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Posted · Printing red XT - how to improve

I finally got hold of some red Colorfabb XT, hopefully to avoid using ABS when printing some large and tough enclosures. I managed to improve the quality quite a bit but I am stuck with several problems. Any hints would be greatly appreciated.

1. Stringing:

There is leftover plastic on the sides where the head retracts and does a "jump" to the other side. See bottom of the image.

Combing was off.

Retraction was set to 40m/s, length = 4.5mm as per Colorfabb's guide here.

Travel speed was 200 mm/s which helped remove stringing a bit. I even tried 250 mm/s but it did not improve things.

Temperature 245 and 240 degrees (not much difference).

I also tried without fan and with fan at 30% (I am using dual fan mount), again I did not notice any difference.

XT is not supposed to need much fan?

I am not sure what else to try...

2. Infill

The infill looks very bad at places, big sections are missing. I don't think there was underextrusion (no stepper clicking) and the outer layers look fine. The infill was printed at the same speed as the outer layers. Fill density was 25%.

Any thoughts what happened?

Settings:

Layer height 0.2

Shell thickness 2.0 (for extra strength)

Bottom/top fills 2 (for extra strength)

Fill density 25%

Print speed 50mm/s (also tried 30mm/s for the outer shell)

Travel speed 200 and 250

Fan off and on

Temperature 240 & 245 degrees, bed at 70 degrees.

Flow 100% and 105%, it did not seem to make a difference for the infill but 100% helped a bit with the point 1.

Retraction speed 40 mm/s, length = 4.5 mm

 

IMG 20150123 124328 E

 

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    Posted · Printing red XT - how to improve

    Ok, here is the best I could come up with. Not much red XT left to play with :smile:

    The results are quite good. I am using simplify3D.

    • layer height: 0.2mm
    • speed: 40mm/s
    • extrusion multiplier 1.1
    • 100% fill
    • first layer speed: 66%
    • outline underspeed 50%
    • solid infill underspeed 80%
    • temperature: layer 1 = 240C, layer 2 = 245C, layer 3 = 250C.
    • glass plate at 75C (I measured the temperature of the glass plate with a thermocouple and it was roughly about 5C less than set on the printer). That 5 degrees made a huge difference.
    • fan: layer 3 10%, layer 6 30%, layer 9 40% (note that I am using https://www.youmagine.com/designs/ultimaker-2-fan-mount-dual--2 fan mount)
    • retraction: 5mm @ 40mm/s
    • x/y axis movement 250mm/s

     

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    Posted · Printing red XT - how to improve

    Those settings would be my advise also, except for the first layer speed.

    40mm/s is my start at 244 degrees with XT red.

     

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    Posted (edited) · Printing red XT - how to improve

    With my UM2,for red XT, 50% fans and no hotter than 230 to 235° & speed 40 mm/s works well.

    Edited by Guest
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