Finally put the ribbing/banding issue to bed (or at least improved it by an

@Jason_Gullickson You need to accurately measure the filament. It will likely change a few times through a roll, and almost definitely be different from roll to roll. Your prints will definitely improve if you do that (vs not).

What’s the best way to go about that @Rob_Giseburt , is it just a matter of taking the calipers to it every meter or so or is there a more sophisticated/efficient method?

Thanks!

Definitely too much plastic then. Rob’s right about accurately measuring it. Also, that solid fill bulging is essentially the old school calibration that we all had to do before @Rob_Giseburt gave us the gift of volumetric 5D, and can still be useful if you’re not confident about your effective gearing ratio (which is also effected by drive gear diameter, which can be difficult to measure and inconsistent among lower-quality gears like the hobbed bolts).

I’m running a Makergear “cold-end” so the gearing and the drive gear should be pretty predictable (I don’t have the data handy but I can look it up). Is volumetric 5D a skeinforge thing?

I know this isn’t terribly helpful, but I shudder every time I see a makergear hot-end.

It was first implemented in skeinforge, but it’s what every slicer uses now.

Yeah @ThantiK I could show you the pictures of my old one (I switched to a j-end :slight_smile:

@ThantiK Other than the drive gear and the old-school wades-style idlers, what don’t you like about the makergear drive mechanism?

Oh crap, I can’t keep up anymore. It’s almost midnight over here, so I’ll be off for the night with a “happy new year” to everyone!
@Dave_Durant I was referring to the ideal microstep resolution with a nicely tuned driver.

@Whosa_whatsis not the drive mechanism. <3 the drive mechanism. It’s the hot-end I can’t stand. Had nothing but trouble with them. I have no idea why but every makergear hot end I have ever seen just has a tremendous amount of backpressure, and has given me tons of problems. The J-heads I’ve used, Budaschnozzle, Arcol, etc - I could take 3mm filament, and just barely put any pressure and filament would just slide through the hot end…

Ah. You said cold end, (a term that I try to avoid, as it is sometimes used to refer to the drive mechanism and sometimes to the insulator attaching the drive mechanism to the hot end.

Yeah I wasn’t sure if that was the right term (which is why I put it in quotes); but to be clear I’m using a Makergear drive and a J-Head.