Artifacts when printing small details

[ihackstuff 5]

Hello everyone! I'm having a consistent irregularity when I print small details. I get the artifacts which you can see in the picture below, on the 2016 and on the lower rings. They are "nozzle blobs". Any ideas how to reduce those? Or am I trying to print too small. FWIW, this entire piece is 38mm wide.

I have a UM2, Olson block, .4mm nozzle, Robert's feeder and I'm printing with Ultimaker Yellow PLA@210 (I'm not sure what kind of filament that is because I don't think Ultimaker sells filament anymore...)

Thanks everyone!

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

Ultimaker does still sell PLA filament (through their distributors and resellers).

Try printing a bit cooler and if you get underextrusion also a bit more slowly. You may also increase travel speed to 250mm/s in order to reduce oozing.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Guest

[ihackstuff 5]

Thanks. I"m trying to decrease temp right now.. Trying 205. I wish there was a way to set speed accurately during the job. The panel only shows a percentage (like it's at 100% now)..

Also, I'm at 50mm/s speed right now.

 

Ultimaker does still sell PLA filament (through their distributors and resellers).

Try printing a bit cooler and if you get underextrusion also a bit more slowly. You may also increase travel speed to 250mm/s in order to reduce oozing.

 

Edited July 4, 2016 by Guest

[geert_2 558]

Try reducing the temp in steps of 5°C while printing the fine details. With some filaments, you may be able to go down to 185°C. Also reduce speed accordingly to improve the shape of the text and lines (less vibration effects of the head), and to give the filament time to melt.

For small text, similar to your "2016", I usually get the best results around 190°C and 25mm/s speed, for colorFabb and Ultimaker Pearl filament. (I don't know the yellow.)

This greatly reduces the stringing and the blobs, but I could never totally eliminate these "blobs": whenever the head wants to jump to another area, it pauses a fraction of a second, retracts, and then jumps. This leaves a small round mark at the take-off point. I think your design is at about the edge of what is possible with a 0.4mm nozzle.

[neotko 1,417]

Also that think you try to print has lots of retractions, you might want to play with cura 'coasting' option. That option will stop the extruder at the end of a loop, releasing the pressure and making that the blops are actual material used to print, because after each retraction the pressure builds up and it will have to find somewhere to go, in this case, blops on the print.

If you use S3D you can also play with wipe + coasting to do the same. Anyway you will need to adjust the values for your print/speed and material, because not all the materials have the same flow when they are extruded (I don't mean the 'flow' option, but the actual viscosity). So if you want to print that perfect, use slower speeds, play with coasting. And if you need to actually make lots of them, then you will need to adjust the settings for your desired print speed/temp/material, and that takes time and lots of tests.