My hotbed+kapton and PLA nozzle (0.5mm) is fine tuned. I've tried to print the first layer with 0.2mm (Z) and up to 0.4mm. (the usual extrusion height) Still, any big print with bigger ground area to fill, seems to end up in a huge mess (like the attached image) the "solid block" test , and "thin wall test" works perfectly every time, - nozzle starts to drag material sooner or later.by Andke - General
nice, thanks - what remains - is to detect if thermistor connection is lost, during print.by Andke - General
Hi. Most is being printed at 5 & 6 mm/s , some (fill) at 10 Z is calibrated, I did previously print the "same" object just fine (then tweaked some size) I discovered that the thermistor lost connection, may it be I overcooked the filament/causing jam ? - fixed it now and retrying a print. Where do I suggest that the firmware should have a emergency shutdown if temp falls to "0" ? - with verby Andke - General
hi. I have great trouble with my extruder . It seems to extrude nice and clean, I can run lots of tests , like thin wall test. and is tight, and have what seems like more then enough force to feed the hotend. Then during prints - it does what seems like it starts to slip or something, and less and less material is extruded (see attachment) What's causing this ?by Andke - General
Nozzle size ? - now I am confused: my settings are: carve; "layer height" = 0.4 carve; "extrusion width" = 0.6 , dimanesion "measured width of extrusion" 0.6 (I measured the thin wall test) there do you see/enter nozzle diameter ?by Andke - Skeinforge
I have 0.5mm nozzle, but measured extrusion width is 0.6, based on actual measuring of the 0.5mm test print width. - not extrusion width, this question remains: "Or is there some setting that adjusts just that, density of solid areas ?" Because- if I reduce the extrusion ratio, single wall test suffers as well, it's no longer 0.6 mm wide then.by Andke - Skeinforge
ok, that sounded nasty, please suggest sane defaultsby Andke - Skeinforge
Btw: one issue I suspected, was that when an "hole" is made, it makes (extrudes) a square, then another one outside the square, then jams in a fill between those two. - I reduced the number of walls without success, printing a solid (100%fill) cube does not result in a blob - so I assume that even the three lines outside - while appearing as one level, wider area after the third line is put inbby Andke - Skeinforge
thanks - and one minor default suggestion; I noticed that the default value for reversing the extruder was 100mm , -most extruders will end up with stuck hot filament is reversed that far - for me, a reliable max reverse length is more like 20mm.by Andke - Skeinforge
Yes, I've excluded circles as a problem. regarding backlash - I were not sure how to test it, but while the needle pointed at a ruler, I could "walk" back and forth 1mm and 10mm and it pointed at the same place (I checked it in order to know if the calibration needed to be done while moving in one direction, like from left->right or if there were some slack.) The geared pulleys are printed,by Andke - Skeinforge
Well, regarding scaling; (see attachment) Column: A = expected sizes of the test piece, and it's holes B =measured the printed results C =error in mm E =error in % F - I tweaked a multiplier so that estimate looked good. giving lowest possible sum of over & undershoot (H15) G shows estimated sizes (column C * F15) H estimated error in mm I estimated error in % over expected size printedby Andke - Skeinforge
I'm thinking - if this is caused by shrinking, and everybody have this problem - it could be solved in software ? a shrinking ratio setting ?by Andke - Skeinforge
ok, so it's not my fault, I just need to compensate for the way the filament shrinks - and everybody would get similar results ? - Thank youby Andke - Skeinforge
Nophead - thanks for looking into it- I am printing on PLA. I would gladly accept the contraction - and compensate for it using scaling - but: my print (single wall) - when cooled, is correct 0.6mm max , some places down to 0.58 or 59 - the "measured width" of 0.6 is entered, and the print settings are also 0.6 x 0.4 (height). IF the filament shrinked, causing the wall to be less than 0.6 wide,by Andke - Skeinforge
Thank you for looking into this. I did not find a way to visualize gcode with measurements myself, but maybe you read it fluently Attaching the first (100-vertexes) version, the newest with less vertexes is not available to me right now. (will find it later) (very small difference anyway) - but you please check the 10mm and 5mm square holes, they should be fine anyway.by Andke - Skeinforge
Buback: Thank you Printed "before" (100 vertex per cylinder) and "after" version (using your findings, and bigger diameter) , stretch plugin enabled both times. - default settings - cool plugin NOT enabled , as SFACT author warned against it. I may say the holes made your way are a bit more drillbit-friendly (insertion test), maybe a little bit bigger. Still - the mystery remains: why is theby Andke - Skeinforge
Fine tuned Prusa Mendel (described below) , Daily SFACT with a extrusion width of 0.6, height 0.4mm, (0.5mm nozzle) - builds perfect 0.5mm walls, bridge test and so on. Extrusion/thin wall test is mostly 0.6, some places only 0.58x - so the additional width should not be caused by it. My problem is; the objects are not absolutely right size especially holes. Please see the attached test fileby Andke - Skeinforge
Thank you. stopped air flow over the bed, have some flow over the top part of the hotend (the cooling fins) Did not try big prints with this configuration yet.by Andke - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Ok, so I guess I should experiment with some airflow on the upper cooling fins above the hotend, and less on the workplate/extruded material.by Andke - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Thanks, I already control the fan by Gcode, but manually, I tried to skip the fan, with default 185degree setting on extruder, it it's idle too long, like a few minutes, then the filament entering the "chamber" will get too hot, deformed, and stuck. It seems I need some airflow across the cooling fins on the "pipe" above the hot part. So I need to at least have it blowing when idle... I'llby Andke - Plastic Extruder Working Group
is it possible that the fan causes the warping ? or too hot bed, or do the filament expand too much if too hot ? >>Don't use a fan for the first 3 layers, blow it across the part not directly down onto the heated bed. Do you control it manually ? - of use some automagic in SFACT to do that?by Andke - Plastic Extruder Working Group
I have some problems with warping of objects like spool holders or bigger, it happens well into the print (after >5-15 layers). Printing with PLA, about 185(?) on a heated bed + Kepton (~65degrees) the objects stick well, but still, gets torn loose when high/massive enough. Should I reduce fan speed ? (it may be cooling the bed too?, or just colle the PLA too fast) , increase or decrease bedby Andke - General
I have some problems with warping of objects like spool holders or bigger, it happens well into the print. Printing with PLA on a heated bed + Kepton (~65degrees) the objects stick well, but still, gets torn loose when high/massive enough. Should the fan be blowing on extruder+PLA, - it's a small fan that blows rather good - should I shield the extruder to save energy, or direct the airflow sby Andke - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Thanks for the info. I've read the blog now, and it seems to me(the graph), that circles with **few** vertexes are more prone to be smalled than expected. while none on my cylinders uses less than $fn= 100 , I did not print try my own design yet (what I built the prusa mendel for) - as I need good precision before it's worth trying. however, how can we explain the square being too small ? - isby Andke - Skeinforge
The bridge test were almost perfect, the best I've ever seen - threads underneath were uniform and tight. Please see the attached picture of 6 layers of the 12 and 6mm holes (from: ) A is between 11.74mm 11.88mm () B= 11.28 .... 11.52mm C= 5.33 ... 5.71mm The hexagon's corner-to-corner (supposed to be 12) is 11.57 .. ..11.55 I ignored small imperfections that most likely can be fixed byby Andke - Skeinforge
ahmetcemturan - first now I realize you, the main man on this project helped me - when I were about to write you to thank you... so.. Thank you, using latest version is about to give me the most beautiful, non-hanging structure yet after relatively little tweaking. Also the dimension, and measured dimension (0.6mm) is making sense with and packing density of 1.0 works well. Under carve, I amby Andke - Skeinforge
ooops - must start over .. delete profiles too ? did you wrote that in response to one of the problems I mentioned (are you saying some of it will go away if I find daily download ?)by Andke - Skeinforge
yep did everything over again with most recent build. now another problem - it reverses the extruder WAY too much - then the soft filament gets stuck. -fails bridge test completely. should I use old dimension to have any control over max reversing ? Also- when printing the I get 11.5 mm holes, while the structure is perfect 40x40mm. Enabling stretch did not seem to help much. Thanks for helpby Andke - Skeinforge
ok, I did not knew how smart i was to download daily build - I tried one, but my profile did not work well with it.by Andke - Skeinforge
Can a prusa mendel owner with wades extruder and .5mm nozzle please post a good PLA profile for SFACT 2.1. 11.08.11 ? and/or confirm that sprinter software is using this setting?: // X, Y, Z, E steps per unit - Metric Prusa Mendel with Wade extruder: float axis_steps_per_unit[] = {80, 80, 3200/1.25,700};by Andke - Skeinforge