First results from a temperature range test I'm putting together.

I made a cube, sliced it in Slic3r, and used the gcode in a script I'm putting together to make it a bit easier for me to test a new material in a range of temperatures.

Each cube is intended to print at a different nozzle temperature. The user would put a minimum and maximum temperature onto the web page, and get a gcode file or a copy-pastable page with gcode on it.

I should have used a skirt on the cube. The extruder is basically empty before each cube. None of the bottom layers stand a chance.

That first cube looks wonky because I kept getting "cold extrusion prevented" or some such of an error. Also happened on the next cube. It seems like the temperature can drop well below the firmware minimum very quickly. :/

Anyway, do you think a test like this might be useful? Assuming I get it arranged in a better way?

 

yes, I'd really like to use this kind of test for futur filaments.

and for the cold extrusion part, have you tried to isolate your extruder?

 

I'll go ahead and figure out how to set up a more comprehensive set of tests sometime this week. This weekend got consumed with housework and figuring out where the hot and cold areas of my print bed were. :/



Not sure what you mean by "isolate your extruder", Janot. I'm still relatively new to the whole 3d-printing scene.

As I understand it, the firmware will not execute an extrusion command if the printer thinks it's too cold. As a result of setting up this test, I think the Robo3d will not extrude below 185 degrees by default. Changing that will require changes to the firmware, which I'm just not feeling confident enough to mess with just yet.

My current fix is to set the extruder temp to something like 187, never lower.

 

A cube isn't a very sophisticated or complex print. There might be some better test objects with more complexity that will tell you more about temperature specs

 

Mike,

Eventually, I want to have a script that can take the output from Slic3r for any small object and duplicate them using a variety of bed and nozzle temperatures. So, the user could pick one of the dozens of test objects on Thingiverse to test.

After I get more time, anyway.