Well this is a sad looking benchy 
This was facing X when printed, and that floppy layering I guessed would be loose belts, but both x and y are pretty tight (the bed moves x, hotend moves y). Could it just be cooling? The printer is clamped to a table but everything vibrates a lot when it is doing fast small moves.
Tips?
Looks like over extrusion. Not sure how to fix it.
It is making a sad face indeed.
It doesn’t look like you’re skipping. Could be loose belts or z banding.
But first, what material, what temperatures, print speed, and cooling fans?
Oops, yes. PLA 210c 60mm/s for most speeds, 80mm/s for infill, half speed to start. The cooling is a bit dodgy, I am using a heatsink fan mount that has a vent at the bottom to direct some air down.
Over extrusion could be it, my extruder wasn’t gripping well and I was tinkering with the multipler when I didn’t realise that was the problem. I should revert it.
More part cooling for sure.
Over extrusion most likely.
Edit: In addition to cooling.
What’s your layer height and nozzle diameter as well? There’s a chance you’re printing with too thick layers.
The layer height was 0.2mm and nozzle diameter is .4mm
We need more settings to break it down more. Temp seems fine. Add a fan but if you are tuning your printer 60mm/s is wayyyyy fast especially if it’s direct drive. Drop that layer height down to .2 or .1
It is bowden - does that mean I should still slow it down? 30mm/s? The layer height is already .2
Well my theory is out the window. I’d recommend calibrating your extruder, reprinting with the same settings except reset the extrusion multiplier, then post your new results.
Hi Paul, with bowden setups, you generally want to use higher x/y acceleration and travel speeds to avoid oozing, but in this case that does not look like the main problem.
You can tell it’s not losing grip on filament because there’s no underextrusion happening or gaps in your perimeters.
A good test would be to print this again with a fan on it (even a desk clip-on fan blowing on the part) OR print two of them so each part has sufficient time to cool down.
Your temperatures seem fine, and if you are overextruding, it does not appear to be by a huge amount.
A big giveaway is that you can see there’s strands of filament that are not flat, meaning that they sagged over an overhang and drooped onto layers below them (which would be a big indicator that there’s not enough cooling happening).
I would definitely introduce some cooling and try the print much slower. Make sure your melt zone is as small as possible as well (having a whole bunch of melted filament in your hotend makes it very hard to control your extrusion volume, esp in a bowden configuration). If you’re using a jhead, be sure to get some air hitting the peek.
If you can download a timelapse app for your phone and film a benchy print at around a frame every 10-30 seconds it will show the issue as it develops possibly.
It’s cooling. As the overhang gets printed, the top and bottom cool differently. The plastic curls up, and eventually the nozzle deposits plastic past the edge of the print. This makes it easy to mistake as overextruding.
Yep, cooling is logical, I have printed a shroud, just need a mount and a fan. Thanks all.
@ThantiK in the fischertechnik livestream Thomas Sanladerer did recently this is shown during the test printing of the frog. The uncooled hotend on that machine does exactly as you described. I suspected that as well when I first saw this benchy, but am not totally sure due to the bow being clean in areas and the issue being on the sides at lesser overhang angles. More pics would help understand the print better.
