Improve print quality

Hi everyone

Since last week I'm playing around with my 3d printer (RepRapPro Huxley) and my new 0.5mm nozzle. So far I'm a little bit disappointed. I've attached a few photos. What do you think about it? How can I improve print quality?

I'm using slic3r as slicer and pronterface for communication with my printer. Firmware is Marlin v1.0.1

Parameters used in slic3r (most default so I only show what I've changed):

- 0.3mm layer height and first layer height
- 1.75mm PLA Filament
- Nozzle 185°C, first layer 190°C
- Heatbed 65°C, first layer 70°C
- If print time of a layer is below 30s, slow down with a minimum speed of 10mm/s
- Nozzle diameter 0.58mm
- 1mm retraction

The heart shaped box (and yes, you can close it with a little bit pressure) is relatively good, the moai too. I'm not happy with the elephant and the gekko. The 3d knot was printed yesterday and the ground is good but the knot itself is not as expected.

Oh, and I did not rework the models, so this are all like they came out of the printer

I'm not sure if I should buy a 0.3mm nozzle (I had a 0.3mm nozzle before but due to an error from my side i needed a new one and bought a 0.5mm instead).

Or should I just add a fan? Or set my layer height to something smaller, for example 0.15mm?

I'm not sure what I should do next to improve print quality. Yes, you can rework the models after a finished printing with sandpaper and other things, but that's not what I want. Print time also doesn't matter.

EDIT: Until sunday next week (13.10.2013) I won't print anything because I don't have any filament left. I need to wait until the next delivery (~10 days) arrives. In the mean time I thought it would be nice to level up my printer for better quality

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2013 08:33AM by Neuromancer.

Your prints aren't that bad. You can see the different layers because the layer height is big.
A 0.30 or 0.35 nozzle with a 0.2 or 0.1 layer height will help with that.

0.2 layer height gives decent print. 0.1 is really good.

tleneel Wrote:
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> Your prints aren't that bad.

For normals prints (like cases, little boxes and things I really need) the quality is good enough, but I think for figures and models I could do it better.

> You can see the
> different layers because the layer height is big.
> A 0.30 or 0.35 nozzle with a 0.2 or 0.1 layer
> height will help with that.
> 0.2 layer height gives decent print. 0.1 is really
> good.

On my next prints I try to reduce layer height, maybe this really improves the quality. Don't know why, I always thought with a 0.5mm nozzle layer height should be about 0.3mm

By the way, is there an option in slic3r to pause after every finished layer? For prints like the 3d knot this would be perfect.

Layer height affects quality hugely. Try those at .2 or .15 and see how they come out.

If slic3r is doing the extrusion width automatically, it is probably something like .7mm which is pretty wide. Set those widths manually to something like .58. Then print a hollow cube with 1 perimeter and make sure the walls are .58mm wide. Some of the prints look like you are extruding a little too much.

swoozle Wrote:
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> Layer height affects quality hugely. Try those at
> .2 or .15 and see how they come out.

Wow - just tried it and the prints are very good. I always thought layer height wouldn't make so much difference.

The picture attached is a comparison between the old settings with 0.3mm (red heart) and the new settings @ 0.15mm layer height (blue heart and gekko).

IanJohnson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If slic3r is doing the extrusion width
> automatically, it is probably something like .7mm
> which is pretty wide. Set those widths manually
> to something like .58. Then print a hollow cube
> with 1 perimeter and make sure the walls are .58mm
> wide. Some of the prints look like you are
> extruding a little too much.

The walls are really thick - on the blue heart for example 0.98mm, slic3r calculated 0.85mm. That's a small difference, maybe I should adjust the extrusion multiplier.