Calibration Cube Issues / Pillowing

I'm having all kinds off issues with my printer and I'm not sure how to sort them out. I'm really confused why a calibration cube wouldn't work out of the box with stock settings.

First off the only engine that seems to work for me is matterslice. If you look at the photos when I print in slic3r it ends up like the mess on the right. If I use cura the head mashes into the bed when it prints. Not sure why, doesn't it auto calibrate?

I'm doing a .2 infill and having issues with bridging and such. The cube on the left is the most successful. Yet it still doesn't fill at the top properly. I've told it to slow down for bridged prints. I've also told it to print 15 top layers, overkill to find something that works and back it off. However I seriously have my doubts that this setting is even getting applied. It doesnt look like 15 to me.

I'm trying to figure out how to get this done on a calibration cube before moving on to longer prints that will just mess up at the end.

What the hell am I doing wrong?

Why doesnt cura or sli3r some close to working properly.

What kind of bridging success should I expect out of this printer?

What engine do you use? Did it work "out of the box?

I'm trying to attain .2 infill because I'm trying to print a guitar that will take all week otherwise.

 

A few observations printing again.

This time 15 layers did print and it's evident.. far left in images. However I still feel that 15 is a lot considering the default is 3. Comments?

Also I observed that the print speed didnt slow down when doing top layers. For some reason I thought the gap due to the low infill would count as bridging and force it to run at the bridge speed I defined. This doesn't appear to be the case. Is there a setting to specify which speed the top layers should run at? I would like to slow this down.

I'd still like to know why slic3r and cura can't seem to print properly.

 

Is your print head pausing or changing direction at those hole points? Could be a pathing issue. I find that at .2mm 4-5 top layers is plenty. I would start by counting the top layers, because it looks a lot like what I get at .1mm if I dont do enough top layers

 

Interesting you say that. I just came back to report that I get much better results with "medium" settings. Which to my knowledge is just .2mm at medium, versus .1mm at high quality. So my question is does the robo3d work well at .1mm to begin with or am I trying settings that mattercontrol offers but isn't even recommended for my printer? And then my second question is should I bother with .1mm because honestly .2mm looks pretty good to me. I'm going to compare them when this print is done, but on the bed .2 looks as good as .1 but with less screw-ups.

How many top layers do you do with .1mm on yours?

 

Thanks for all of the information I'll have to take some time to consider it all. Regarding the calibration cube I've been through that many times before and can print 100% fill with good results, I've printed a good number of things just nothing with tricky bits to them. I think my other posts show a bit of that, I don't remember.

I was doing the cube again because I wanted to try and narrow down why I can't ever seem to get a proper top layer when I do a lower infill at .1mm quality. I understand based on what you said that the "gap" between the infill when printing the top layer isn't considered bridging. I don't know at what point something is considered bridged. Either way, is there no setting to say "when printing on top of nothing, do some special conditions"?

For the print on the right, that was using slic3r engine inside of mattercontrol. I've never used repetier

 

No idea what that means

 

Just took a quick screen shot from my webcam and this print at .2mm (instead of .1mm) is going exceptional.

The "H L T" that's upside down, the overhanging parts there (at 90 degree angles) would have never printed without being screwed up in some sort of way if I did this at .1mm.

I can't help but think that indicates something correlated to layer height, since as far as I know they only thing that's changed is .2 instead of .1mm and the difference in print accuracy is very obvious.

I don't want to introduce a red herring here, but for some reason I've always suspected extrusion issues. Humor me, does a .2mm layer height extrude more than .1mm? I'm just thinking that if I'm having an extrusion issue, would it be true to say it would be more pronounced at a lower layer height? And less obvious at a higher layer height? I probably just sounded really stupid in this paragraph so correct me here and I'll learn a thing or two.

 

I would like to try slic3r but since the defaults are all messed up I'm starting out way in the hole. Could you tell me what I should download and run to get a good baseline with slic3r with robo3d?

 

OK I'm back with a bit of an update. I'm trying to establish some baselines here before I mess around too much, however theres a few interesting discoveries so far.

For the record I did a fresh install of matter control and as such I'm using whatever default settings it's configured with for PLA. So we're talking:

• Medium quality
• .2mm height
• 210C filament temp
• 50C bed temp
• Masking tapes on the glass (I seem to have to do this no matter what, thought pla would be good just on the glass)
• White/Black PLA from robo3d, came with printer

First and foremost I found out that one of the nuts and bolts for one of the vertical support rods was messed up and loose. (I'm talking about the smooth rods not the threaded ones.

By messed up I mean that it was defective and the nut was one just the end of the bolt and bound up and seized. There was about a half centimeter of movement with this bolt, it was not on tight in the slightest.

Not only that but I could not undo the nut. I tried everything, even vice grips and a ratchet, it wouldn't budge. I had to drill it out and buy new hardware at the store. I've replaced this but haven't notice an improvement as a result. Didn't necessarily expect one.




Anyway back to the print. I have two pieces of a guitar, one at .1mm and one at .2mm. The one at .2mm had no issues filling in the top layer and no issues printing onto thin air.



Here's an example of it failing to print well on thin air (doing an upward and outward curve) at .1mm. I suspect this would print well at .2mm if I did it again.




This .2mm printed a similar curve great! However .2mm just doesn't look so great as far as the layers alignment and stuff compared to .1mm



I ran some cubes and bridge tests at .2mm. If you recall I was having real issues with these at .1mm. The cube at .15 infill finished the top layers much better, no "pillowing" or whatever the term is, and it finished in the default 3 layers. I let it go 5.

Bridging with and without supports seemed pretty decent at .2mm



Would really like to know what I can do to get .1mm to print this accurately. This bridge test is a no go at .1mm doesn't even come close, it prints the legs then utter failure. The cube test at even .25 infill, not .15 can't finish off the top layers unless I do 15+ solid filled top layers.

 

What might I do about something like that, or verify if it's the case?

 

I would like to help by including my settings. I use the same for all the softwares (Cura, MC and Repetier)

Robo3d settings

Layer height 0.2046
First layer 0.3
Parameters 6
Top layer 5
Bottom 5
Generate extra parameters when needed
Start at non overhang
Thin walls
External parameters first

Infill 0.3
Infill every 1
Only infill when needed
Fill pattern Rectilinear
Top/Bot fill Rectilinear
Infill every 1 layer
Only infill when needed
Solid infill every 0 layers
Starting angle 45
Solid infill threshold 70

Speed
Everything at 50 except
Outside perimeter 70%
Gap fill 45
Min print speed 30
Travel 125
First layer speed 50%

Skirt and Brim
Loops 2
Distance 6
Skirt height 2
Non extrusion length 1
Brim 0

Support
Overhang 89
Enforce support 0
Raft 2 layers

Options
Pattern Rectilinear
Pattern spacing 2.5
Starting angle 0
Interface layers 3
Interface spacing 0
Z gap 1

Output options
Wipe 0
Adv first layer 150%

Flow
Bridge flow 1

Other
Threads 2
Res 0
Extrusion axis E
Optimize overhangs

Filament
Diameter 1.75
Ext multi 1
Ext first layer 190
Ext temp 190
Bed first layer 55
Bed temp 0

Printer
Bed size 228.6 x 254
Print centre 114.3 x 127
Build height 203.2
Z offset 0
Bed shape rectangular
Firmware reprap

Extruder
Nozzle 0.4
Ext offset 0

Retract
Length 1
Change tool 10
Z lift 0.12
Speed 35
Extra length 0
Min travel 2
Retract on layer change
Retraction when disabled 10
Extra length 0

Everything I posted should be entered. If I did not post it, leave it unchecked or at default.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk in Canada

 

Thanks! I'll read over and consider. You've used this in mattercontrol? So you always print at .2? As I'm trying to eventually get to good .1mm prints.

where did you get the exact number of Layer height 0.2046?

 

layer heights:
for 0.100 use 0.1058
for 0.200 use 0.2046
for 0.300 use 0.3034



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk in Canada

 

I'm not sure if there's a course of action or a solution here so I guess consider it closed. Other than to say printing at .1mm is difficult? Considering I can't print anything but the most basic of shapes at .1mm with any accuracy. .2mm is good, I printed out a fairly decent yoda head with very little defects (the chin mostly). So I guess for now I'll keep things at .2mm until a time where I feel like I've somehow magically improved my prints and am willing to attempt a .1mm print again.

If anything revolutionary comes up let me know.