Infill showing through walls

[lakerice 0]

I'm wondering if it's normal to have infill showing through the walls of a print?  Infill before walls is not checked in CURA so I'm not quite sure why this is happening.

[Smithy 1,144]

It depends on how much walls you print. What is your wall count in Cura?

[lakerice 0]

The wall count line count is 2.

[Smithy 1,144]

Increase the wall count to 3 or 4, then the infill should not be visible anymore.

[lakerice 0]

OK thanks I'll try that!

[yellowshark 153]

Hmn, well @Smithy solution for your infill problem is certainly sound but is it an infill problem? I am trying to work out what those vertical crosses are, most weird and not the result of random artefacts. Plus the vertical resolution is very poor especially for .1mm layer height. I wonder what print speed, extruder temp and flow % you are using? Is it an Ultimaker or another printer?

[lakerice 0]

Good point @yellowshark it might not be the infill you're seeing!  I'm still pretty new to this, so I don't know if there's some weird setting I did to cause this.  However, I did notice with .1 mm layer height in smaller prints, it was much less noticeable.  Also, my apologies; the layer height for the model in the picture was .2 and for the one I am currently printing (will be done by this time tomorrow night 🙁) it is .1 mm.  Print speed for that pic was 60 and I have upped it to 80 since it's already gonna be a 20 hour print.  It is an Ultimaker 2.  Not sure what the extruder temp  and flow % is as it's currently printing. 

[yellowshark 153]

Ok well the good news is you have an Ultimaker so you should be able to get a decent print, better than the pic you have posted. Even with 0.2 mm layer it is still poor. Now you are printing fast and the faster you go the lower your quality will be; lol I have never printed at 80 and have used 60 once; most of our work in engineering where accuracy and quality of finish are important so 30 is our normal speed. I am not suggesting you have to slow down to that speed, I am just making a point about the way this technology works.

 

Maybe when the print has finished you could post your speed and flow too and a pic of this new print. I would be happy to print your model for comparison if you can post it somewhere. I would though scale it down to reduce print time or maybe  just printing part of it would be better. (for me, not you!)

Edited April 28, 2019 by yellowshark
to clarify

[lakerice 0]

@yellowshark My print failed overnight as the material broke in the feeder and I spent all day taking apart the nozzle and feeder to clean all the filament (gotta say it is the most un-user friendly process trying to put an old Ultimaker feeder back together).  I've attached the partial print before it failed...definitely the printer speed was way too high but I also feel like .1 mm wasn't even good enough to produce a smooth print. 

 

I'm going to attach the CURA file because I'm really overwhelmed with understanding the plethora of settings and short of printing at 30 speed and .6 mm for 3 days, I can't think of what is wrong with my settings.

 

Thanks so much for your help!

UM2_updated chair for 3d printing thicker back_fixed.3mf

[yellowshark 153]

Hi @lakerice  OK I have your model and it has loaded OK into my Cura. I might be able to try some printing tonight but if not it will be Wednesday. Looking at your new pic, I am not 100% sure but I think you are suffering some under-extrusion. Is it possible to take another pic, directly from overhead rather than from the side and post that so I have a better view.

Also can you please tell me, for this version of the model, the following settings that you used.

 

layer height - I assume 0.1

extruder temp

print speed - if you used different speeds for different parts of the printing then give me all of them

flow %

 

please ignore layer 1 from the above

[lakerice 0]

@yellowshark thanks again.  So I don't have that print with me at the moment, but I tried printing this one with an even finer layer height (.06) and it looks like you're right; it is likely under-extruding.  As you can see the layers aren't printing smoothly at all.

 

To answer your questions:

 

Printer: Ultimaker 2 (not +)

layer height -  0.1 (for the purple print...new print was .06

extruder temp (220 as per the recommendation on the material reel (Colorfabb PLA)

print speed - if you used different speeds for different parts of the printing then give me all of them - 80 for the purple one and 50 for the white one I have attached.

flow % - 100%

[yellowshark 153]

Well the white one is over-extruding. lol I do not a pic to know that; 220 is way too hot for 0.6 at 50 mm/s 220. Now I have some figures I expect the grey one is over-extruding also. I will do some tests for you.

[lakerice 0]

Ah good to know about the PLA temp being too hot.  OK I await your print.  Thanks!

[geert_2 557]

I *do* think it is infill shining through, because the infill pattern in the first pic (of Cura) exactly matches the lines in the second pic (the photo). Maybe too much overlap between infill and walls? Or indeed overextrusion like yellowshark suggests: if the infill overextrudes upon slowing down at the end, causing a sort of blob, then I can imagine that this shows through, since the edge has nowhere to go but outwards. This effect would get worse at higher speeds, since the pressure in the nozzle can not immediately go down to zero when the printer slows down. Printing hotter could also increase this, I think, since the material is more molten and thus more easily flows away? But these are just educated guesses...

 

Usually I print with 100% infill, but when I occasionally print with low infill on my UM2, sometimes I also see the pattern shining through, although not so much as yours. But I print slower and cooler.

 

[yellowshark 153]

Hi @lakerice OK here is my result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My main settings were…

No support used - to reduce print time; so the seat front is missing a few layers!

 

(All) printer speeds           50mm/s

Extruder temp                   195

Layer height                       .15

Infill                                     10%

Walls                                   2 (set to nozzle width; my 0.4 nozzle extrudes 0.45 so my line widths are set to 0.45)

Cooling                               100%

Flow                                    100%

 

I was going to use 0.1 layer height but I had a couple of false starts including a filament failure half way through the print before this one and so pushed it up to 0.15 to reduce the print time a bit.

I did a partial test using 0.2 at 190 and there was some minimal under extrusion so I took the temp up to 195 and used that for this print but at 0.1 I would have used 190.

With an infill of 10% and 0.1 I set top layers to 15. I forgot this when I changed to 0.15 and indeed after layer 8 the seat top was fine; i.e. 1.2mm so 15 layers for 0.1 was a good guess, you would probably need another 1 or 2 layers i.e. 1.3/1.4 using 0.1 layers.

 

OK no two printers are the same, even if the same model. You have to consider manufacturing tolerances, hardware and firmware setup, general maintenance, slicer settings i.e. all the little hidden ones especially defaults if you do not set your own settings, and the PLA filament used.

But you can use these above as guidelines. On thing is for sure, you are printing too hot! I can get 50% more filament through at 30 degrees cooler than you (using 190). Having said that white filament has a reputation for being the most difficult colour to get right - which I have experienced first-hand.

I am not sure why I have so many artefacts on the legs. Pretty much standard settings for me apart from the 50mm/s and one of my go to filaments, so I am at a bit of a loss at the moment, probably this week-end's project! Will update you if I can.

[yellowshark 153]

Well it is a weird one @geert_2. My problem in understanding it is that I have never ever seen that before but like you I nearly always run cool and slow. I normally use 100% or 40% infill, or in this case 10%! The next print of this I do when investigating the zits on the legs I will drop to 0.1mm and use 190 temp. So as I said 220 is way too hot at 50mm/s;  it would be interesting if @lakerice could drop the  temp down to under 200 and see what impact that has.

[yellowshark 153]

Oh and important, or maybe not, I reduced the scale of you model by 50% so I could print in just a couple of hours.

[lakerice 0]

On 5/2/2019 at 7:12 AM, geert_2 said:

I *do* think it is infill shining through, because the infill pattern in the first pic (of Cura) exactly matches the lines in the second pic (the photo). Maybe too much overlap between infill and walls? Or indeed overextrusion like yellowshark suggests: if the infill overextrudes upon slowing down at the end, causing a sort of blob, then I can imagine that this shows through, since the edge has nowhere to go but outwards. This effect would get worse at higher speeds, since the pressure in the nozzle can not immediately go down to zero when the printer slows down. Printing hotter could also increase this, I think, since the material is more molten and thus more easily flows away? But these are just educated guesses...

 

Usually I print with 100% infill, but when I occasionally print with low infill on my UM2, sometimes I also see the pattern shining through, although not so much as yours. But I print slower and cooler.

 

@geert_2 yup I think it was infill actually.  When I made the walls thicker that eliminated the problem.  

[lakerice 0]

17 hours ago, yellowshark said:

Hi @lakerice OK here is my result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My main settings were…

No support used - to reduce print time; so the seat front is missing a few layers!

 

(All) printer speeds           50mm/s

 

Extruder temp                   195

 

Layer height                       .15

 

Infill                                     10%

 

Walls                                   2 (set to nozzle width; my 0.4 nozzle extrudes 0.45 so my line widths are set to 0.45)

 

Cooling                               100%

 

Flow                                    100%

 

 

 

I was going to use 0.1 layer height but I had a couple of false starts including a filament failure half way through the print before this one and so pushed it up to 0.15 to reduce the print time a bit.

 

 

I did a partial test using 0.2 at 190 and there was some minimal under extrusion so I took the temp up to 195 and used that for this print but at 0.1 I would have used 190.

 

 

With an infill of 10% and 0.1 I set top layers to 15. I forgot this when I changed to 0.15 and indeed after layer 8 the seat top was fine; i.e. 1.2mm so 15 layers for 0.1 was a good guess, you would probably need another 1 or 2 layers i.e. 1.3/1.4 using 0.1 layers.

 

 

OK no two printers are the same, even if the same model. You have to consider manufacturing tolerances, hardware and firmware setup, general maintenance, slicer settings i.e. all the little hidden ones especially defaults if you do not set your own settings, and the PLA filament used.

 

But you can use these above as guidelines. On thing is for sure, you are printing too hot! I can get 50% more filament through at 30 degrees cooler than you (using 190). Having said that white filament has a reputation for being the most difficult colour to get right - which I have experienced first-hand.

 

 

I am not sure why I have so many artefacts on the legs. Pretty much standard settings for me apart from the 50mm/s and one of my go to filaments, so I am at a bit of a loss at the moment, probably this week-end's project! Will update you if I can.

 

@yellowshark wow yours turned out great!  I definitely understand not using supports to speed up the process.  It's enough to see if the chair turned out or not.  Was this the full scale or a reduced size version?  

 

So those settings are great to know.  While I was waiting for this, I printed the chair with 10% infill, .06 layer height and 40mm/s.  I changed the setting for material to default PLA in my Ultimaker 2, but in hindsight I really should have played around with the temperature because the infill inside had a lot of flaky gunk.  However, the outside turned out pretty smooth until the last few hours or so the print failed due to grinding in the feeder.  The print was about 2 days and 10 hours I think so it really sucked having it fail at that point.  I tried to edit the .gcode file to remove everything before z156 where it failed but as you'll see in my attachment, it didn't work (the nozzle bumped the chair when I tried to resume, so it was probably doomed no matter what).  

 

I'll try your settings though and see what happens!

 

Thanks again!

[yellowshark 153]

Wow @lakerice, 2 days + you are brave😃. Yes your latest print looks much better and your legs look better than mine, I must get to the bottom of these zits although that will have to wait as I have a job agreed today that I need to deliver on Tuesday. My print that you are looking at was done with the model scaled down 50%. It is a bit late in the day now but you know it is always worth scaling down a model or sinking it into the bed (-Z position) just to print a portion of the model, to make sure the settings are right before pursuing a large print of 1-2 days.

I note your response to @geert_2 where you said you made the walls thicker - I wonder what you actually did? IMHO and how I always work is that line width = nozzle and wall width = line width and you define the number of walls you want. Whether that 2,3,4 or whatever is up to you. And I always run with infill overlap = 15%; no scientific reason, it may be the default  that I use but it works for me. What I did change last year was to measure the width of the filament being extruded which was 0.45 not 0.40 so I changed the line width to 0.45 which of course I will recheck when a new nozzle is deployed.

[lakerice 0]

2 hours ago, yellowshark said:

Wow @lakerice, 2 days + you are brave😃. Yes your latest print looks much better and your legs look better than mine, I must get to the bottom of these zits although that will have to wait as I have a job agreed today that I need to deliver on Tuesday. My print that you are looking at was done with the model scaled down 50%. It is a bit late in the day now but you know it is always worth scaling down a model or sinking it into the bed (-Z position) just to print a portion of the model, to make sure the settings are right before pursuing a large print of 1-2 days.

 

 

I note your response to @geert_2 where you said you made the walls thicker - I wonder what you actually did? IMHO and how I always work is that line width = nozzle and wall width = line width and you define the number of walls you want. Whether that 2,3,4 or whatever is up to you. And I always run with infill overlap = 15%; no scientific reason, it may be the default  that I use but it works for me. What I did change last year was to measure the width of the filament being extruded which was 0.45 not 0.40 so I changed the line width to 0.45 which of course I will recheck when a new nozzle is deployed.

@yellowshark Haha yes it did test my patience to do 50 + hour print...Yes it seems to look better but for some reason the layer height appears almost .2 layer height by the time it gets to the middle to the top of the chair.  Not sure why.  I did do several smaller chairs before and other than quality, there were no problems with fails.  The infill showing through was mainly on the big grey chair I posted earlier so my guess is the bigger the object, the more susceptible it is to this problem.  

 

Yup I changed the number for walls from 2 to 3 and that did the job.  I'm not too familiar with different nozzle gauges yet as I bought this Ultimaker used as is and I am pretty new to 3d printing.  It is very frustrating though because no matter how many atomic methods I use and adjusting the tension in the feeder it always seems to grind my filament to a pulp.  Only a whole day spent trying to take apart the feeder and putting it back together and cleaning every mm of it seems to get prints going again smoothly.  Might be the fact it's an old Ultimaker...or I got sold a lemon 🙂

[Ezekiel 0]

I was having this issue also. I did everything people were saying, even put my infill overlap percent to 0. I found out eventually that to solve the problem, you need to make the infill overlap percent negative so that it doesn't get so close to the outer wall. Hopefully this helps!