rough surfaces (picture heavy)

[tsagos 8]

The problem is that the layers on my prints are not rounded as they supposed to be. They have irregularities and it makes the surface to be rough and look like matte, but it supposed to be glossy.

So lets look at some pictures.

You can see on the vase that the layers are clearly visible and on the diamond are not.

At first I thought it was underextrution problem so I played with the temp and flow.

You can see at the third picture that the best results are with very low temp and very big flow. The XT has guides to print at much higher temps, you can see that my prints was not good at those temps at all!

In the pictures above the owl is at 50mm/s 0.14 layer height. You can see the the change in temp below the owls neck. I lower the temp to 230c. It looks better. but not good. The others are at 60 inner shell speed 30 outer shell speed at 0.2 layer height both at 260c. When I printed the vase I got a really decent result! Color is nice and it has consistency. When I saw the vase printed at 260 it was clear to me that the real problem is not the temp. You can see the problem in the first picture. The rhombus is dull, there are no visible layers even at 0.2 layer height.

After communicating with colorfabb they suggested that it was my teflon part. It was time to change it. You can see at the third picture that cylinder No1 is with old teflon and No2 with the new teflon and same settings. No visible difference what so ever. They were not wrong about the teflon part. It was damaged for sure.

After this they asked me if I was having the same issue with other materials. So I changed the red XT and because a friend asked me to do something with woodfill I tried to print with that and see what happens (it was my first try). I didnt manage to print anything. It was clogging my nozzle everytime I wanted to print something. So I gave up, unclog the nozzle and move to ABS. The problem still continues. No visible layer lines and rough surface of the prints. I printed with 0.04 layer height 0.06 and 0.2 All surfaces look bad.

Does anyone know what is going on? I'm desperate at this momment.

P.S How long a 0.4 (stock) nozzle can be used before it needs change? What is the average duty cycle of a nozzle? I have 400 hours on it.

 

[visu-al 2]

i used a stock nozzle and teflon for over 2000 hours printing abs and pla and then it still worked good i just changed to the Olson block

 

[swordriff 119]

Hi!

If you print with PLA at 210-225, then change to material requiring 260, the hot 260 material will burn and carbonize any left over material residue you have in the nozzle from the previous material. This is a frequent source of clogging!

Some PLA turns beautifully glossy and transparent at highish temp,like 230.

If you only print normal PLA (not glow, not fibre etc) the nozzle will last very many ours! You can see it wears down by getting wider shoulders, after hundreds or thousands of hours.

Strangely some people get good life from TEFLON piece, others not. Printing at 230+ seriously affects longevity.

My recommendation is to totally clean the hot end using Atomic until the cold pulled plug comes out in totally slick shape. Then print PLA at 220.

Main reco is to not switch material so often.. really understand each one well.

VISU-AL here changes nozzles, one for each material. It is something to consider.

Woodfill, main fix is: Print at 210. turn off retraction because it "helps" (ant-helps!!) cooking the filament inside the nozzle. Print at 30-40mms effective speed and Material Flow 130%. It must flow all the time, no pause no retraction.

half second jumps are ok..!

Some early Woodfill (not entirely sure about this) has a larger grain of fibers and may clog 0.40 nozzle. The one they sell now works well with the standard nozzle. I have printed a lot with this configuration.

Edit: Print at 0.1- 0.2 until you get it right with the nozzle inside and temp etc..

It is more demanding to print at such low layer height....

Sometimes Bowden tube can jam from residue after exdruder drive enters it. It can be a serious problem. Fix: Dismount, wash, spray with teflon spray or any oil.. remount.

 

[personal-drones 43]

...

 

My suggestion is to do a deep cleanup of the nozzle with the atomic method, take a deep breath and start over.

If you print PLA over 230, the results will be ugly, like we can see in your pictures. PLA is supposed to be printed at 210°C on average. You can get up to 230 max, but the results will be nicer at lower temperature.

In order to keep the temperature in the correct ranges, and avoid underextrusion, you need to print relatively slow.

I suggest you start from the quick print, normal quality. Then go to expert settings and click yes when it asks if you want to keep the settings. Then, leave everything as it is in basic settings, except bottom/top thickness that is better set to 0.8.

Then go in expert settings. Again leave everything as it is except: infill speed and inner shell: 40, outer shell: 30.

Print at 210°C. Bed temp: 55°C

This is it. If you follow this very closely and your nozzle is well cleaned with the atomic method, you should have some nice PLA prints.

Remember that every time you change material, and even possibly every time you change spool, consider doing a couple of atomic pulls to cleanup the nozzle.

Your teflon coupler 100% needed replacement.

XT and woodfill are much more difficult to print than PLA, each for different reasons. In my experience XT needs to be printed much slower that PLA (about half the speed) and at 245°C, while woodfill is a totally different story. My suggestion is to stick with PLA until you master it, and then try the other materials.

 

[tsagos 8]

@swordiff

Can you explain a bit more about nozzle wear and wide shoulders pls?

I'm printing with PLA now as we speak and I did atomic pull. I do it every time, even from PLA to PLA

About woodfill there are 2 versions. Coarse and fine. The fine version it is suppoced to be easy to be printed with 0.4 nozzles. I failed

I didn't know about the flow though... thank you a lot.

So your suggestions are to clean the bowden and the nozzle... I will do that!

@Personal drones

I dont know if I gave you guys the wrong impresion, I never printed PLA with temperatures above 210c. If I type that somewere I'm sorry, please tell me were I wrote that so I can change it not to confuse more ppl.

Hmm probably you are saying that if there was PLA left in the nozzle when I was printing with XT it will burn up inside?

I have to change materials often. Thats why i'm considering to buy the Olsson block kit. Do you have any experience with the exchangeable nozzle form 3dSolex?

 

[personal-drones 43]

@Personal drones

I dont know if I gave you guys the wrong impresion, I never printed PLA with temperatures above 210c. If I type that somewere I'm sorry, please tell me were I wrote that so I can change it not to confuse more ppl.

Hmm probably you are saying that if there was PLA left in the nozzle when I was printing with XT it will burn up inside?

I have to change materials often. Thats why i'm considering to buy the Olsson block kit. Do you have any experience with the exchangeable nozzle form 3dSolex?

 

Well, you wrote: "I lower the temp to 230c. It looks better. but not good. The others are at 60 inner shell speed 30 outer shell speed at 0.2 layer height both at 260c."

So I was assuming you were routinely using very high temperatures. My apologies if I got this wrong.

The Olson Block is awesome, I am so very happy to have installed it. The freedom to use different nozzles sizes is amazing. I also recommend the I2K insulator that will greatly improve the life of the teflon coupler. http://www.3Dsolex.com

 

[swordriff 119]

 

Tsagos

:: Can you explain a bit more about nozzle wear and wide shoulders pls?

I'm printing with PLA now as we speak and I did atomic pull. I do it every time, even from PLA to PLA.

 

First, I also almost always do the pulls between prints, sometimes I just change the nozzle, but then it will need the pull before printing next time, yes?

 

Nozzle wear: The nozzles mostly wear down by rubbing its nose in the existing print. Bronzefill Colorfabb (one of my favourites, 225 first layer then 210-215), gnaws at the nozzle nose as it moves over the print. You can hear it and feel it! The Brass surrounding the nozzle hole gets filed down and due to the angle of the nozzle leading up to (eh.. down to) the plastic exit , the shoulders as it is called gets wide. Then you will get lower quality prints (they say, havent tested myself but some have!).

 

With some new interesting material which is very strong, you wear down a nozzle in tens of hours instead of hundreds of hours.

 

Changing material often is not good. What you can do, is to have one nozzle for each material.

This way, they will keep clean longer!

 

[tsagos 8]

Well, you wrote: "I lower the temp to 230c. It looks better. but not good. The others are at 60 inner shell speed 30 outer shell speed at 0.2 layer height both at 260c."

So I was assuming you were routinely using very high temperatures. My apologies if I got this wrong.

The Olson Block is awesome, I am so very happy to have installed it. The freedom to use different nozzles sizes is amazing. I also recommend the I2K insulator that will greatly improve the life of the teflon coupler. http://www.3Dsolex.com

 

And few lines before that i'm refering to xt and printing temps

No worries, I'm thankfull that you reply to my problem. It's probably my fault, I suck at writing/explaining stuff.

Would you recomend Olson block?

 

[tsagos 8]

Nozzle wear: The nozzles mostly wear down by rubbing its nose in the existing print. Bronzefill Colorfabb (one of my favourites, 225 first layer then 210-215), gnaws at the nozzle nose as it moves over the print. You can hear it and feel it!....

 

Is it possible that in my case the rough surfaces and bad quality is caused by nozzle wearing out? Is there any way to test this without changing nozzles?

 

[swordriff 119]

Tsagos! Look at the nozzle from, underneath (eh... use mirror?). Should be pointy, not FLAT surface..