I cant seem to figure this problem out on my anet a8. bigger details print out great but when it goes to small areas there is a huge under extrusion problem. been trying to figure this out for weeks on my own and cant seem to get it sorted out. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
could be cooling related … small areas need more cooling.
@Blu_Silver interesting… I’ve tried out hatchbox and zyltech pla so far and have the same results. I’ve tried tweaking all kinds of settings so you may be on to something there. Aside from a more stable temperature is there anything else that can be done to minimize this?
@Ulrich_Baer I’ll definitely give that a shot. Right now ive got it set to 35% fan speed at first layer and after that to 75%. Thanks for the comment!
Your reaction is too high.
Start without reaction and then increase it about 0.2mm until you got no stringing.
I assume you mean retraction?
resolution of the print is one problem, its too blocky, feed rate being not enough is another, layer height is too big, and the part is too small and detailed for your printer.
Have you tried changing the extra prime amount after a retraction? It seems like it’s retracting and than not unretracting far enough. You could also try printing the screw by itself so it wouldn’t have to retract.
@Kevin_Danger_Powers yeah I’ve tried changing that around a bit. Right now it’s set to .15mm extra prime amount which works great on all other areas of the print. Might be what Mike said a few comments up and that it’s retracting too far. My retraction distance is at 3mm right now but ill be giving that a shot later on when home from work. Thanks for all of these suggestions guys, I really appreciate it. This has been driving me nuts haha
@jacob_haney also, what exactly happens if it’s retracting too far? Causes a momentary clog?
@Matt_Harrington man. I thought I was losing it. 3D printers are calibrated to polymer chain thermal reactions? Whew.
@jacob_haney I know the feeling. I have a part that keeps failing and I haven’t figured out how to fix it yet. It’s super frustrating.
With the part on the 2nd picture, does one of the text towers just snap off?
@Gary_Deen structurally everything has good strength to it except for the screw portions shown in the first picture
I had same problem with some openscad screws.
As a hack getaround I think I turned retraction off at layer ZZ and just let it print. I haven’t printed anything for awhile. But I suspect the software is setup slightly wrong for this PLA and compounded by openscad producing a surface that does not match your slicer’s layer height, and actual size of the extruded PLA. In other words, you are looking at the object in much much detail, then drawing it with a 2x4. Open scad is trying to give you a nice razor edge on that screw. Figure out how to tell it you are going to print with a 2x4 [hyperbole].
But, I know that doesn’t help at all. So, try the hacks… turn off retraction, adjust temps, calibrate calibrate calibrate, switch to PC instead of PLA.
@Gary_Deen I see what you mean. I thought this may have something to do with a non calibrated motor on the z axis but cant find a setting for it on printer or in cura. May have to flash new firmware in order to do that as the only motor I was able to calibrate was the extruder (steps per mm) .
Had that issue it was a stepper motor driver going bad. Took forever to figure it out
@William_Schneider I’ve tried changing all the settings suggested here and didn’t help. You may be right, as when I got the board one of the motor connections was actually soldered onto the board upside down and had to pull pins out and put them in the proper area of the male connection. It was for the y axis motor, but still… who knows what else made it past quality control lol
@jacob_haney quality control seems to be about non-existent for 3D printers. My Anet E10 had it’s issues but they mostly seemed to be engineering related. However, when I first got it, there were a bunch of lose screws just laying in the box because they fell out during shipping.