Problem with raised letters

[gr5 2,229]

Look at the ironing feature in Cura.  It was made for this.  Also search for posts made by "neotko" (who invented this) along with the words "neosanding" or "ironing".

[maggiolo72 6]

I saw it but for what I know for ironing you need a special flat nozzle, or not ? Anny suggestion for settings ?

 

[GregValiant 1,351]

The regular nozzle will work fine.

I think the main setting is the Flow% for ironing.  If the layer went down with some slight over-extrusion and the Ironing flow is set too high then the nozzle can act like a bulldozer and push around the plastic that is already there and that will leave ridges.  I would start with the default 5% and see how it looks.

[maggiolo72 6]

I have seen suggestion of 120mm/s speed looks crazy for me 

[GregValiant 1,351]

For ironing, the nozzle needs to smooth the plastic that is already there and add a tiny bit to fill in the gaps.  I would think that at slower speeds the heat from the nozzle would have a bit longer to act on the surface (before it passes by) and do a better job of softening the plastic.  Having the fan off while ironing a surface might help as well.  It isn't something I've used much as I'm more of a structural/product guy.

 

The lab chief here at the Ultimaker Forum is @geert_2.  Maybe he's done some experiments with ironing?

[maggiolo72 6]

First try with ironinig and looks horrible ....

 

[GregValiant 1,351]

The Heartbreak of Psoriasis.

The motion looks like it was correct but it certainly didn't bond to the layer.

When I zoom into that picture there are gaps between all the regular extrusions.  That is an absolute indicator of under-extrusion.  You need to fix that before moving onto adding the ironing stuff.

If it is possible to do so - have you calibrated the Esteps on that printer?  Cura needs to have the correct (exact) filament diameter entered as well (Ex: my 1.75 filament from Matter Hacker is always 1.72mm in diameter.  It makes a difference).

[gr5 2,229]

@maggiolo72 Are you using PLA?

 

Looking at that photo - ignoring that mess - the layer below has severe underextrusion.  I'd say around 20% underextrusion.  You need to fix that first.  You are either printing too cold, too fast, or something is wrong with your printer.  It could be the feeder isn't gripping the filament tight enough.  It could be there is a constriction in the hot end.  I could give you a list of the top 30 things that cause underextrusion on the UM2 printer but I don't think that will help you much.

 

After you get all those gaps filled in on your top layer THEN look into ironing.

 

neotko invented it and he has a business where he prints and sells many dozens of key rings per day.  To hotels.  Each plastic key thing is flat and has the hotel logo and the room number.  So it's just like the print with the writing.  He perfected ironing over hundreds of prints.  So his posts on the issue are the most informative.  I don't use the search on this page here but go to google and add "site:ultimaker.com neotko" followed by ironing or neosanding.

 

But before you try ironing you need to fix your printer.  Hint: it's not the belts, lol.  It's the hot or cold end.  Or your settings (too fast or too cold or both).

 

 

[maggiolo72 6]

Hi

 I am using pla+.

The e steps are correct, 10 cm of extrusion on the gcode are 10 cm of filament in the real life, don't know about the filament diameter, I use a sunlu one.

Regarding the other parameters.

Extrusion: can't be severe  under extrusion, I made 4 days ago the wall test and was really precise with a 90% of setting.

It's not too fast because I am printing between 50 and  35mm/s, there are no constriction in the hot end because everything was cleaned 4 days ago, and I put a new nozzle.

But i have a different cooling system with a 50x50 turbo fan, at 100% maybe is too much air I will try to reduce it.

Also I print at 200 c° so maybe is too cold, but I made a tower and was ok i will try 205°

 

[gr5 2,229]

It's hard to measure underextrusion by looking at a wall.  20% underextrusion looks PERFECT on a wall.  You have to look at top surfaces.  Or beter, do 100% infill so you can examine it on each layer and adjust your temperature and fan as you move.

 

Can you see those gaps in your top surface?  There should be no gaps.  It should be more like this:

[gr5 2,229]

You think your hot and cold ends are fine but I doubt it.  There are just so many things that can go wrong.  Try helping the filament by pushing it with a LOT of force - maybe 2kg of force just before the feeder.  See if that closes the gaps.

 

Or try fighting the feeder when you are printing at 10% feedrate.  the feeder on a cheap printer should pull at least 5 lbs or 2kg of force.  A decent printer can push 10 pounds (5kg) and a bondtech feeder can push with about 20 pounds (about 10kg) of force.

 

Less than 5lbs/2kg is just a crappy printer or maybe something needs fixing on it.

 

Similarly - if your hot end has any teflon in it, the teflon can get old.  When it gets old it gets soft and any pressure squeesing it vertically can turn into forces that squeeze the filament tightly.

 

I'm only covering a few issues.  There's really something like 30 things that can cause underextrusion.  The driver might be current limited - especially if you are in "silent" mode.  The driver may be overheating - maybe the room is just too hot.  There's still a LOT of other things that can be the issue.

[maggiolo72 6]

ok understood, I will have more check. In a while I will put a BMG feeder, tube is new capricorn teflon,  room is 15 c°...

 

Thank you for your suggestions  

 

[GregValiant 1,351]

"Extrusion: can't be severe  under extrusion, I made 4 days ago the wall test and was really precise with a 90% of setting."

 

This is your photo.  The yellow arrows indicate gaps between the lines of extrusion.  That is plain old under-extrusion.

The red arrows are showing that an "extrusion up and extrusion back" aren't as bad and you can see that throughout the print.  That is an error and is likely mechanical as those lines should always be "Line Width" apart and any under-extrusion should be even gaps on either side.

"...with a 90% of setting"

Did you use a "single wall" or "double wall" calibration cube to calibrate your flow?  I have posted some really good rants about my feelings regarding calibrating that way.  Calibrate your Esteps (if possible on your printer) and you are done.  Single and double wall calibration tests are misleading at best as the situation rarely occurs in real life.  Let the print talk to you and what that print is saying is "Hey, I'm really under-extruding here!".

[maggiolo72 6]

Oh there is soooo much thing to learn 🙂 I have this printer since two weeks and every day I discover something new...

Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

I used the one wall cube, with 100% the wall was 0.47 mm with 90% was 0.41mm, regarding the e step I have a gcode that extrude 10cm and the filament outside the feeder is exactly 10cm. before was around 11cm so I changed the value inside the printer firmware.

In the meantime I have raised the temperature to 205, the flow to 95% and put the fan at 60%.

First layer, looks bettor no ?

 

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by maggiolo72

[GregValiant 1,351]

You can open that gcode file in a text editor and alter the E value to "E100".  10% of 100 is easier to see (and measure) than 10% of 10.

There is an E calibrator included in the "Greg's SD Print Tool" app I've attached below.  If you feel like installing it then unzip the file and run the setup.  You will probably have to fool your anti-virus as it is unsigned.  (I would add a signature but that costs money).  If you don't care to install it that's OK too.  Happy New Year.

 

 

Gregs SD Print Tool.zip

[maggiolo72 6]

25 minutes ago, GregValiant said:

You can open that gcode file in a text editor and alter the E value to "E100".  10% of 100 is easier to see (and measure) than 10% of 10.

There is an E calibrator included in the "Greg's SD Print Tool" app I've attached below.  If you feel like installing it then unzip the file and run the setup.  You will probably have to fool your anti-virus as it is unsigned.  (I would add a signature but that costs money).  If you don't care to install it that's OK too.  Happy New Year.

 

 

Gregs SD Print Tool.zip 274.43 kB · 0 downloads

Thank you but my printer is not connected to a pc, I use only an sd card .

 

[GregValiant 1,351]

Yes, the app requires a USB connection to send commands to the printer.  It doesn't print over the USB but it does tell the printer what file on the SD card to print.

[maggiolo72 6]

Maybe last post for the 2021, top layer 

 

100% flow -35mm/s - 205c°- 60% fan.

 

What do you think ?

 

In the meantime, Happy new year to all of you, hopefully next year will be less crazy than this one.

Thanks again for the time spent around my issues..... 

[GregValiant 1,351]

And for 2022 buy yourself a magnifying glass.

[maggiolo72 6]

That's looks a nice way to say that is not good....

Ok ok but at least is still an improvement 🙂

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by maggiolo72

[gr5 2,229]

Don't judge over/under extrusion by the bottom layer.  The bottom layer is affected much more by leveling.  In fact it is desirable to overextrude the bottom layer.  So typically the leveling procedure sets z=0 to be *below* the print bed by about 0.1mm.  this is on purpose to get the part to stick well (really push/squish that bottom layer into the bed).

 

Make sure you are on the 3rd layer before judging over/underextrusion.

 

I recommend doing a small print - maybe 20mm cube with 100% fill and looking at the gaps between the fill lines starting on the 3rd layer.  Then you can play with flow, temperature, speed live while printing from the TUNE menu (your printer appears to have Marlin firmware so you likely have a live TUNE menu where you can adjust some parameters while printing).

[maggiolo72 6]

8 minutes ago, gr5 said:

Don't judge over/under extrusion by the bottom layer.  The bottom layer is affected much more by leveling.  In fact it is desirable to overextrude the bottom layer.  So typically the leveling procedure sets z=0 to be *below* the print bed by about 0.1mm.  this is on purpose to get the part to stick well (really push/squish that bottom layer into the bed).

 

Make sure you are on the 3rd layer before judging over/underextrusion.

 

I recommend doing a small print - maybe 20mm cube with 100% fill and looking at the gaps between the fill lines starting on the 3rd layer.  Then you can play with flow, temperature, speed live while printing from the TUNE menu (your printer appears to have Marlin firmware so you likely have a live TUNE menu where you can adjust some parameters while printing).

The last pictures are from the top surface skin layer.  My U20 have no Marlin firmware, think reprap,  but I can do some live tuning. If I remember correctly speed -temperature -flow -fan speed....

 

[GregValiant 1,351]

I will apologize if my comment about the magnifying glass sounded flip.

When I started out I struggled with under-extrusion on my Ender 3 Pro.  I have a magnifying light (handy for removing stubborn supports) and also a microscope.  It was under the microscope that I finally understood what people (including gr5) were talking about.

I'm a little confused about what printer you have.  The first 3mf file loaded as a "Longer LK1" and now you mentioned a "U20".  @gr5 knows his Ultimakers.  I am more familiar with the "other" printers.  The whole point of course is to get you to a point where - when a print finishes you look at it and KNOW that it's good because you've learned what to look for.

[maggiolo72 6]

Eheh no need to apologize 🙂 you have right.

Alfawise u20 and longer lk1 are identical, I have a friend of mine working into a recycling place and someone throw this printer into the garbage. I love to fix broken thing and I start this new adventure 🙂

The hotend was clogged so I changed the whole part, and made some other fix....

 

Now is working almost every day for a 1:1 F18 copckit for my sim....

 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by maggiolo72

[maggiolo72 6]

Sorry if is off topic but I really need help with design a 3d part.

Maybe someone is more skilled of me, that's easy 🙂

I need to print the triangular part that is inside the stl attached, any chance that you can draw me a like 20cm extrusion with a triangular shape that match the inside object in the stl ?

 

 

 

Playseat_Air_Warthog_extender__v09.stl