Printing Questions

[kaybie 0]

 

Hi Guys and Gals,

I was hoping one or two of you would be able to give me some guidance on some printing issues I have repeatedly come across.

1) Small circular areas

Small circular areas seem to melt when printing - The rest of the print seems fine at this temperature, and I have the fan on 100%. Interestingly enough on this example print the left eye always melts and the right eye is always printed fine and they are the same radius.

2) Lines on printed surface

Seems to be from the print head moving from one position to another, it drags across the printed surface. Is this something I can change or learn to embrace.

3) Excess filimant on print area

The printer leaves a slight trail in places when moving from one point to another, these can be cleaned up using a scapel after but wondered if there was something I can do to avoid this?

Many thanks for your time to read this.

Kaybie

 

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

It's on an UM1, isn't it? (You wrote 'fan' and not 'fans'... ;-) )

1: Most probably you have to decrease the temperature. What temperature and what speed are you printing at? You may also try to rotate the print by 90 degree counter-clockwise.

2 and 3: Make sure you have retraction enabled. Since Cura 14.03 you can set a retraction hop in the expert settings. This leaves even less traces. If you have combing enabled, disable it to get rid of the lines or - if completely disabling combing is not an option - use the RetractWhileCombing plugin. For a not too small print like yours I would recommend switching it off completely; I think you won't loose much time with it.

 

[kaybie 0]

Hi Dim3nsioneer,

Sorry my bad - I did mean fans. It is an UM2.

My Settings are:

Speed: 100%

Temp: 210

Buildplate: 60

Fan Speed: 100%

Material Flow: 100%

Thanks for the tips regarding combing - I will have a play with these for 2 and 3

 

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

Could you please write the print speed in mm/s? 100% could be anything...

 

[dreamworker 1]

Hi Kaybe: For my experience you can create small circular area only with a small temperature an slow speed.For example: I created a dozen of cylinders with 1,8 mm diameter an 4 mm of height in one session with 20 mm/s speed and 190°C of temp and fans at 100% of speed for my last project.

 

[closedcircuit 1]

With regard to the melted eye, I've just had a similar issue (see http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/5651-sphere-problem-with-last-layers/).

Dim3nsioneer's help was invaluable (as it always is), but the trick that worked best in my specific case was to print several items using the "Print all at once" feature. This allowed more time for the surface to cool in between each layer. I understand that you can also achieve the same effect by adding small cylinders in the corners. These should be 2mm higher than the model you want to print.

 

[kaybie 0]

@Dim3nsioneer - Sorry, my bad - read them off the printer while it was printing not giving it much thought. 40mm/s.

@Dreamworker - I will try slowing it down and lowering the temp a bit more, thanks

@ClosedCircuit - Now that is a good idea, I hadn't thought of that - it would move the head away and back long enough for the core temp to drop - will give this a try also and compare

Thanks for the time guys

 

[skint 61]

Yeah small circular objects can be a pain, the tricks suggested above work a treat. Also, did you print the part like it is in your picture, this orientation? If so, I found that rotating it 90 degrees so that both eyes are on the same line as the left fan, can help a little too.