yellowshark

Well it happens to me just only very occasionally so I have never taken the time to try and work out why. I just cut it off with a hobby knife. It could be the filament or you could be printing too hot but that would tend to lead to more stringing not just a blob at the end of the print. I use the standard Cura retraction settings although they seem to change settings with their releases so that statement is probably not helpful.

Hmn not seen that before! The easiest way to remove the filament from the question is to load up another pla filament and see what happens. Is that some sort of fluorescent colour? If so use a normal pla filament - specials can have attributes that affect adhesion. Set bed to 60 -65c, set extruder to 200c +/- 5c; set initial layer print speed to 20 mm/s; set layer height to 0.300mm - unless you are experienced (maybe you are) .100 1st layer can be difficult to get right. If you are using a glass bed then use a digital thermometer to check the glass temp is 60c or whatever in the area you will be printing on before starting the print. If you do not use any adhesive then use some glue or hairspray. Manually feed some of the filament through the nozzle to make sure the filament is flowing nicely before starting your print. make sure whatever it is you are printing on is clean. I just use hot water to get the hairspray off by glass and ensure it is clean. There is a chemical that is popular but I forget the name OK assuming it is bed levelling. Are you a beginner or experienced? I ask because it can be difficult for a beginner to get it right, practice makes perfect. Do it carefully and slowly; it is really important and must not be done poorly. Check carefully; are the three measuring points really the same? If you are not sure do it again until you are sure. If it is the levelling and/or nozzle to bed difference then I think you must by some way off, I have not seen a 1st layer that bad and therefore I am guessing that maybe you rushed it - apologies if you were meticulous search on Google with site:ultimaker.com bed levelling to access the many threads on this subject.

Blast, I just ordered some filament from them this afternoon. That will be the Glacial blue then I presume, I think I may still have some left.

Yup the ankles and shins look thin so I suspect you ended up with filament raised up on the edge, either because it is difficult or through the movement to that spot or retraction and movement away; once you get a bit sticking up it tends to grow. If need be you can manage it with screwdriver with a small thin edge and just push the raised bit down flat after each pass and then it may well clear itself. It would be useful when you respond to note down what settings you used and also what your retraction settings are - located under Expert settings

You could use Repetier Host to control your printer (much better) and use Cura to slice and save the produced gcode. I think the latest version of RH has a link to invoke Cura and automatically load the created gcode . Not sure if you have to use the RH firmware, I do. My version has links to Slic3r and Skeinforge - I did not like the new version as I found the new founts too small. http://www.repetier.com/

Glen I am not familiar with the Cura "simple" settings but I bet the print speed will be too fast for that model. I would suggest you use "high" quality setting or whatever it is called. If you are printing thin stuff, especially if it is leaning, then the answer is slow and cool. So you need to address print speed, extruder temp and fans. In fact if you select "high" quality I would then go into the Cura menus, basic and advanced and set... print speed to 20mm/s or 30mm/s, no faster layer height to say .15mm extruder temp. 195 (I assume you are using PLA) And under Cool on the expert settings I would go for it and set fan full on height 0.6 fan speed min 40 fan speed max 100 min speed 10 cool head lift tick That is quite aggressive I think, if you have a problem try the fan full on height at 0.75 or 0.9 Now all of the above is general stuff for that model, it is not directly addressing your question the feet falling off. That confuses me, are the feet not sitting on the print bed?

Depends on your model, the smaller it is the more fan you need because the layer print time will be small and you want about 10 secs with fans to ensure it is cool before the next layer is printed. If you are printing a DVD case you could probably get away with no fans. Having said that, with PLA I always run 100% fan starting at around 0.5mm high and at 100% by 1.00 to 1.2mm high. You just need to ramp it so that the extruder temp. does not plunge and cause you a problem. I normally jump in steps of 30-40% and temp drops 3 or 4 degrees which is fine for me as I do not print tiny models - with these I am guessing that with a short layer print time adding another 30% fan after 10 secs could cause you temp problems

Depends on your model, the smaller it is the more fan you need because the layer print time will be small and you want about 10 secs with fans to ensure it is cool before the next layer is printed. If you are printing a DVD case you could probably get away with no fans. Having said that, with PLA I always run 100% fan starting at around 0.5mm high and at 100% by 1.00 to 1.2mm high. You just need to ramp it so that the extruder temp. does not plunge and cause you a problem. I normally jump in steps of 30-40% and temp drops 3 or 4 degrees which is fine for me as I do not print tiny models - with these I am guessing that with a short layer print time adding another 30% fan after 10 secs could cause you temp problems

Funnile enough, I had the same thing happen to me today; 1st time ever I had set the infill % so low, 10%. As an aside, make your wall thickness a multiple of your nozzle size, i.e. 1.2 not 1.0

Who manufactures the translucent blue?

Difficult to be absolutely certain as the pic is not in focus but they look like serious teeth marks you have on your filament - could well be the source of you problem. Also on an older pic your Bowden tube looks like two tubes pushed together. That might be my imagination but if that is the case then there is another cause if the inner tube has been compressed

Interesting, we have never experienced Solidworks producing a mesh with an error, but then we never work with complex assemblies as we tend to make parts that fit existing assemblies or are stand alone.

Hmn, we model buildings without problems using Solidworks. You want it solid in the model? you get it. Want it empty, you get it. Want it with partition walls, you get it. Normally we work from 2D drawings in AutoCAD. I know Autodesk or Solidworks has an extra architectural module, something like Revit, I guess that could cause problems although not sure why that would be. We use the drawing dimensions but rescale the model before exporting to .stl You can use "digital moulds" in Solidworks and thus I assume Autodesk. We use the technique to create custom insoles from foot castes.

Perhaps I should add that this is done whilst the bed is at the bottom of the printer

Lol using Repetier Host I extrude 30mm of filament before starting the print to make sure everything is looking good, that is 30mm of perfect flow. If I get a nasty during the process, maybe a bit thin, I start the 30mm again. So not sure that 3mm is bad, apart from being too little

Lol that was my first thought too- hell I would not try to do those

I am pretty sure that Cura includes the skirt when doing this (i.e. from personal experience but it was a long time ago...)

....oh, and whilst I have only done limited comparison , results so far suggest that injection moulding is more accurate than FDM printing

I normally see an accuracy to within 50 microns; quite often I will see better, 40,30,20 microns, but I guarantee 50 microns. Occasionally it is worse but I have not figured that one out. I have a suspicion that the z-axis might be affected by the nozzle to bed distance on 1st layer but that is only a suspicion, never tested it. I also have a suspicion that the whole thing can be affected by your setup; not the Cura settings but the environment such as internal (cabinet)and external(cabinet) temps., probably humidity. Also by the PLA used. Of course the whole thing is affected by shrinkage and also by geometry(I do believe) ( and I am not referring to circles here) and yes as already said circles are an issue (which can be overcome). I am testing at the moment that if a piece has an unacceptable error then by adjusting the model dimension(s) to get it right, it should then be repeatable; i.e. if I adjust a dimension to correct an error then the new “correct” result should be repeatable every time I print that piece. I am also testing the effect of nozzle dimension. I did a test very recently on this, which suggested that setting the Cura nozzle size to .35 gave better dimensional accuracy that .37,.4,.43,.46. BUT I need to more testing to confirm whether that is correct or just an aberration. And finally do not forget when you are working at tens of microns the absolute accuracy of your measurement can be highly questionable! I normally get my son, a trained mechanical engineer, to do the measuring.

Lol @cloakfiend, do not worry, I am sure I am as confused as you are! Just trying to get to the bottom of it. Really interesting post by @gr5, which I need to read again to get my brain around before asking any questions/commenting on George.

+1

Sorry @peggyb you are absolutely right! Just shows how long it has been sitting in my cupboard untouched!

Lol somewhere in the loft I have a fantastic replica plastic cheeseburger. It used to sit on my desk, holding paperclips inside, and people would walk by, stop and ask if it was real! I will have to use that in my ketchup demo to my next customer Hi @cloakfiend I think you are wrong because you are changing the speed. This all hangs on the other parameters from nozzle size/wall size staying the same. For the moment I retain my scepticism; to me increasing the pressure increases the speed of flow, not the dimensions - formula or no formula . And there have to boundaries to all of this, i.e telling the system your .4 nozzle is .1 is nonsensical whereas .39 is reasonable. Now yesterday I did some more testing. Rather than worry about stringing etc for the moment, vs a flat surface, I focussed on dimensional accuracy, which for me as we produce mainly engineering stuff is the most important factor from our printer. All settings were the same except for nozzle size and resultant wall size, 2* nozzle. All layers including initial layer were .200. I set nozzle sizes of .34, .37, .4, .43, .46. The result was interesting/strange and needs additional and confirmatory testing. The .34 setting gave noticeably better dimensional accuracy, for the one piece a square, i.e. not thorough enough at this stage but nonetheless. It hit 10-20 microns, my callipers are rounded to 10 microns. I use the word strange because we guarantee an accuracy of 50 microns (one the x/y axes) but the .4 setting which we have always used was out by over 100 microns. This result, whilst perhaps questionable in my mind at the moment, has made me a LOT more interested in the subject and motivated me to put more effort into it to try and get proven perspective.

As an aside, there is another thread on this subject and I have been testing these past few days. Yesterday I saw that .35 gave a significant increase in dimensional accuracy over 0.4, although so far the finish quality has been almost the same - I do need to fully evaluate this dimensional result. In all cases .46 has provided the worst results, not bad, indeed quite good but not as good as the thinner settings.

To add to the answer, if wanted you can dye the filament. One method used to be to take neutral filament and dip sections of it into different coloured dyes, giving you multi-coloured prints from a single filament. I bought some of the dyes ages ago but have never tried it.