not round

[faniemarise 0]

Hi everybody

I am new here .

I bought my first 3D printer about a week ago. It is an Ultimaker Original +

My Questions are as follows

1: when I print thin walls they tend to split. I cannot find a thin wall setting on my printer

2: when I print small cylindrical features they are not very round.

3: When i print small writing it is unreadable

Can anyone please advise me on how to fix these three problems?

[gr5 2,267]

Picture would help.

#1:

Well it's probably underextruding. You probably have your cura settings such that nozzle width is .4 (I hope) and shell thickness is .8. If not then that might be your problem as shell MUST be a multiple of wall thickness. It's only extruding at maybe 70% what it is supposed to be so you get gaps between the two passes.

Try tightening the screw that sets the tension on the feeder. You want that pretty tight. Tighter than you would think.

More likely you are just printing too fast. Try slowing it down to 25mm/sec. You can adjust the speed live as it prints and see how slow before you stop underextruding.

#2 Well this is probably the 4 long belts are too loose. If you put the head in the corner and pluck them they should be around 100 to 200 Hz - you can try a guitar tuner app. Or play the note on a piano. To tighten the easiest trick is to search thingiverse for Ultimaker belt tighteners and print some.

#3 - this is tricky - get #1 and #2 perfect first. I recommend doing only a constant width font (no serifs) so arial is good. Lie to cura about your nozzle width/line thickness (which version of cura?) and do perhaps .3mm nozzle width (even though I assume it's .4) and .9mm shell (3 passes max) and overextrude a bit - maybe 50%. You can also get smaller nozzles but if you do you will have to either print without the fan shroud or 3d print one designed for e3d nozzles (there are some on youmagine - ask me if you decide to go this route).

But fix #1 and #2 first. #3 is more advanced.

[faniemarise 0]

Edited September 6, 2017 by gr5

[faniemarise 0]

Thanks for the reply gr5

I posted a picture above. as you can see the small holes in the center and just below on the gear are not round. the writing on the test print is horrible. and on the right you can see what happens when I print thin walls. (it is a cookie cutter)

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Thanks for  the reply gr5

I posted a picture above. as you can see the small holes in the center and just below on the gear are not round. the writing on the test print is horrible. and on the right you can see what happens when I print thin walls. (it is a cookie cutter)

 

No pic visible here.

[gr5 2,267]

I repaired the picture.

Yep. Same advice. Tighten the long belts to make holes round.

I'm not 100% sure you have underextrusion. It's a bit blurry but in the inner print the outer walls seem to be connected to each other but not connected to the infill. So if you have underextrusion then it's not as serious as I expected. Instead that is probably just not enough top/bottom layers. You want at least 4 top/bottom layers. So if your layer height is for example .2mm then you want 0.8mm top/bottom layers.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I repaired the picture.

Yep.  Same advice.  Tighten the long belts to make holes round.  

I'm not 100% sure you have underextrusion.  It's a bit blurry but in the inner print the outer walls seem to be connected to each other but not connected to the infill.  So if you have underextrusion then it's not as serious as I expected.  Instead that is probably just not enough top/bottom layers.  You want at least 4 top/bottom layers.  So if your layer height is for example .2mm then you want 0.8mm top/bottom layers.

Thanks for making the pic visible. Though I had nothing to offer to help, it is good to have the visual when you, or others, off help.

Thanks