Random 3D printing chatter

Soldato
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Yep, I looked at it in S3D and it's broken - none manifold and lots of self-intersecting triangles etc. S3D could not repair it, but you could try a post-process repair via MakePrintable web tool (https://makeprintable.com/).

Oops, notice it's now a paid service :(


I'll start to print the fixed file in the morning.
There was a lot of errors in Meshmixer.

Just hope it works.
 
Soldato
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I'm after some sanity advice please guys. I've got a 0.2mm nozzle on now and a glass bed. I resorted to adding some hairspray to the bed because of adhesion issues. It seems that whatever I try to fix issues seems to make something else worse.
I've raised the bed to 70 and the nozzle to 220 and for a while, it seemed to be extruding and sticking. Trouble is that it seems to stop extruding properly and start a thinner a less consistent bead. You can see what I mean if you compare the top outer perimeter to the circles in this pic.
I'm assuming this is a partial nozzle clog? What can I do to stop that? I've already raised the temp and tried bringing retract down from 1.5mm to 0.5mm - which of course resulted in more dribbling. Should I be turning off retract entirely?
I did notice that the extrusion seemed to be being laid onto the bed rather than extruded onto it - ie it is extruded slightly above the bed and drops onto it. Fine for straight lines but turn a corner and it doesn't stick well. I've levelled the bed to A4 thickness, then moved the entire print to the back edge because the middle still seems like a larger gap than the corners. I've then tried giving all the bed wheels about an 1/8th of a turn to reduce the gap. I've read there are offsets that perhaps I should be looking at instead but I'm not really sure where to go with that. I did try reducing the first layer height in the slicer but I'm not sure if I'm in the wrong place.

Oh, before I switched nozzles, I printed a calibration cube. 20.0, 20.0, 20.4 (rounding to 1 dp). It would seem the Z axis is off but I'm not really sure what to do about it. Any hints?

Thanks in advance.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Jul 2007
Posts
24,529
Location
Solihull-Florida
I'm after some sanity advice please guys. I've got a 0.2mm nozzle on now and a glass bed. I resorted to adding some hairspray to the bed because of adhesion issues. It seems that whatever I try to fix issues seems to make something else worse.
I've raised the bed to 70 and the nozzle to 220 and for a while, it seemed to be extruding and sticking. Trouble is that it seems to stop extruding properly and start a thinner a less consistent bead. You can see what I mean if you compare the top outer perimeter to the circles in this pic.
I'm assuming this is a partial nozzle clog? What can I do to stop that? I've already raised the temp and tried bringing retract down from 1.5mm to 0.5mm - which of course resulted in more dribbling. Should I be turning off retract entirely?
I did notice that the extrusion seemed to be being laid onto the bed rather than extruded onto it - ie it is extruded slightly above the bed and drops onto it. Fine for straight lines but turn a corner and it doesn't stick well. I've levelled the bed to A4 thickness, then moved the entire print to the back edge because the middle still seems like a larger gap than the corners. I've then tried giving all the bed wheels about an 1/8th of a turn to reduce the gap. I've read there are offsets that perhaps I should be looking at instead but I'm not really sure where to go with that. I did try reducing the first layer height in the slicer but I'm not sure if I'm in the wrong place.

Oh, before I switched nozzles, I printed a calibration cube. 20.0, 20.0, 20.4 (rounding to 1 dp). It would seem the Z axis is off but I'm not really sure what to do about it. Any hints?

Thanks in advance.


Your bed is not level.

Look at Bilb66 video. He has a bed leveler fitted.
 
Soldato
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@bulb66 Do you mean the part about a geared direct extruder? Are you saying that the problem is that my extruder isn't able to push hard enough to get it through the nozzle?
My extruder is single drive (one toothed, one idler) and ungeared. I've definitely had it fail to push the filament when there were too many retractions and it chewed up the filament enough to make it too hard to get down the tube.

@deuse I think you're right but the immediate issue is that it won't extrude. Have to get over that hurdle before the bed level makes any difference at all. I suspect there is some sort of Z offset where the nozzle is lifted away from the bed after homing and before printing. I'm not sure if this is in firmware or in slicer (first layer height or other) though. I know my bed isn't flat and I suspect the 4mm glass bed I've got either also isn't flat or is dipping where the bed dips. I also think I need to look at bed stabilisers since it's quite springy on the side away from the rail and that makes it hard to level. I may have to mount a dial test indiacator on the head and see if I can do any better.
 
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@bulb66 Do you mean the part about a geared direct extruder? Are you saying that the problem is that my extruder isn't able to push hard enough to get it through the nozzle?
My extruder is single drive (one toothed, one idler) and ungeared. I've definitely had it fail to push the filament when there were too many retractions and it chewed up the filament enough to make it too hard to get down the tube.

It's going to be a combination of things, but as E3D say in their blog a geared extruder is essential. You don't say what layer height or print speed your using either they are also important. I've personally not printed with a nozzle smaller than .3 so I don't have any first hand experience of going small.

What printer do you have? What slicer, etc.
 
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It's not I don't think, my point is, what makes you think Thangs are harvesting emails? For all you know Thingiverse does (more likely given how it's run)

Anyway you got the file? Get it printing.
 
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Soldato
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What printer do you have? What slicer, etc.

Ah, sorry I missed the last sentence some how. Ender 5 Pro, using Fusion 360 as a slicer currently since it's convenient if I'm working on models to directly slice them to gcode. I've stuck a 4mm borosilicate glass bed on top of the existing bed but I'm not sure it's entirely flat still.
 
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Ah, sorry I missed the last sentence some how. Ender 5 Pro, using Fusion 360 as a slicer currently since it's convenient if I'm working on models to directly slice them to gcode. I've stuck a 4mm borosilicate glass bed on top of the existing bed but I'm not sure it's entirely flat still.

Well I don't have experience with Fusion as a slicer because..... Well I'd rather use something specifically made for the job, I had a look this morning and it's seems a bit disjointed to what I'm used to.

Can you send me via trust a .gcode file you have exported.

J.
 
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Recently discovered there is a free MS utility that is pretty good at repairing broken STL files. Included with Win10 but has to be downloaded from MS website. https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/p/3d-builder/9wzdncrfj3t6?activetab=pivot:overviewtab
It has successfully repaired a couple of files for me - notably a Mars Rover model off Thingiverse where the STLs are non-manifold (have holes in them). The app checks the file as it loads them and offers to fix it.
 
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Join me in around 1hr for the live build & first print on the Think3Dim T22 Max Pro 3D printer. This printers main feature is quad strain gauge bed leveling.

 
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