How to improve this print?

[electronic_matt 0]

Make sure you look at the model in Cura's layers view. This shows the actual toolpath from the generated gcode. Sometimes the slicer which is a separate process will remove small detail. Due to the separate process, only the layers view shows this. The other views aren't aware that the slicer removed part of the model.

 

It shows the top grill in layer view, I think the problem is, cure is treating that whole top layer as one thing, and when I printed the first one, the top and bottom layer thickness was greated, and that's why it just about managed to print a bit of the grill on the first one. I think I need to make the grill as a seperate solid component in sketchup and join that to the main part, I think haha

 

[electronic_matt 0]

Still can't get the front grill right, I did some different designs, but none came out how I'd like it to be

when doing the grill area I drew a retangle pushed that down into the front face, then drew lots of lines across that retangle and pulled them up to create the grill effect, when I printed it, it was just flat on the top, so I then tried to make the grill part seperate and join the two parts together to make one solid component, printed that and still didn't work how I wanted it, I must be doing something wrong in sketchup, should I be working it metres or mm? if I work in metres I will need to scale it down in Cura

did these small prints below just to test, one has an indent and none of the grill lines printed

can anyone help before I rip my hair out? :(

 

[pm_dude 27]

Can you share your stl/obj file?

[pm_dude 27]

Otherwise load it in netfab (fabb?) and see if it give any error. Try repairing and exporting it back to stl or obj

[electronic_matt 0]

Otherwise load it in netfab (fabb?) and see if it give any error. Try repairing and exporting it back to stl or obj

 

Tried netfabb, still doesn't print the grill bit

Here is the stl file

https://www.sendspace.com/file/n42yas

 

[pm_dude 27]

dont mind the brown residue and filament crossing the print. I was printing bronze fill just before, didn't clean the nozzle and forgot to reenable retraction :S

 

I cut off 2.5mm from the print just for the test. Mine got all the grill lines on top even the 2 that are smaller near the end. Your picture show 3 tests and the one in front seems to have them too. Is it something else I should look at?

Make sure nozzle size is set to 0.4 because there is no space for any other infill to go between the lines. At 0.6 the slicer just ignore them completely resulting in your middle print.

You could probably consider making them a bit wider to make sure the nozzle have enough space there.

 

[electronic_matt 0]

dont mind the brown residue and filament crossing the print. I was printing bronze fill just before, didn't clean the nozzle and forgot to reenable retraction :S

 

 

I cut off 2.5mm from the print just for the test. Mine got all the grill lines on top even the 2 that are smaller near the end. Your picture show 3 tests and the one in front seems to have them too. Is it something else I should look at?

Make sure nozzle size is set to 0.4 because there is no space for any other infill to go between the lines. At 0.6 the slicer just ignore them completely resulting in your middle print.

You could probably consider making them a bit wider to make sure the nozzle have enough space there.

 

How did you do this? haha

Nozzle was set to 0.4 just doubled checked

The one in my test prints where it shows the grill lines is a different file, the one I shared is the one I'd like to print so that the grill lines are flush with the top surface

Are you using Cura or some other software? if you are using Cura then you must have different settings in there than mine

Thanks for taking the time to help me, I appreciate it!!

 

[pm_dude 27]

Thanks for taking the time to help me, I appreciate it!!

Its my pleasure really! Everyone on this forum have been helping out with my needs in the past so its my turn now

I'm using Cura 14.07

When slicing the file you shared with 0.1mm layer height I have 6 layers of grill lines.

Here are the settings I used to print your file:

height: 0.1mm

shell: 0.8mm

enable retraction: was off but should have been on,

bottom/top: 0.8mm

print speed: 30mm/s

nozzle: 0.4mm

init layer: 0.3mm

Cut off: 2.5mm but you want this to be at 0mm

Travel speed: 200mm/s (usefull when no retraction)

Bottom layer: 20mm/s

In expert settings:

Combine Everything (type-a): On (but I didn't see any difference in the slicing)

Everything else is default. The only thing that should really affect the grill line should be the nozzle size.

Here is what the slicing looks like on my side (cut off was removed):

 

EDIT: and just to make sure we are printing the same size here are the dimensions in mm: 68.1 X 18.5 X 3.5

 

[electronic_matt 0]

Everything is the same, apart from one thing, the top and bottom layer thickness, mine was on 0.3, may be this is why it cut off the top and made it flat on mine, it didn't go high enough?

Your slice image looks the same as mine.

I did scale it up a little when printing mine, as it wasn't quite the correct size that I needed.

 

[gr5 2,167]

Feeder ticking is normal. Never print before checking on layer view. That would have shown filled in grill. To fix grill unchecked all fix horrible settings.

[electronic_matt 0]

Feeder ticking is normal. Never print before checking on layer view. That would have shown filled in grill. To fix grill unchecked all fix horrible settings.

 

I did check the layer view and it showed the grill layers but still printed that face flat, and on another design it printed an indent but didn't do the grill lines, as shown in my previous small test prints, still can't work out why

 

[gr5 2,167]

I did check the layer view and it showed the grill layers but still printed that face flat,

 

I don't believe it. The layer view shows the exact path that the print head will make. It's kind of impossible for the print head to move to locations that aren't in the gcode.

Note that after it finishes slicing it takes a while to fully load layer view graphics. You can see the % at the bottom of the screen although it is often covered by a message that you have to dismiss first.

Then go through the layers slowly with the slider (shift up and down arrow). Check the layer where it printed a solid top.

 

[electronic_matt 0]

It shows the tool path and the grill layers and still printed flat on top, and the one with the indent is also weird, why would it totally ignore the grill lines and just did the indent part

Just loaded the file I shared in to Cura, if I look at layer view without scaling it up, it shows the layers for the grill lines but no tool path, if I scale it up my 2.0 it then shows the blue tool paths

 

[pm_dude 27]

The blue tool path is just the head moving while not pushing material. If retraction is on it will retract material at the same time.

You need to see the grill lines in red like in my screen shot.try setting the nozzle to 0.3mm and do a test print (you can cut off 2.5mm if you want)

[electronic_matt 0]

Think I may have nailed it

 

[electronic_matt 0]

The blue tool path is just the head moving while not pushing material. If retraction is on it will retract material at the same time.

You need to see the grill lines in red like in my screen shot.try setting the nozzle to 0.3mm and do a test print (you can cut off 2.5mm if you want)

 

Just did another print and the layer lines were not touching, so I loosened the stepper motor screws and pushed them down and retightened, managed to round off one of the hex screw heads, I'm not keen on hex screws, I'd like to change those to normal screws, do you happen to know if they are M3?

 

[electronic_matt 0]

on most of the layers on the intercooler the lines were not touching

I snapped a bracket on my blind last night so decided to make a new one, works brilliantly! I am loving this Printer, just a few small problems to over come along the way I guess

There were a lot of lines not touching on this print, I had to revise the design after the print shown below as I needed a square hole in the centre and not a round one to stop the blind shaft from rotating and the blind just dropping down on it's own, printed this at 0.2mm layers, 220c, 60c bed, 50mm/s, fill 50%, this was after tightening the small belts, is this under extrusion?

 

[gr5 2,167]

is this under extrusion?

 

Probably. If you multiple the layer height .2 times speed 50 times nozzle width .4 you get 4mm^3/sec. Some printers can reliably print up to 10 or even 12mm^3/sec at 230C but 5 or 6mm^3/sec at 230C is probably around the max I recommend. And at 220C that drops quite a bit - maybe only 3mm^3/sec.

So you are near the upper end or at least within 2X of the upper end of print speed for this layer height and temperature. I recommend you either do thinner layers or slower speed or higher temp. 240C is a fine temp but I wouldn't go over that. Really best is to just slow down the print speed leaving layer height and tempt the same.

Also possibly you aren't using the default of 2.85mm for filament size? Are you using 3mm in the PLA settings on the printer? Or 2.85mm?

 

[electronic_matt 0]

Probably. If you multiple the layer height .2 times speed 50 times nozzle width .4 you get 4mm^3/sec. Some printers can reliably print up to 10 or even 12mm^3/sec at 230C but 5 or 6mm^3/sec at 230C is probably around the max I recommend. And at 220C that drops quite a bit - maybe only 3mm^3/sec.

So you are near the upper end or at least within 2X of the upper end of print speed for this layer height and temperature. I recommend you either do thinner layers or slower speed or higher temp. 240C is a fine temp but I wouldn't go over that. Really best is to just slow down the print speed leaving layer height and tempt the same.

Also possibly you aren't using the default of 2.85mm for filament size? Are you using 3mm in the PLA settings on the printer? Or 2.85mm?

 

The intercooler was printed at 0.1mm layers, 210c and 20mm/s but still had some gaps between the layer lines, the first intercooler I printed looked a lot better and I used the same settings

The blind bracket was 0.2mm layers, 220c, 50mm/s and this is where the line gaps seemed worse, so it's all about balance really and how much material it can put down

You don't think this is any mechanical problem then like belt tensions?

I'm using the filament that came with the printer, the 2.85mm PLA blue, settings set to 2.85mm

 

[gr5 2,167]

You don't think this is any mechanical problem then like belt tensions?

 

It could be a little of that as well - you would expect two infill lines close together and then a gap. Then repeat that pattern. Which you see. But there is so much gap that most of the issue is underextrusion I think. At least if it is happening also on layer 2 then underextrusion. If it only happens on the top layers then maybe it's just not quite enough layers. Maybe make top/bottom thickness a little thicker.

If you have play/backlash then in addition to this pattern of 2 then gap you would also expect to see diagonal infill not reaching the shell on 2 or more sides. Do you have this problem also?

 

[gr5 2,167]

By the way - look at the graph in this posting link below - the dark blue line - locate your printing temperature on the blue line and look up the .2mm max speed then print at half that speed if .2mm. If printing thinner layers you can print proportionately faster. So 50mm .1mm layer is same as 25mm/sec .2mm layer as far as volume of PLA is concerned.

http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4127-um2-extrusion-rates-revisited/

 

[electronic_matt 0]

It could be a little of that as well - you would expect two infill lines close together and then a gap. Then repeat that pattern. Which you see. But there is so much gap that most of the issue is underextrusion I think. At least if it is happening also on layer 2 then underextrusion. If it only happens on the top layers then maybe it's just not quite enough layers. Maybe make top/bottom thickness a little thicker.

If you have play/backlash then in addition to this pattern of 2 then gap you would also expect to see diagonal infill not reaching the shell on 2 or more sides. Do you have this problem also?

 

The lines are reaching the shell ok

Thanks for the graph link, that is useful!

 

[electronic_matt 0]

Does anyone know what would cause this weird effect on the bottom of my prints now?

I am thinking it might stem from my files created in sketchup pro, I did run them through netfabb but no errors detected

 

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

You may try to improve the bed levelling. The fact that the lines have some gap in between each other says that the bed levelling is not yet perfect.

Cleaning the glass with water and some mild dishwashing agent might also be a good thing. Sometimes substances like alcohol can lead to very local delamination of the first layer.

 

[electronic_matt 0]

You may try to improve the bed levelling. The fact that the lines have some gap in between each other says that the bed levelling is not yet perfect.

Cleaning the glass with water and some mild dishwashing agent might also be a good thing. Sometimes substances like alcohol can lead to very local delamination of the first layer.

 

I cleaned the bed very well, atleast I hoped I had, when i watch the nozzle putting down the PLA it makes weird patterns on the first layer, as shown above, then kind of ripple and have weird waves in them