pretty, but I borked it somehow so I switched to pronterface. Anyway,I have been futzing with settings and my experience seems to be the opposite of what should happen. I calculated I should have about about 600 steps per mm of filament, when I tell it to extrude 40 mm I only get 10 however. I could see maybe having a stepper motor wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not off by a factor of 4. To get decent prints I have to set the extrusion multiplier in slic3r to 5 or so. Also, I am printing with ABS, and I have one of the unregulated circuitboard material heated beds. Only thing is, the print quality seems better when it's off. When I turn on the heated bed, it's like the infill material sags, and after a few layers there is nothing for the neww filament to set on. This is at 40-60 percent infill too. Without the heated bed I do get some (slight) curling of corners, but nothing too bad. Perhaps the heated bed is too hot? but I can touch the blue tape without burning my finger right away, so I don't think it's more than 70 C or so. Any help as far as calibrating this better? I'm also wondering if maybe the j-head is clogging or something. I noticed the teflon insert is in there so tight that it is squeezed smaller than the filament toward the nozzle, could it be that I just need to get a new insert and be gentle with it? Where is a good place to source that teflon tubing?
