JackL

From what I've gathered from this and from my experience, these "consistent inconsistent layers" seem to not be from the fault of the printer. In fact, I've observed from the Lulzbot Mini 2, Prusa i3 Mk3 (to a lesser extent), and my BLV MGN Cube that I've built. So, I tried printing a few things and showing them to people like family and friends and nobody commented on the lines. So, I just accepted the fact that I was being a bit of a perfectionist and stopped caring too much about it. Some prints I've found really aren't effected by it that much, and I have gotten some pretty good prints that happened to come out without much lines, if at all (no significant changes in the slicer settings). As I have mentioned in the post, they do seem to change with the placement of the Z-seam. You could try other slicers such as PrusaSlicer to see if it results in changes that satisfy you. Here's something else that might help: This video by CNC Kitchen (https://youtu.be/Hvw3DrVAeTA). Basically, the video talks about adjusting the "Maximum Resolution" and "Maximum Deviation" settings in Cura. Because the lines are related to the Z-seam, I believe that the problem is related to the blobbing issue in general. I have tried this with some success in my free time, but haven't looked into it too much due to being busy with other things.

I apologize for not posting in a while. I haven't been able to work on this since it was close to the end of the semester at my school, and then I got caught up with a few things in summer. However, I did manage to get a 3D printer I've been building (I've been building my own BLV MGN Cube, with a custom frame), and while running test prints, I ran into the same problem that I did before, with consistent uneven layer lines. However, this time I know it's most likely not attributable to faults with the Z-axis (for those who didn't click the link, this printer has a dual Z-axis motor setup) because the lines appear in the same areas with scaled up parts. I printed a ripple test cuboid (I'm still tuning slicer/printer settings), scaled it up to 150% size, and printed it again with the exact same settings. To make sure speed wasn't a big factor in this, I printed it at 60mm/s and 20mm/s. But surprisingly, there was little to no difference between the prints at different speeds. Here are the prints: 20mm/s 60mm/s If you look closely at the uneven lines, you can see that they happen in the same areas on the cube, despite the differences in Z-height. With a few more of these prints, however, I found that putting the seam in one corner seemed to reduce the effect a little bit, though there were still some lines in the prints, in the same areas. Seam set in the corner What should I try next? Is there something I should try with the seams to further reduce the effect?

Ok, so I've been trying a few different things and started printing things because I can kind of live with the very small uneven layers on bigger prints. I can tell that it is not the temperature that's the cause of anything. I also downloaded the Creawesome mod for Cura and that seemed to reduce the issues and get rid of that tiny layer shift. Even though the Creawesome mod did reduce some effect of the lines on the test cube (not the one I made), the lines were still there.) Yesterday, I designed a stand for a floppy cube (yes I am a cuber) as seen below. However, on the finished print, I did notice something I had not seen before. When printing something tall and skinny, it didn't really print straight but rather printed in a kinda wobbly manner when printing upwards. Another weird thing is that this happened in pretty much the same place on the 2 prints (left is first prototype, right is the most recent prototype). Could this be a clue as to what my problem actually is? Maybe Z wobble? If so, how should I go about fixing it? If not, what should I try for next? Another thing I was noticing while printing was that the PTFE tube in the extruder fitting slid in place with retraction, but never actually popped out while printing. I tried printing without retraction (so the PTFE tubing wouldn't move in the fitting) to see if this movement could be the cause of the issue, but the lines still appeared on the test cube, so I don't think this is the main issue.

Ok, I apologize for the delay, I got caught up with a few things the past few days. So I tried printing something bigger, and the effect was greatly reduced. However, the lines still appear to be there on each print, though very subtle. I made something like the ripple test that I was using in Autodesk Inventor, but made it bigger (30mm x 30mm x 30mm) and with no letters or dots in it. I notice that the lines still happened in the same layers between these 2 prints. One of these was printed 10 degrees cooler(printed at 190 degrees), but I cant tell which one just by looking at them. I'll try a print at 180 degrees once I relevel my bed. Also, in the middle where the print transitions to rounded corners, there seems to be a small shift on one top square. One side (in the image below, it's the left side) seems to have shifted slightly into the print where it should be lined up with the side, and on the opposite side of the print, it's sticking a little bit outwards, like a really small layer shift. This shift happened on both prints on the same layer. Another thing I noticed when observing these prints is that the printer seemed to go a little bit passed the corners when rounding the square corners, as seen by the slight outwards bump on the corner in the image below. This happened on all of the square corners on both prints. I'm more worried about the layers than the corners, unless they have some sort of connection to the problem. What should I try next? I could find out which axes the shifts are happening after I level my bed again, as I wasn't thinking about the orientation as I was taking these off the printer. Should I try something like recalibrating my axes? Or what should I try next?

Ok, I know this has been a while from my previous updates, but I got caught up working on another project. So I have cleaned the Z-Axis thoroughly and lubricated it again, and although the effect seems reduced, though still notable. The print on the left is at 20mm/s (no speed settings above that speed) and the right is at my normal 50mm/s default settings. The uneven layers still seem to occur at around the same layers. What should I try next? What else could be causing this? Could this be something like Z-Wobble?

Yea.. so after trying a few different things I found that I am still getting the same results.

Ok, so I've tried cleaning the Z-axis screws and relubricating them, and I've also autotuned PID and set it. However, I still don't see much improvement. I'll try some more things related to these tomorrow and see if anything changes.

So I've had my Ender 3 for a while, and I've recently finished 2 upgrades for it: I've upgraded my motherboard to a MKS Gen 1.4 with TMC 2208 Stepper Drivers (from Waterott) for X, Y, Z, and E that are currently in the legacy mode (not using one-time-program or using UART), and I've added the Petsfang Duct with a 5015 blower fan, and replaced the hotend fan with a 40x40x20 12V Noctua (I wanted to see how it compared to the 40x40x10 12V Noctua for anyone wondering). Once I finished, I started printing calibration cubes (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1278865) and found inconsistent lines/uneven layers in the prints. However, when I modified settings and printed again, I found that the lines happened in pretty much the SAME places/layers. The lines showed up consistently in those layers as I modified print speed and a few other settings in Ultimaker Cura 4.0.0. I've also tried printing in a place other than the center of the build plate, and ended up with the same result. I thought my X-axis belt was a bit loose, so I tightened it up a bit, but I still get the same lines, in the same layers in my prints. I've tried adjusting the basic acceleration and jerk settings in Ultimaker Cura 4.0.0 to no avail. What should I try next?

So I tried doing this and ended up with all the dots on one side, which makes it seem like it is the transition to the outer layer that causes the dots. However, that also raises the question, why does it happen to some layers and not others?

I tried changing the settings to all at 25mm/s and I still ended up with the same results in the images from before.

So I tried some of the settings you suggested, only changing the settings above 25mm/s to it and leaving the rest that were slower than 25mm/s. However, I still got the same resulting bumps, which the only difference was that they were a tiny bit smaller. - Combing turned off did fix those random lines on the deck. - I stopped the print early because the rest of Benchy isn't necessary to for this problem. **Ultimaker Cura settings used. The speeds changed to 25mm/s were originally faster than that, and I left the slower speeds.** **TOP/SIDE 1 VIEW: There are no visible lines on the top, turning combing off did work in fixing this. However, the bumps are still visible on the side.** **SIDE VIEWS: The bumps are still present in the same locations as before, just a tiny bit smaller.**

So I have some experience with 3D printing, doing it at my school. But recently, I got a new Ender 3, and so I'm need to learn Ultimaker Cura, which I thought would be good to use for it. In adding some basic upgrades to the printer, I thought it would be a good idea to get some benchmark using 3D Benchy. On my first print of Benchy, I saw some salmon skin artifacts, as well as some random bumps on the sides of the Benchy, and some random lines on the deck. So I installed some TL Smoothers and printed the same Gcode. On the result, most of the salmon skin was gone. However, the other problems still remained. **SIDE VIEW: Left side is first Benchy print- notice the salmon skin near the top of the ship. Right is second Benchy print- after TL Smoothers are added. Circled in red are the random dots** I'm pretty sure that I can fix the lines on the deck of Benchy by turning combing off. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. **TOP VIEW: Left side is first Benchy print. Right is second Benchy print- after TL Smoothers are added. Circled in blue are the lines on the deck of Benchy** However, I'm not really sure about the bumps on the side of Benchy though. I don't believe it's a problem with my filament because the bumps are consistent. All bumps are in the same spots, on both prints. Maybe it has something to do with the extruder doing this (circled below in BLACK) in the Gcode (attached if you want to look at it), because the areas where the dots are seems to correlate with the places in the Gcode where the extruder does this. If this is not the problem, what is? How do I fix this? **SIDE VIEW: Random small bumps on the side of Bechy. This is the Benchy printed BEFORE TL Smoothers were added.** **SIDE VIEW: Random small bumps on the side of Bechy. This is the Benchy printed AFTER TL Smoothers were added. THE BUMPS IN THE RIGHT IMAGE ARE ALSO FOUND ON THE FIRST BENCHY IN THE SAME PLACES, BUT I LEFT OUT THAT IMAGE OUT BECAUSE THE FIRST IMAGE ALREADY PROVES THAT THIS IS TRUE.** **Below are the images from a similar Gcode (Combing off, slightly thicker walls) where this problem is still present. It's found mostly in the layers just after layer 18. What I think might be causing the problem is circled in black, though I'm not sure if it actually is the problem. The original Gcode is attached if you want to look at it.** CCR10_3DBenchy.gcode