DUH! Be sure to measure filament thickness!!

Hi all -
I have been posting my steady progress toward clean prints, but was puzzled in the way my printer always appeared to have excess plastic. I have 3mm wide PLA that I use. I calibrated everything, but forgot to adjust this value in Slic3r. I just left the default 3mm value. Oh my. After measuring my filament thickness with a caliper, I found that it was actually 3.3mm. This would explain the excess plastic in every print despite all my calibration. DUH. I feel dumb.

Anyway, since my adjustment of this parameter, my prints are coming out really clean! Note to all you noob reprappers like me, DO NOT TAKE THE MARKETED THICKNESS OF YOUR FILAMENT AS CORRECT FOR YOUR SLICER!!

I will post some of my latest prints soon.

Rob

Attached is my latest print sample. I am extremely happy with the precision!

Also, another (supposedly obvious) item I missed while trying to have more precise prints was having enough firmness in the registration of the glass plate with the heated bed. My glass plate was held on by two large clips - I have now come to realize that THAT IS NOT ENOUGH. There was a little wiggle if the extruder made contact at all with the model/bed, and caused very subtle registration shifts. I now have eight clips on the glass plate, and prints are more exact!