This is the follow up pic to my earlier post showing the result of suggested print settings. I’ll clean this up now and see if it works. Thanks all.
I don’t have a printer, but that still looks too hot/slow to me.
It looks much better, but yes, it still is printed too hot. The amount of stringing and poor quality layers indicate that. You may also want to try retraction to reduce the stringing.@Carlton_Dodd , it’s not that it’s being printed too slow. It’s that it’s being printed too fast for the temperature the extruder is set at. This scenario does not allow the previous layers to solidify before the next layer is printed.
@Ben_Malcheski Thanks! Good info for a newbie. I should get my RigidBot this winter; very excited to start in this adventure!
Hi Richard. As long as you don’r have any significant flaws in your printer or are using very poor quality filament, you should be able to achieve a much better print quality than this. Have you gone through a calibration process? At worst you should have done the following:
-Confirm what the minimum temperature is for for consistent extrusion.
-Done a full-infill calibration cube to ensure you are extruding the right amount of plastic and you have your steps/mm set correctly.
-An Oozebane test to get your retractions calibrated.
Doing all three of these should take less time than the print you’ve shown above.
I’m happy to walk you through this if you need help.
Thanks @Tim_Rastall you’re right in that I should go back and do some recalibration. I’ve had this printer for about 18 months and generally it is fine and does a pretty good job of large prints. I just printed a 60mm high Frankenhead which I think looks good. It is just the smaller, fine, prints that I have problems with. I’ve been through quite a few lbs of filament. Stringing has always been a problem, Slic3r has improved a lot since I started so I’ll go back and run some of these tests.
@Ben_Malcheski I’ll try lowering it a bit more, that last print was at 180 deg. Always afraid though if I go too low that it will jam my extruder.
@Richard_Blackman I do not use PLA much anymore but I know a lot of it has to be printed above 180. Slic3r is very good but I can also recommend Kisslicer. Each has its ups and downs though. I find that generally Kisslicer has improved my thin regions of parts, but it does not detect bridging.
+1 for kisslicer, it gives you much greater control and doesn’t make the same occasionally incorrect assumptions as slicer. Downside is that its more complex but its definately worth it if you want to improve print quality.
@Richard_Blackman don’t be too worried about a jam. All that will happen is the hobbed bolt will start to slip if the plasic gives too much resistance, you really need to get to this point and work upwards to ensure you’re not overcooking the plastic, you could have a faulty thermistor which is giving a low reading.