Gah Some sort of under extrusion problem. First layer is fine ( about .2mm off perfect but S3D handles the offset fine) once it gets to second layer or more it starts under extruding.
Current Settings :
215C
60C Bed
85 mm/s print ( half speed bottom, 2/3 speed outer peri)
E3D Volcano PT100 @ .6 nozzle
What I’ve done to try and fix:
Cold Pulls : nothing of note
Replaced Heater: Previous one had a short and blew though 3 fuses till i figured it out
PEI Bed: Tried taking it off( printing on just glass) - No improvement)
Reapplied PEI - Thats what you see now.
Tested Ext Motor holding torque - once engaged I cant move it at all by hand
Not sure were else to check. My current guess it the Rambo board ate it on one of the fuse blows, or the Z stepper has a tendency to get crazy hot but hasn’t presented any issues ( unless this is one)
So anyone got any ideas?
Raise your first layer a little bit, calibrate your e-steps, set your nozzle and filament dimaters correctly, lube your nozzle a tad, check your cold end traction and then try upping your extrusion rate if it does not clear up. That is my opinion. I also think that for a volcano nozzle which is supposed have a large nozzle hole, your first layer looks really really thin.
.2 mm layers any higher then that and it looks like the rest (spotty, not sticking well). Forgot to mention increased temps up to 240F nozzle and 70F bed. No change to bed adhesion. Three different filaments, all the same problem. Increased idler tension to max and down to almost none in the print shown. No change. Nozzle and filament measurements double (now triple) checked.
Was printing fine then went to print Sunday and bam, under extrusion city.
Okay. Now we are getting somewhere. What happened between the good prints and Sunday? Also, what filament?
Blue, green, then orange hatchback pla Nothing of note happened, was a Saturday I went to bed right after it finished a print, woke up, made and changes to the design and then printed new designs, under extrusion. Will try other designs tomorrow after work, doubt it’s the model, but worth a try.
If that is PLA, 240C is a bit hot and the glass transition temp is 55C.
Disengage the idler, heat it up and push the filament by hand. It should be relatively easy to do, especially at those temps (at that temp the pla would literally drip out).
When I did switch from A4988 to DRV8825 and on RAMPs board I didn’t change jumpers that changed the microstep resolution from 1/16 to 1/32 and extrusion was 2 times smaller.
I would call it extruder feed rate is low, when first layer is squeezed it is hard to see you run 50% of flow.
Was it humid Saturday? Do you hear hissing or popping? Could something have gotten loose? Do you have a pet that might have messed with or pissed on your printer or filament? Did a kid hae access to the printer?
No pets or kids. No change in humidity. No signs of too much water in the filament. Plus it was more then the one spool. That rules out the wet filament.
It’s running on a rambo board, so it uses digipots and they haven’t been changed. Microstepping hasnt been touched.
The 240 was more to rule out an inaccurate (low) temp reading on the therm.
When I get home from work try redoing the Esteps/mm, upping extrusion rate, and change the model so if its any of those. Also will try reflashing the firmware incase something got messed up there.
I got a smoothieboard laying around for another project, I can wire that up to see if maybe its the board, but I’m kinda leaving that as a last resort.
What’s cold end/extruder are you using? Is it possible the that the drive gear on it is slipping? That can be really hard to spot, but would lead to under extrusion similar to what you’re seeing.
99% sure I found the issue. I may have been messing with the LCD Saturday night, just kinda exploring it. I may have found the Filament control page. I may have turned it on and discovered it only seems to work with greater then 2.5mm filament. I may have forgotten to then turn it off. The printer may have then used 2.5 as the diameter for its calculations. Not saying that is what happened. Just saying it MAY have happened.
Here is hoping your next print attempt is a successful print attempt.
Hope you’re sorted. When I saw the pics my 1st thought was crop circles. :-p
