I wonder if anyone here has some good tips to optimize my ColorFabb Helian

3D Printing
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I wonder if anyone here has some good tips to optimize my @ColorFabb_Helian_Pol XT-CF20 pirinting reliability. This filament is one of my favourite ones but i’m still fighting some problems from time to time so I thought it might be worth talking about.

I’m printing it on an E3D V6 (bowden).on my Eusthatios Spider V2.The biggest concerns that i have is that i get broken lines on the infill. That doesn’t sound really bad and actually it’s not a problem itself. The problem is that those loose ends stand up and get picked up by the nozzle where it collects and drops from time to time. This dropping then leads to problems. From small ones which means extrusion problems until this piece falls of and down on the plate. The result is probably a missing piece of perimeter which can ruin a perfect surface. The by far worse thing that happens quite frequently is that it drops that ball of filament somewhere where it sticks and dries which makes it a nearly inviolable hurdle for the nozzle/hotend and often leads to missed steps and a corrupt print.

I’m currently printing with around 260°C and speeds around 50mm/s (slower perimeters, sometimes a bit faster infill but not that much) and have set the diameter to 1,77 in Slic3r. I also used Cura and S3D and basically do get the same results.

Also i’m using the first generation steel nozzle that E3D was selling (which wasn’t the hardened nozzle yet)

Any input is appreciated. I’m going to do some testing on the weekend probably.

Attached find a photo of a just finished print from today. 0.15mm layer height and basically good quality apart from the wear you see all over, the missing perimeter in about mid height and as an example one of the “collected” piece in front of the print on the plate.

Thanks in advance for your input.

e97d55b8ac8092c39e5f06f8c06fb978.jpeg
e97d55b8ac8092c39e5f06f8c06fb978.jpeg1600×1200 228 KB

2

I’ve had success fixing the “broken infill” problem when printing with PETG by manually specifying extrusion width in slic3r.

3

Yeah already thought about trying that but that would mean it’s only printable in Slic3r (at least from my three current slicers).

Think i also have to do some calibration. While the filament actually is around 1,79 to 1,80mm thick i should probably still set 1,75 in slic3r instead of 1,77. But chances are that ruins the dimensions (outer and holes).

4

What size nozzle are you using? I’ve heard most people say filled filaments perform better with a 0.6 nozzle versus 0.4

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0.4 but I don’t see similar problems with wood, brass, copper. And 0.6 would be too big for most of my objects.

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the thing is that I don’t have trouble pushing filament through. I even printed faster without bigger problems - apart from the infill “losing connection”. good to hear I’m not the only one.

7

I print some Madesolid PET+ as high as 275C, perhaps try a little hotter?

8

I tried 270 which works only a tiny bit better but let’s stuff flow out like hot butter. The image above is from a 270 print.

9

Could you experiment with different infill types? Triangular perhaps?

10

Hello! With that filament I print at 240 degrees (e3d v6 siliconed, 0.4 reinforced nozzle). I also add a little bit of fan just around the nozzle to fix the just extruded filament. I like that xt-cf20 filament, it sticks very well to the hot bed and it’s very strong. Be very careful with slic3r as since v. 1.2.7 it suffers from an over extrusion issue with some shapes!