Layer drifting and infill stopping short.

Ok, so after recovering from the whole hot tip exploding, computer crashing and new version of host software not working phase, my Reprap was finally in working order.... for a little while at least. The first picture attached shows one of the test cubes I made to make sure everything was working smoothly, and it was. But after a few prints stuff started getting a little weird.

The first thing I noticed happened when I tried to print a bracket for a filament holder (pic 2), the infill never seems to complete reach the edge of the center hole (pic 3). So far I've been using the built in Repsnapper skeinforge and I am unsure whether this is the cause - I've tried using the standalone version of skeinforge but when I try to print the g-codes it generates the printer moves super slow and doesn't extrude. This problem may also be related to the second problem i've been having.

Picture 4 shows the same part than in pictures 2 and 3, but a side view (sorry for the fuzzyness), where the bottom layer is on the right. That is supposed to be a straight edge. It seems that the layers keep drifting, in the positive y direction, as the layers increase. I've had worse, some prints move up almost half a centimeter per layer... I think problem may be mechanical in origin because I had noticed that the y belt was pretty tight, so i loosened it a little and it seemed to fix the problem, but alas, only temporarily.

Has anybody had this happen before or have an idea to what might cause this?

Any and all wild ideas are appreciated.

Cheers,
J.A.

What fill settings are you using it might pay to post them. Are you you using Skeinforge to create the Gcode?

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Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand

You have a bigger problem in your camera, I think :^)

RepSnapper does not use SkeinForge for its internal method of slicing (which they call "shrinking"). Many features you see in SF are just no possible in RepSanpper using the internal slicing, so don't pursue this too far, expecting results that look like what SF produces.

For one thing, if you select more than one outside layer, RepSnapper prints no layer at all.

The best solution I can recommend is to use the Portable SkeinForge package version 41 found on the RepRap wiki to generate the gcode, and use RepSnapper to load the gcode and print it.

jcabrer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You have a bigger problem in your camera, I think
> :^)
>
> RepSnapper does not use SkeinForge for its
> internal method of slicing (which they call
> "shrinking"). Many features you see in SF are
> just no possible in RepSanpper using the internal
> slicing, so don't pursue this too far, expecting
> results that look like what SF produces.
>
> For one thing, if you select more than one outside
> layer, RepSnapper prints no layer at all.
>
> The best solution I can recommend is to use the
> Portable SkeinForge package version 41 found on
> the RepRap wiki to generate the gcode, and use
> RepSnapper to load the gcode and print it.


I use SF41 to create the Gcode and then input it to Repsnapper and i'm getting some really consistent results now

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Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand

I have tried using skeinforge but something is wrong... hot tip stays hot and the axis move but the extruder does nothing. Also, everything seems to run super slowly. are there any settings that are commonly forgotten..? I'll do my own research tomorow, but suggestions are welcome cheers, J.A.

See "Skeinforge 40 Changes to Dimension - Read this for problems with the new version of Skeinforge!"

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Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

There is a lot of excellent information in the thread that rhmorrison posted the link to. It has helped me get my Mendel printing good quality parts

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Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand

You need to activate DIMENSION for the (E)xtruder codes to be generated.

See the Skeinforge forum - some good tips are to be found there