Cura, prints with verticle waves/ribs on smooth surfaces

[virgodave61 0]

I'm using Cura on a Reprap Mendel. Im getting vertical ribs or waves on smooth surfaces on my prints, on all sides.

Reprap forum suggest I try a different slicer, but I love Cura because its the only slicer that I found that does infills.

I print a round gear or a box and I get the ribs on the sides, as a matter of fact if I load the gear into Cura and zoom in on it, it shows the ribs.In the past I used Slice3r and had no ribs, but the gear printed with gaps in the teeth. I would give a pic of my problem but my present camera dosent do macro. Please help.

Thanks

Dave

[gr5 1,251]

We really need to see a photo. Could the ribs be part of the STL file?

There's lots of causes of vertical ribbing such as ringing and temperature issues, STL file stuff, interactions between floating point math and STL files and Cura, hardware issues. These different types of vertical lines look different

Do you have a cell phone? Cell phones are usually fantastic at macro photography.

[gr5 1,251]

Check out the vertical lines on these photographs:

https://ultimaker.com/en/community/view/2872-some-calibration-photographs

Also consider rotating your part by 15 degrees and printing again to see if that makes a difference.

[virgodave61 0]

No this pic doesn't resemble my issue but will try rotateing.

Thanks

 

Check out the vertical lines on these photographs:

https://ultimaker.com/en/community/view/2872-some-calibration-photographs

Also consider rotating your part by 15 degrees and printing again to see if that makes a difference.

 

Edited July 19, 2015 by gr5

[virgodave61 0]

I tried the cell phone, hope this helps.

 

We really need to see a photo.  Could the ribs be part of the STL file?

There's lots of causes of vertical ribbing such as ringing and temperature issues, STL file stuff, interactions between floating point math and STL files and Cura, hardware issues.  These different types of vertical lines look different

Do you have a cell phone?  Cell phones are usually fantastic at macro photography.

 

Edited July 19, 2015 by gr5

[virgodave61 0]

If the problem is part of the stl why does Slice3r do a good smooth job? Slice3r sucks on infills

thats why I'm using Cura, but I cant print a smooth side.

 

We really need to see a photo.  Could the ribs be part of the STL file?

There's lots of causes of vertical ribbing such as ringing and temperature issues, STL file stuff, interactions between floating point math and STL files and Cura, hardware issues.  These different types of vertical lines look different

Do you have a cell phone?  Cell phones are usually fantastic at macro photography.

 

Edited July 19, 2015 by gr5

[gr5 1,251]

Theory1:

What type and version of firmware do you have on your Mendel. It looks like it is starting and stopping along the straight edge and it over extrudes those bumps in a vertical pattern each time it stops. Is that possible?

Do you know if you have Marlin? Sprinter? Sailfish? Teacup? And which version.

I've seen older firmwares do exactly the pattern I'm seeing on your Mendel.

Theory2:

Could those bumps be infill lines showing through? If you stop the print half way or if you look at the print while it is printing - do those bumps line up with the infill touching the outer edge? You want the "shell" of your part to be 2 passes. So if your nozzle is .4mm you want a shell of .8mm. If your nozzle is .5mm you want your shell at 1.0mm. Check that - very easy to fix if that is the issue.

[virgodave61 0]

Thanks very much for your time I will check the infill idea first, then the firmware issue.

My firmware is very old.

[peetersm 122]

from your photo looks like:

 

Theory2: Could those bumps be infill lines showing through?

I've been having all sorts of issues with these retraction blobs, I've just today had a chance to look back into this and I am convinced it's all due to 15.X making bad gcode for me. Even with 3 outer shells the blobs still show through.

The crazy blobs started post 14.12.1 I would try downloading CURA 14.12.1 and see if they magically go away. (I have not tried 15.06.x since it's seems very buggy at the moment)

here's some photos

Edited July 22, 2015 by Guest
add images to post

[tinkergnome 691]

@peetersm:

while you're at it... The suspicious behavior is switchable in Cura 15.04 - so you can make a direct comparison if you like...

Edited July 23, 2015 by Guest

[gr5 1,251]

So which way gives you the bumps? checked or unchecked?

[tinkergnome 691]

So which way gives you the bumps?  checked or unchecked?

 

Well, "unchecked" is the default for all recent Cura versions since 2015 (15.01 and newer), "checked" was the default for all older versions.

But it exists as an (switchable) option only in 15.04 (AFAIK).

As a reference:

The differences were first discussed in this thread.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Guest

[peetersm 122]

that's it. when the infill is printed 1st (default for >15.01, and only user modifiable post 15.04) then you get the horrible surface bumps. When the infill is printed last like 14.xx and lower the surface looks good.

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to minimize these retraction blobs. Guess I'll stick with 14.12.1 for the time being.