I'm having consistent issues on certain layers of all of my prints.

@Kyle_Taylor with regards to printing 2 benches, and one being bad tells me that your filament is snagging when moving to the far end… See to place some filament guides, and smooth rolling filament, no matter where it sits on the bed…

Note with an E3D Bowden system you want about 2mm of retraction at the hot end, and then you have to add some more travel for Bowden length to take up slack and elasticity. 10mm sounds too high but you’ll want more than 2 for most bowdens.

@Panayiotis_Savva When I printed 2 simultaneously, in opposite corners, I had the same defects as before in BOTH models. However, I only showed one of them in my latest photo. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Hah, I was gonna pop in and say this was an extrusion issue instead of a mechanical movement issue but it looks like everyone here has you covered! :smiley:

@Kyle_Taylor for a Bowden style setup you’ll want to be between 4 and 6 for most setups. The longer the feed tube is between the extruder motor and the hot end, the longer the retraction should be. I run 4.5 on my ender 3 and have a pretty short tube.

One more thing to keep in mind is that the extruder jerk and acceleration can come into play, especially if a layer looked fine before a corner and then was missing after. The harmonics of moving the extruder forward and backward quickly due to model geometry can cause skips if the jerk and acceleration are too high. These problems can be exasperated if you are using some sort of pressure or extruder advance.

Sometimes it is worth the effort of finding the minimum amount of motor current required for the extruder. In some cases too much current makes it more difficult to quickly change the extruder speed/direction. Increasing the voltage of the psu for motors can help. Similarly, finding the right balance of torque, speed, and rotor inertia can make large differences. Often times it is better to run a smaller frame motor that has a longer stack length (less inertia) to achieve similar torque as a larger but shorter motor (that probably has higher inertia). It is all about balancing the extruder reduction ratio, torque, motor angular velocity, and inertia.

I really want to thank you all for the help. I have settled on 4.5mm retraction and lowered my printing speed a bit to 40mm. That seems to be my sweet spot. Next I have to stiffen my carriage to start eliminating that ghosting. I have a HUGE functional print/gift I want to get done by the end of the week so decided to go slow and started last night. 8 hours in and it looks 100% better than before. I’ll post a link once it’s done, assuming all goes well.

BTW, I made my hotel reservations for MRRF19! Hope to see some of you there!

My 40 hour print turned out ok. I still had a few strings and zits but that’s so much better than before!missing/deleted image from Google+

Not too shabby!