Does anyone know what this banding is?

[iverstaylot00 0]

Hi guys! I'll try to make this as detailed as possible to help anyone who is kind enough to provide some insight 🙂 I hope this is not too much information, however I want to make everyone's job easier by providing all needed info right off the bat. Also, I don't mean this to bash cura. I absolutely adore it. Built-in tree support generation in particular has me hooked.

 

For a while now, I've been getting these weird print artifacts for a single layer. It only happens along layers where there is some sort of major feature change (like the end of that joining material between the two towers). I've also seen it happen with many other features. In the benchy model posted down below, I added some colorcoded lines to show off other features that can produce this result. I'm 99% sure this is not a machine issue, as it's reflected in the slicer.  Plus prints in other slicers turn out fine. Nevertheless, I've checked my belt tension, calibrated esteps again, and entirely replaced my zscrew assembly (for a lead with one start, not four).  None of these things have fixed the issue. I have also tried slicing on a separate computer with an identical profile (to make sure it's not a corrupted install), and I am able to reproduce the same issues. I also found this post on imgur from a user who is having an extremely similar issue to mine https://imgur.com/gallery/P6HFD, notice how his banding is in very similar areas as mine.

 

I have provided the sliced gcode I used to print for both the caliper mount and the benchy! I have also provided a download for my cura profile I used to slice these models down below (along with screenshots for a faster glance at my printing speeds)

banded-benchy.gcode

Caliper Mount.gcode

Caliper Mount.stl

 

Print Settings w/ Custom Overrides (print specific)

Printed on an Ender 5 with TMC2209s. I swapped in the stock mainboard with A4988s for the hell of it to double check it wasn't an issue with my MB, and reproduced an identical print using the same gcode.

I am not 100% sure if it will reflect this in the profile download that I gave, but I manually changed the layer height from 0.2 to 0.12mm (which does not require any microstepping by my z stepper)

 

i-used-this-profile.curaprofile

 

Model Specific Overrides for both Benchy and the caliper mount

 

 

 

Model Banding

Going from the top to the bottom for the benchy;

• Purple lines up with the first layer of the roof print. You can see it left a minor horizontal band
• Blue lines up with TWO feature/shell changes, the top of the porthole and also the bottom of the rear window (they are both the same exact layer). Also take note this is the worst horizontal band out of all of them. Coincidence?
• Black lines up with the bottom of the porthole
• Red lines up with the top layer of the interior deck
• Pink lines up with the top layer of the bottom of the crate in the back (it rests a few layers lower than the rest of the deck)

There are some other minor banding artifacts that I did not highlight that are caused by the top layers of the crate in back, top layer of the little cylinder in back, and top layer of the steering wheel and dash (I know its not a car, but thats the only term I can think for it)

 

 

 

 

 

Am I expecting too much from cura? I dont mean to sound like a dong with this, I mean it entirely constructively. It's a slicer developed that is free for all to use.

 

Again, thanks in advance for any and all help given, I hate to ask others for help but I've tried so much self-experimenting and been unable to smash this problem. It's safe to say this has been frustrating me quite a bit, especially when I contours in vase mode that are so flawless they reflect the individual facets of the original STL (photo below)

 

 

EDIT: I totally forgot to add, for some reason I wasn't able to replicate these bands when checking the layer view in an external gcode viewer. Perhaps that is because cura represents extrusion widths in layer mode more accurately than said external viewers? 

Edited April 22, 2020 by iverstaylot00