It seems like no matter what settings I have for infill, perimeters, shells, etc, I always get these short extrusion lengths with Z lifts on either side of them (see attached pics) when I try to print things like gears/other small perimeters. They are doing nothing for structural integrity/strength, and often just stick to my nozzle and make a mess of things. Is there some setting I'm missing to get rid of them?




Thanks.

--d

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2012 03:09AM by dsamarin.

In this particular case, add another perimeter and that should reduce the space inside each tooth enough that it will no longer try to fill it in with a short infill extrusion.

I've tried 1, 2, 3 and 4 perimeters and the short extrusion still shows up in all of them. See attached photos.






Any other ideas?

[edit] also attached my config.ini from slic3r if that helps anyone.

Thanks.

--d

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2012 05:47PM by dsamarin.

Which version of Slic3r are you using? I noticed that different versions have their strengths and weaknesses. I swap back and forth between 0.7.2b and 0.9.5

0.7.2b can do some infills better than the newer versions for some reason.

Freshly downloaded 095.

I'll try with 072b.

Quote

I've tried 1, 2, 3 and 4 perimeters and the short extrusion still shows up in all of them. See attached photos.

Well.... I wasn't expecting that.

If using 0.7.2b doesn't solve it, the only other thing I can think of is to manually set the extrusion width so you have enough space inside the tooth for another perimeter.

Interesting. 072b worked. See attached.

I'm wary to use old versions of software, but I guess I can just check the gcode in pronterface or repetier by eye...

In my experience 0.7.2b is still the most reliable version of slic3r. It also the produces the best surface finish - if you open the gcode in repetier you will see layer alignment issues in the gcode itself in every version newer than 0.7.2b. Really the only problem with it is it lacks some of the nice features that newer versions of slic3r have.

Where/how do you get the screen captures? I only see problems as/after I'm printing (using pronterface) - is there an easy way to look at what the g-code is doing beforehand?

In pronterface, after you load a design and it shows up in the tan grid part of the window (between the position/temp controls and the log window), click inside the tan area. It'll open a separate window, where you can use Shift + Mouse Scroll for scrolling thru the layers.

I used the win7 Snipping Tool to capture the images.

Also, it's a good idea to load your gcode files into Repetier-Host, which shows you a 3D representation of your model, built from the actual slice data.

Thanks for that, I must be daft I'd never thought of clicking in the grid area!