What a mess and what is with the soot? Extending the skirt and sprinting multiple objects at once exposed several other problems. I don’t have cracking in the corners anymore which is likely either the skirt or greater time between layers.
There seems to be a lot of back pressure in the nozzle. If I increase retraction I get blobs. After experimentation, I’m not certain that there is a sweet spot. Maybe the temp is too low? Increasing the temp leads to sagging top layers.
Also, what is with that discolored plastic and the black soot? I thought the kapton might be charring but I can’t find evidence of that.
Does it usually take a whole spool of filament to get the printer working?
Looks like you’re simply oozing between travel moves. You’ll want to play with retraction settings, possibly a cooler temp, and keeping your hot end cooled off at the upper portions. Other things that can help are “Z-Lift” and fast travel moves.
It might help to mention the type of printer you are working with, the software you are using for slicing, and so forth. Also, you mention you are using ABS at 205c…are you 100% sure that you are using ABS? The transparency of the material produced screams out PLA to me. That’s a whole different set of parameters. If you ARE definitely sure that you’re using ABS filament, what temp are you setting your Heated Build Platform to?
@Craig_The_Fabricator , sorry for the lack of clarity; usually the same people respond so they may already know the history of my problems. Unless the spool was mislabeled, this is natural abs. It is not brittle, curls a lot, and has difficulty sticking to everything which I believe confirms abs.
This is a Prusa i3 without cooling. It is using the config recommended by makerfarm, except lower temperature 205 (improved sag), .1m layer height, 1.5 retract. Surface is 120 with blue tape and hairspray (I have tried nearly every combination). Slic3r 0.9.9 (recommended by makerfarm) but I am getting tired of the known and fixed bugs with that version.
Being that yours is slightly clear, it’s probably some off the wall formulation. My suggestions from above should likely still apply though. 205 is a little low for “ABS” though. 230C is the typical temp.
@Matt_Bordoni , I’ll try a lower temp and see how that goes. The skirt is specifically to address non-horizontal corner cracks that appeared at .1m layers (see my last post). Very strange indeed. The printer has baffles and the ambient temp is 21c so it was the next thing to try.
I’ve never seen transparent abs. I’m guessing that @ThantiK nailed it and this is PLA.
If your nozzle is loaded, when you heat it up, what temp does it start oozing out? Go for about 15-20C hotter than that. Try 193 and see what happens. Also, are you using a fan while printing? Does this “abs” stink and give you a headache while printing? Or does it smell like waffles? Mmmm, waffles.
I’ve used some glow in the dark ABS that needed to be as low as 195 I think it was. Before I lowered the temp I was getting results like yours, it dribbled all over the place.
@Daniel_Bull , @Matt_Bordoni , I dropped the temperature down to 195 and the cube walls look a lot better. I think the stringiness is better as well (despite the skirt detaching and being dragged repeatedly over the surface for the first 50 layers…) This may resolve several of my problems at once, including some bed adhesion issues. Thanks.
