Unanswered S3D, Retraction, and Wispy Strings...

Thanks Mark - I do understand experimenting is necessary and trust me when I tell you that I read as much as I can - to include the troubleshooting guide about 100 times. I practically have it memorized. What I have an issue is experimenting at random. Unfortunately, even if I liked that method, I simply don't have the time to do it. That's why I am trying to get an opinion on settings to change first - rather than "here's all of the settings, change them and observe until your print looks good."

I think what I will try first is to calibrate the extruder again. 205 extrudes fine, but is too hot based on print quality. So I am going to lower it, calibrate, and print some calibration triangles. Once I have that done, I am going to try "extra retract distance" and put that slightly negative. Then I'll print some cylinders and see if I still get the retraction marks. Will post some pics when I'm done this evening.

Thanks again for all of your time!

 

"Perfection is a Unicorn"

Going on a sign in my cubical at work.

 

Thanks guys - You're all of course correct. Unfortunately, my OCD prevents me from leaving well enough alone

Truth is, other than the zits, the prints were/are coming out very nice. And the zits aren't big, just a lot of them. I know you are correct, sand and finish is the answer, but my sons Robo doesn't do it - so why should mine? Even more frustrated today. All I did was recalibrate the extruder for a lower temp and try and print a test cylinder. No matter what I did, and what I changed, I ended up with two lines (where the retractions were). No zits, lines. Think it might be the model so I decided to say screw it and print a 9 hour more complex piece

Here is the cylinder. Again - no matter what settings I changed, retraction, wipe, open spaces, restart distance - symptoms were the same and the lines match the retractions as shown in the S3D preview pane.

 

I'll check Geof. Right now it's at 1.6. I still have retraction speed at 40. I probably need to increase the speed to 50 as you mentioned. I can go to 3.0 for retraction but does that not seem like a lot? This is absolutely a question and not pushing back as I have no doubt you know much more than I do.

 

I just know this didn't do this until recently and my son's doesn't do it, so I would love to try and fix the line/zits.

I am printing a rather long print now with a lot of retractions because it is a column of sorts with four posts and it retracts all around the posts according to the preview. Interested to see how it turns out. It should actually do exactly what it was doing before since I really didn't keep any of the changes. Ironically, if it looks great, I'll have no idea why

 

Still printing this new model and although the columns are thin (a little hard to see the retraction points) - I can still slightly make them out. They don't however look like zits. They look almost like little tiny gaps at the retraction points. Very similar to the cylinder above. In the cylinder you can see the line caused by the retraction points. Could it be that I am retracting too much? If so, should I change this with extrusion multiplier, reduce the retraction distance, or add restart?

I could be completely wrong, however, with what I am seeing now and the line on the cylinder (which I made 4 times) I was always increasing retraction, not reducing it. And there is absolutely zero stringing right now in this print. Not that that's a bad thing, but could also be, when combined with the other symptoms, possibly a result of over retraction. Am I off base or does that sound plausible?

 

Thanks mark - I did do that. My print this morning looks pretty good because of the geometry, but if I look close I can still see those divots. I am going to try and reduce my retraction and see what I get. I also might increase my extrusion multiplier as well. it is currently at 1 so I think I will go to 1.05.

 

Thanks again Mark. I appreciate you guys putting up with my OCD

 

At least you aren't so bad that you call it CDO because you couldn't stand the letters not being in alphabetical order.