yellowshark

Couple of things. Whilst it has quite a high temp. range, Taulman state the optimum temp. to be 235-240c. On one of the T-glase web pages Taulman talk about raising the nozzle 2mm for travel; the default in Cura (if that is what you are using) is 0.075; I am not suggesting that is right, just noting a huge difference.

Thank you Zeno, all downloaded now.

I hit the ABS link but McAfee listed it as a site with dangerous behaviours

I have seen those indents also - when I have had a blockage issue. To be fair, if I am just changing filament and decide to use the atomic method, then I do not really look at the filament end, so I suppose they could be there when there is not a blockage issue. The only thing I can suggest further to what you have done, is to take off the extruder and nozzle and place both in a small bowl of boiling water for a few minutes (maybe 5 mins the first time). This is my standard process and then I use needle/toothpick/small electrics screwdriver to ensure there is no filament left in the nozzle or extruder. Holding them up to the light to look down the internal shafts helps but sometimes it can be difficult to see a small thread of filament laying there; so do not rush it. I work on the basis that there has to be something there so I carry on until I find it!

same as Didier for me

Disagree. You can save your gcode to your PC and then use Repetier Host on your Windows 8 PC to control your printer. Indeed RH has some useful additions which printing direct from Cura does not provide. There seems to be this view that is repeated by many, but experienced by how many I wonder, that printing via a PC and USB connection is bad. Well I have been doing that for 18 months and experienced ZERO problems. It is sooo much easier. It does of course mean you might have to move around your laptop but I was fortunate enough to be able to get a dedicated laptop which is connected to the printer 24/7 and does nothing but run Cura and RH. I just transfer STL files to the "printer" laptop over the wireless network.

Lol I said in my post that it will look a mess- it depends on what the vase is being used for, that may be acceptable or it may not. If it is for display purposes I am thinking you can snip off a lot of the strands and then put in a thin layer of "sand" or glass pebbles. It just may be a good way of dealing with the overhangs at the top. On the positive side even if it is printed in it current orientation the print time will still be in the 7.5 hrs ball park.

In the short term reducing the speed to say 30mm/s might get you a result. BUT you are masking a problem, as anon says quite possibly a nozzle clog. If not then most probably a fault with your feeder system. I would not expect the colorFabb filament to be causing a problem but worth taking a selection of measurements.

Yes it does but there are examples out there of bridging further distances than the width of that pot; as long as you put down enough layers at the "top" I would expect to get an acceptable finish. Yes no supports included in the 7hr 23min figure.

In Cura I scaled to 90% to fit it; turned it upside down; switched off infill bottom; set bottom/top thickness to 2.4 (no idea if that will be enough);set layer height to .3 and print speed to 40mm/s (probably can go faster); set nozzle width to .8mm (ie use a .8 nozzle). Print time is shown as 7hr 23min. When you look inside the vase the bottom will no doubt be a mess. Looking at the bottom from the outside it will be fine once the bottom/top thickness is tuned.

Hi Ian, thanks for that. OK you have everything stacked against you I suggest you set top/bottom layer to at least 1.2 - you may find that is not enough for a pristine top surface, suck it and see. It would be good to see your first layer settings, layer height, print speed, extruder temp and bed temp, are you printing on the bed or on glass? Those may throw up something rather than playing around with the bed/nozzle distance. Anyway I need to know; do you print on the bed or on a glass plate. If you use a glass plate, when you level the bed do you do that with glass plate in place or removed?

Hi, "As far as I know you set the temprature on the machine itself" - well it does not matter how you set it, you are setting it and the relationship exists irrespective of whether you set it via Cura or the printer, or Cura sets it without your input. I am not familiar with the UM interface but somewhere it is possible for you to load Cura so that you can see and set the settings; you will see this. As you will see the print temp. is set on the basic tab, along with the layer height and the extruder temp.

Hi Donny, really I think 75 is too hot for PLA; it might work but it is masking something else wrong in the setup. For that circular piece you are printing I suggest you try changing the skirt settings. Use 2 skirts and set them 20mm away. This will allow the skirt to take some time and for the pressure in the extruder to stabilise before you actually start printing. Set bed to 60-65, really 60 should be enough. If you go to 65 then turn the bed down to 50-55 after the 1st layer. In these temps I am talking about the printing surface, which if you are using glass, that will be the surface. But your temp measurement will be off the bed and the glass will be cooler than the displayed measurement. If that is the case then for 60 set the temp to at least 65 to get 60 on the glass. If you have a digital thermo you can measure this directly.

Ah maybe wrong question :cool:. Are the fans equidistant from your extruder or is there a space to the right of your extruder to fit a 2nd extruder? That would cause the issue I was referring to.

Hi Cura does not calculate the print speed, you tell it what speed to use. OK I will stop there a sec. If you are using an "eazy" setting or whatever they are called, I have never used one, and you select "fast" I am assuming Cura uses a pre-set speed - maybe I am wrong and it does calculate. But if you are setting the settings yourself with the basic and advanced tabs and the expert settings then the principle is as follows. You select your layer height and print speed and from this Cura calculates the volume of plastic per second (or whatever the time period is) to be extruded. What you also have to do is set the extruder temp. to ensure that for that given volume, the filament is molten/viscous enough to be able to be pushed through the nozzle. If it is not you will get under-extrusion. So you can see there is a relationship between layer height, print speed and extruder temp. You learn this by experience and by asking the Forum when it goes wrong! Some filaments can cope with a reasonable margin of error, say 10c+, some are quite sensitive and you need to get close. Also to get excellent results you need to get close too; a couple of degrees either way is probably OK but a 5 degree error could affect quality.

Hi Ian, it is always best to give us your major settings otherwise we have to make assumptions and it probably takes longer. As Skinny says for your top layer problem you need greater bottom/top thickness. I will assume you are using .300 layer height and 20% infill. You may get away with a bottom/top thickness of 0.9mm but maybe not. If your layer height is 0.200 or les you probably want at least 1.2mm as your bottom/top thickness setting. Bottom layer - I would reduce your bed to nozzle distance by 0.04mm. Is it better or worse?. If worse go the other way, so increase the distance by 0.08mm; so instead of being -0.04mm you are now +0.04mm. If still worse give up and take up remote controlled drone flying. Assuming one of them is better but you feel it could still be improved, then go in/out another 0.04mm and see. If that is worse then come back 0.02mm. etc etc I am assuming you are running the first layer at 20 mmm/s, layer height of .300, extruder temp of say 210. If the answer to that is no then you might be under-extruding - but need to see your settings.

Wow those are deep holes. I do not have a UM, which may well explain it, but my holes are like the filament on the left.

Also curling around the nozzle can result from a blockage in the nozzle, needing an atomic pull to clear. If you manually extrude filament, does it flow out from the nozzle absolutely perpendicularly? If yes then probably not your problem but if no then probably is your problem.

Have you got one or two extruders? I ask because I can suffer from this on the cube too and I have two extruders, which pushes the right hand fan further away; this makes me think the right hand side is not cooled enough. I am thinking that your success with printing two pieces might support that view.

Emilio, at what speed are you printing layer 1? If it is 20mm/s then the temps are fine for colorFabb - well personally I think the bed temp. is unnecessarily high. I have never gone above 65 and these days use about 55.Maybe your nozzle to bed distance needs adjusting?

"What I find is that when I make the outside diameter let's say 28mm. Cura/printer prints out perfectly. However, the inside hole is a challenge to get right. I have to play with the numbers to make that slide onto the barrel nice and snug" I printed something similar last week. The external diameters were accurate in a range of 0.05 to 0.10; the internal diameters were (in)accurate in a range of 0.45 to 0.55; backing up your findings. Of course it is though far easier to measure the external diameter accurately

Well I would increase the layer depth to .300 and reduce speed to 40mm/s and try your 5 print again, watching. If the first few layers all adhere nicely then stop the print and play with your two settings, i.e. gradually moving them to where you want, which seems to be 150 microns at 100mm/s. I have to say these settings to me are strange. If I was using 150 microns then I would be aiming for something with a decent finish and I would not use 100mm/s to achieve that!!!

I would go to netfabb.com and download the free version of netfabb basic. Load your file and do a health check on the model. Does it show as being closed and orientable?

That is understandable but hey, if you are using high quality PLA and that includes colorFabb, then unless you have a problem with your feeding system, i.e. from your filament outside of the printer to the extruder, then I do not see how it can snap unless the filament is faulty. As long as you are happy that you had no feed problem during the print, did you monitor the entire print?, then you should do yourself and indeed colorFabb a favour. I doubt a single reel would be at fault, more likely a batch and if you report it that will help colorFabb if others are reporting too. The monitoring is important. I had my first snap ever last week, whilst I was away from the printer. That though was clear to me, in that the filament had got snagged externally to the printer leading to the snap.

If it is really important for you at various times then Slic3r lets you set the various speeds as %s of the prime print speed. You just need to then reduce the prime print speed by 20% or whatever and they will all reduce by 20%