I need some advice. I have a Prusa Mendal and am using the latest version of Slic3r. As you can see by the box on the left, if the print has good solid walls it prints just fine. But when the walls get thin I have problems, I have seen this on several different prints. I was watching one this and the extruder was sputtering, it was like it was printing the infill without any walls. Any advice would be appreciated.
I’m a veritable novice, but it looks to me like the filament is just failing to extrude around there. Perhaps your machine is encountering a physical resolution limit where it can’t position the head correctly? I don’t know, I’m just a noob with a Makerbot, at this stage.
I’m more or less commenting to see if someone with a better idea can tell me why mine is wrong…
What’s your extruder temp?
It looks to me like the problems are starting when the area of the layers begins to reduce, ie about 1cm up (just a guess). It looks like you are printing too hot for how fast you are printing those layers. Some possible solutions are to, lower your extruder temp if you can, use a fan (with PLA only), set a minimum layer print time which will sufficiently slow down the print (most if not all slicers have this option now), or just print the whole thing slower.
In the good print it looks like you are getting a little ooze where the perimeters start and stop. This can also indicate that the temperature is too high. It can mean other things too though.
Get a thermometer and make sure the temperature you set is what you actually get. Mine has a difference of more than 20 degrees.
I’d agree with @Ben_Malcheski that your temp is too high or you are printing too slow for that temperature. How does a simple thin wall test turn out? And what hot end are your using?
I’m using a J-Head Mk IV .5mm. I’m going to drop the temp by 5deg, check for that min layer print time option and give it another go. I’ll post the results in a while. Thanks.
Yup, you were right. I slowed down all speed parameters by about 5% and took 5 deg off the temp. It looks much better, not perfect, but better. Once I clean this up it may actually be usable. I wish I could add another pic here but I can’t so I’ll create another post in a minute with the new print.