cloakfiend

Funny thing is if i print small stuff it seems closed. I guess I will try again, the one above was done at 50 mm/s 0.2 and the one at the top 0.06. I have a feeling its the speed. Ill try doing a large flat object at 30mm/s but that will be a bit of a drag as it will takes aaaaages.

Colorfabb Warm Red in acetone for 40 seconds then sprayed with white gloss. no sanding or clean up at all. ill leave him in for a minute next time and it should be better... but still, no lines.

I havce done it in ABS, but with PLA it appears as cross checkered and even after sanding its cross checked. Its like it never completely fills the layer completely? id love to be able to solve this. I tried 110% flow but to no avail. seems like nothing makes any difference that i try?/ large flat and supposedly closed surface.

dont worry i dont want to hijack this thread about other stuff than prints....seeing as this thread is about prints.

Not sure, but two lines always seem to go perfect then the third is slightly further away causing the break in top surface. No matter what temp or resolutiuon??? its the only thing i havent cracked with this printer!

Still cant seem to print a smooth top surface though? even with 110% flow. Its like the lines just don't touch, This is where ABS seems to do a better job for me, but considering all the stuff i need it for is flattish and i don't have time for re-prints i just have to push on. my electrics controller box i printed out for my mate helping me.

Lol, I'll just stick with colorfabb then. If it aint broke dont fix it...

Ive only got two weeks to finish it and and soo behind, but as i have only one printer i just made molds of the stuff i print and cast them in resin. I want a little train running through my set but its for work, not pleasure, lol. Even though its pleasure for me. Ill post more pics when its finished but heres a litlle idea of the amount of stuff..... cant show it all until its finished...some other cool things too, stop motion job.

A couple things for my little town! came out better than I thought....

I was more curious if acetone affected it thats all... cant really make much of the info on that page, lol

I need to try this Faberdashery filament, does it contain PHA or is it pure PLA? its it as good as Colorfabb?

For PLA the hotter the first layer the better. once you got that down youre good to go cooler for the rest. I've never used the tape and imagine it a hassle. I also rarely change the glue on my bed, so i think just find what works for you and your workflow. If your always in a hurry like me the tape is a no go as it needs to be replaced and also means the bottom is not as smooth as on glass/thin glue, its no deal breaker if you a desperate, but its not need at all in my honest opinion. The main issue with the Ultimaker is that the heat varies during the first layer as it equalises and goes hotter and cooler quite drastically so sometimes is laying down too cool, which is why i always turn the heat up for the first layer. Just practise and you'll get the hang of it. If you have trouble with it sticking, try again starting hotter and hotter until it does, then just dial it down slowly.

lol, no link nothing.

Experiment and then save the shapes you like so you can re-use them on other prints. You need to experiment to get your thicknesses right.

If you know you will have them, just put in manual supports. they will most likely be better than curas anyway, and considering the rest of your model doesnt look like it needs them you'll save a hell of a lot of time and filament while your at it.

Id try to clean everything and do the atomic pulls as normal, if not try without the pfte, i guess, anything to try clean it. Try to do loads of atomic pulls the best you can and see if they improve. Like i said already i did 35 odd once, but they did look pointy and good from the start. I seem to remember mine breaking to after changing a pfte due to leakage cos of hydraulic pressure, so just keep trying to get at least a bit of whats in the head and go from there. Maybe try pulling out before 90 like maybe 95 or 100? I had to do that for a while. Its why i didnt get the full bullet shape for the first pulls in my picture above. But just get a new pfte and go from there as you really need to be able to do atomic pulls.

If you cant get filament coming out the nozzle you have a blocked nozzle. If you cant clean it just buy a new one and make sure you learn how to clean it properly before the buildup is impossible to remove for the next time. But you shoukd be able to clean it if it was printing recently. Do the atomic pulls without the pfte. And be prepared to do a LOT of them.

True, even I cant deny those lines look fairly evenly spaced apart. I hope this never happens to me. Looks like a nightmare. I get mad enough just hearing clicks from the feeder, lol.

Just take the the head apart carefully, taping the sides of the things that hold it together to make it easier to put back, and then unscrew all the screws that you need to get to the nozzle itself. then heat it up and get a tissue, and rub all the melted plasic of it without getting burnt too much, as its quite difficult lol. I used a cotton bud and twisted a tissue. Just try and remove all the plastic that you can. If its cool it will take you 100 times longer than if its hot, as its almost impossible to remove the tiny bits of plastic in the screw that the nozzle and pfte go into. My pfte didnt look that bad to me, but others told me it was seriously fried. I saw it had visible deformed and melted at one side and th walls had given way somewhat. Then try do do pulls again. you NEED to be able to do pulls correctly as that is the secret to cleaning this printer, even though its not a secret, but so many people just dont seem to be doing them right. They need to look like in my pics or you will never get good prints again. Then put it all back together! Like i said, 99% of all grinding is down to improper cleaning, and it should be advertised as such rather than even suggesting other reasons as i often see many people suggesting, when it usually always comes back to the blocked nozzle. I often blamed the feeder strength, or the mechanism, or wrongly sized filament or bowden tube or this or that but its just a nozzle jam, big or small IT IS responsible for the clicking sounds, as the filament is getting retracted due to excessive pressure.

Thats just the filament feeder marks, thats fine, if it breaks on you when pulling out though, most likely your pfte is dead. this happened to me after about 9 months of printing. change it and you should be good to do the atomic pulls again nicely, but i had hydraulic pressure when i installed a new one, but after i burnt it in once with a failed print it doesn't move any more as i assume some pla has been fused in the gap which is great ironically. But if you don't change the PFTE then you will never be able to clean your nozzle correctly and therefore not be able to print once its jammed. You can still print stuff using a work around, but if you can clean your nozzle, then get a new pfte and things WILL improve. The pfte thing should really be advertised as a thing to keep an eye on, and if you never have any problems and they start happening a lot, then its a good place to start. It WILL fail on you so be ready to change it. There is no avoiding changing it, its easy and only takes 5-20 minutes if you look at the guide, but pay close attention to how things should look after, all the spacing is very important or else you will have more problems, and leaks and more filament jams.

Yep, impossible to achieve atomic pulls means the PFTE is dead. But in my experience. If this is the result of pulling at 90c cooled from 210, then you need to change it. Have you ever seen it perfect? or are you just learning for the first time now, as it may be that you are no doing it right still? The bottom pic is the shape you are going for.

They look extremely melted, suggesting it may actually be printing far hotter that it is telling you, as you cant even see the layer lines. i have never seen such melty print my self, and with colorfabb always can print at 205-209c with near perfect results. Try setting the printer to print at 170 as a test. or just manually dial the temp to 90 and pretend you are doing an atomic pull, and see when the filament start to melt. Mine starts to melt at 130c. but can only push it through quicker at around 190 upwards. if yours starts meltig earlier then its your heating sensor or heater. Also if you could post some ultra close up pics of your atomic pulls, to make sure they are ultra perfect. It might help. I get plenty of material flow, even with a blocked nozzle. I did a print yesterday with a blocked nozzle, it came out perfect, only the first layer or two did i hear the clicking and saw it skipping a few lines as it tried to layer them down. Also try printing without the olsson block installed.....Basically try everything. Ever since i installed my new PFTE my printer started to act differently after a while. No idea why but thats life. I had to change the way i worked. Maybe the olsson block is giving you issues the way its installed or something? Again i'm just guessing. I was going to get the olsson block myself, but as im in the middle of a crazy job, i just cant risk taking anything apart as if i cant put it back together properly or install something right then i simply wouldn't have the time to fix it.

Thats a shame, have you tried printing things twice, at the same time and individually? And if so, were the lines in the same place? I guess if they aren' tthen i dont know but if they are then you can start digging for solutions. You need to find a consistent variable that you can work from. Or else you will just be guesing like the rest of us. If you can get exactly the same result twice, then you can start looking for fixes. Good luck. Ill let you know if i think of anything. Maybe your heating sensor has died? Just a guess.

Stick it in at like 210 degrees c and then dial it down to 90 after you run through some filament. Make sure you push filament through the nozzle during the time its at 210 though as the whole point is to press it against the insides of the nozzle so that when it cools and you pull it out, it pulls off any crap on the sides. your tip should look like a pencil.

Lol, im pretty certain it is not a good pull.