As far as no-retraction – I can do it on a print such as this, but I turn my accel and travel moves WAY up. You can barely notice any motion in the print head when I do it this way…it just kind of disappears from one spot, and reappears the next. I don’t usually do it this way but I have in the past.
It will be difficult to get retraction right if the extruder and hot end are not performing well, this will include poor calibration and drive gear / stepper combination.
However, some PLA filament will leave a stringy mess regardless of how much retraction you use.
If you know you have a good extruder set-up, try different suppliers until you get the best filament for your 3d printer set-up.
It looks like you are under-extruding in some of your solid areas and over-extruding in others. I am betting you have a bit of backlash on your extruder gears which will cause all sorts of problems.
I think you are printing too hot too. Try again at about 180c and about 30mm/sec speed. I think that alone will greatly improve your print quality. Also, if you don’t have a fan, get one it will make a world of difference.
If you find that you do have “cold end” problems, I highly recommend the AJGW Alain-Jonas-Greg-Wade’s Extruder on thingiverse ( http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:40642 ) It is the best one I have found.
@Jason_Barnett Does backlash mean space between the two extruder gears? And yes, I’m printing at 220°C. But this temperture is marked on the spool and should work. Print speed is at 50mm/sec.
Yes backlash is basically slop between the gears. One gear should not be able to move on either direction without the other one moving too. 220 is what is on my spool of pla as well, I print at between 175 and 200, depending on how fast I am printing. Just because it will work does not mean it is optimal.
@enhydra yeah, pretty much. There’s no reason not to. What hot end are you using? Are you using a fan on the end? Is your filament dry (really really dry), etc. Those are all questions you need to fix before you don’t have the oozing problem. You also need to go slow enough that you don’t rip apart your filament, and things with tons of retraction like this are more prone to those effects.
Backlash is not an issue with extruders since bowden extruders deal with plenty of slop successfully, you just need to allow for it when setting retraction distance.
It’s only with the x and y axis where backlash is an issue.
If you drop the nozzle temperature too low, the layer bonding strength might be reduced. You could print a rod to attempt to break in half as a strength test at different nozzle temperatures.
