Jump to content

Newbie can use help with print quality


entomophile

Recommended Posts

Posted · Newbie can use help with print quality

Just got my Ultimaker 2, my first 3D printer. Immediately after setup, I printed the Ultimaker robot from the SD card with the included PLA filament and got a pretty good print. The flaw in the base I think was the transition from the remaining test filament in the machine, to the new filament. I think the print is pretty good for a first print except for the small holes and gaps in the surface.

20141113 10294220141113 10295820141113 10301520141113 10302620141113 10304220141113 10305720141113 103118

Two days later I tried printing the same thing again. Only difference, I moved the printer to a new location and opened the file in Cura and saved it to SD card again. I left all of the default settings and printed on normal quality. You can see the print quality went way down with the holes and gaps being much larger this time.

20141113 10260820141113 10275020141113 10281020141113 10284020141113 10290520141113 10291920141113 103135

What error(s) am I looking at here? Underextrusion maybe? What steps should I take to troubleshoot?

Thanks for any advice,

Greg

 

  • Link to post
    Share on other sites

    Posted · Newbie can use help with print quality

    you have serious underextrusion, nothing to worry about, you need to learn how to fix it anyhow someday .... Start by reading these ... if you still have questions after that feel free to ask again ....

     

     

    http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/6574-a-visual-ultimaker-troubleshooting-guide/

     

    http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/7467-a-few-tips-for-getting-better-prints/

     

     

    and probably someday you want to print yourself a better feeder, read all about it here;

     

    http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4393-ultimaker2-feeder-system-improvements-and-ideas/

     

     

    and... welcome to the forum ...

     

  • Link to post
    Share on other sites

    Posted · Newbie can use help with print quality

    Funny, I read those posts before but I missed the importance of temperature. What a difference 5 degrees makes. Reprinted at 215 and got a much better print with just a hint of under extrusion. I'll try again at 220.

    20141114 093847

     

  • Link to post
    Share on other sites

    Posted · Newbie can use help with print quality

    The robot is not an easy print - it has overhangs and the antennas are very difficult. If you want to just print parts then keep going at the settings you have now. If you want higher quality print slower. So 25mm/sec, 200C, .1mm layer will give you much better quality for the robot than the one in this picture. And make sure the fan is cranked to 100 before you get to the hand supports. But I rarely care so much about quality and I'm not that patient to wait a few hours for a silly robot. So decide what you want and go that route.

     

  • Link to post
    Share on other sites

    Posted · Newbie can use help with print quality

    Thanks for the advice. I realize the robot is not an easy print, that's why I chose it. I figure if I can get that to print nice and pretty, other prints should be a breeze. Really, I'm just trying to learn the in's and out's of tuning the machine and see how the settings affect the prints.

    BTW, the test print included with the UM2...Do you know what quality/settings that was printed at? I would like to see if I can match that print.

     

  • Link to post
    Share on other sites

    Posted · Newbie can use help with print quality

    BTW, the test print included with the UM2...

     

    If you are lucky the test print is still on the SD card. In cura choose "load settings from gcode..." and select that gcode file. This will load all the settings used for that print into Cura.

    Test prints change from month to month. I don't know what the latest test print looks like. I got my UM2 almost a year ago.

     

  • Link to post
    Share on other sites

    Posted · Newbie can use help with print quality

    The test print is still there. I failed to realize that the print quality settings are already in the gcode. I thought I needed to choose the quality settings in Cura first. Slowly getting the hang of this thing.

     

  • Link to post
    Share on other sites

    Create an account or sign in to comment

    You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

    Create an account

    Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

    Register a new account

    Sign in

    Already have an account? Sign in here.

    Sign In Now
    • Our picks

      • Introducing Universal Cura Projects in the UltiMaker Cura 5.7 beta
        Strap in for the first Cura release of 2024! This 5.7 beta release brings new material profiles as well as cloud printing for Method series printers, and introduces a powerful new way of sharing print settings using printer-agnostic project files! Also, if you want to download the cute dinosaur card holder featured below, it was specially designed for this release and can be found on Thingiverse! 
          • Like
        • 10 replies
      • S-Line Firmware 8.3.0 was released Nov. 20th on the "Latest" firmware branch.
        (Sorry, was out of office when this released)

        This update is for...
        All UltiMaker S series  
        New features
         
        Temperature status. During print preparation, the temperatures of the print cores and build plate will be shown on the display. This gives a better indication of the progress and remaining wait time. Save log files in paused state. It is now possible to save the printer's log files to USB if the currently active print job is paused. Previously, the Dump logs to USB option was only enabled if the printer was in idle state. Confirm print removal via Digital Factory. If the printer is connected to the Digital Factory, it is now possible to confirm the removal of a previous print job via the Digital Factory interface. This is useful in situations where the build plate is clear, but the operator forgot to select Confirm removal on the printer’s display. Visit this page for more information about this feature.
          • Like
        • 0 replies
    ×
    ×
    • Create New...