Has anyone encountered and fixed this issue? Huge over-extrusion on top layer fine points. Same Gcode printed on two different printers: Bronze on Hictop Prusa i3 and the Black on Original Prusa i3 MK2. Both are Hatchbox PLA. My Hictop printer always extrudes a big glob of plastic on any top points like this, Z-resolution doesn’t matter. These are printed at 0.2mm. The Hictop extrudes so much plastic it forms a cone around the nozzle.
You might want to confirm that your nozzle is not leaking. Then you might need to calibrate the filament for it’s thermal properties on the Hictop printer.
If you already have everything set mechanically then check out this system for fine tuning the filament for its dimensional and thermal properties. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1037301
Then wouldn’t that show an error across more parts of each print? This phenomenon only occurs on small points at the top level of an area. The rest of any print comes out great and dimensionally accurate. I figure its got to be something in the software that deals with small details on top surfaces.
I see. Dimensions are accurate so we can eliminate claibration differences between the two printers. Only on the tops of small features regardless of Z. Large surfaces are fine. So is it a dwell time issue? If this is the same g-code I take it the two printers must have different firmware. My guess would be that something there is triggering the issue. What firmware do you have loaded?
Does your Hictop do this if other slicers are used to generate the g-code? Maybe it needs a g-code generated specifically for it. I take it switching the filament does not solve the problem.
…and in reply to your original question, no, I have not seen this exact situation before but I’m interested in what might be the cause and resolution.
This is not a dwell time issue as the nozzle movement does not slow or stall. There is only a very large amount of extrusion that happens. Is it possible for two different versions of Marlin to read the same extrusion command and interpret them differently? Could it be a ‘relative vs absolute’ issue if the rest of the print has no errors?
Software is hard to tell. Hictop offers a download of the entire hex file, but not the pre-compiled files. The Prusa MK2 is running the latest that they have released (3.0.9) but I don’t know what version of Marlin they are working off of. Likewise, the Hictop is running a version from their package (3.9.8) which is only a hex file and I don’t know what version of Marlin is in there. The Hictop came with Cura 14.12. I don’t believe it is a customized version, but I’ll test it tonight to see if it turns out a good print or not. If fact, I’ll try it on all the slicers I have used: Cura, Slic3r, and CraftWare. The print pictured above is out of Simplify3D.