Quality/calibration?

[ultifay 0]

I made my first few prints, using Cura. (for what it's worth: I was unable to complete the check routine, it stopped after the message for moving the head to the middle)

The quality is not yet at the level where I want it, any suggestions? (sorry for picture rotation...)

1) Flat surfaces (bottom layers or on top of a 30% fill) don't seem to fill entirely, like it doesn't extrude enough material.

2a) Sometimes suddenly gaps appear. Some close after a few layers, others end the exercise (note that these are single walls, 0.4mm, no fill)

2b) 0.1mm layer height looks a bit smeared, quality is almost worse than 0.2mm!

[Daid 297]

At what temperature are you printing?

Is your filament tension knob thigh enough?

What was the value you got for the "steps per E" calibration?

[ultifay 0]

Temperature: 210C

Knob is tight enough, but that's hard to check of course (it leaves clearly visible marks on the filament).

The filament is PLA from Ultimaker, could it be the quality (varying thickness)?

Steps per E had to be adjusted a little bit higher: 872.870967742 (it extruded 99.2mm)

[Daid 297]

It looks like you are under-extruding, so not enough material is coming out.

210C should be fine, but you could up it to 230C to see if that prints better.

Check the actual filament diameter versus the configured diameter. Measure the filament on multiple locations to get a good average. (Some UM PLA is found to be quite thin)

872.8 is fine for the steps per E.

The knob usually can be tighter, it should leave clear marks in the filament, with light marks it can still skip.

Another thing I use to check tension of the knob:

During printing, put your finger below the input of the PLA, below the big gear, on the filament. This way you can feel the filament being pulled into the drive mechanism. If you do this then you can feel if it slips, because when it slips it will pull back a bit or the speed at which it is pulled in is uneven.

[adhome 0]

Hi,

try to buy different filament. In my build shipment shiped filament was realy poor in constant diameter.

Perhaps not a single problem.