Answered Flow Cube a Mess, Model a Mess

Hello everyone,I print with ASA and have very little problems other than ringing which I cleared up but now have this miserable condition that I can not pinpoint with settings. I tried to take my settings back to standard with no help. Though 40 mm/s might be high for ASA I was printing fine at that speed on my QIDI X Plus for many prints. The language barrier makes it tough to get solid answers from QIDI so I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

Two sides of the cube print smooth while the other two and the bottom are a mess. The results of the test suggests I should run at 37% flow.. hehehehe Do I have a mechanical issue here or whhhhaaaaat?!

I have included photos of my model and the problems I am having with it. Once I cleared up the ringing (mostly by making consistent layer heights) a bulge at the seam and zits appeared. I again and again tried all the settings from temperature, speed, acceleration, retraction, clean nozzle and more with no help. Now the layers are just blobs. I also switched to my all metal extruder and have the same problem. I have the same problem with Prusaslicer or Cura. I am using 100 degree bed which I have used exclusively in the past with no problem so I don't think it is heat creep. All my filament is kept in dry bins and I did try two different brands.

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply with the links. Of all the issues I feel like over extrusion matches the best. I have adjusted the flow from 37% to 130% with no help since lower flow makes for poor adhesion and model strength. I was unable to find a happy medium and keep in mind that I have printed many of my model without this issue.

I am being led to believe that it is a mechanical problem too and the jerking idea on the cube makes a lot of sense to me but when watching it print, my model, it seems to be..... print blob stop blob print blob stop blob print blob stop blob print blob. As though the gear is grabbing then not grabbing but I checked and cleaned that all out. I'm trying to use my endoscope to get video of it printing but haven't got good quality video at this time.
I have suspected bad belts and finally got them from china but it looks like a hell of a job replacing them and I held off. I tightened and loosened the Y Axis belts til I found what seemed to be good but that was before this problem. CHEP says the tighter the belt the better but I found a tight belt hurt my results, and again, this was before this current problem. The X Axis belt is my biggest suspect if it is a mechanical issue.

Also, as you expressed, it could have to do with acceleration since it was when I started messing with that for eliminating ringing that the problem seemed to start. But, again, I have printed many many models without this problem using factory settings. I have in fact reset everything to factory settings to try and start over but with no help.

As you can see in my real model example it only seems to effect the starting layers of the model and could correlate with the number of bottom layers I have (10).

I have asked QIDI for their opinions but I just keep getting the same reply of adjusting the flow and I have done that til it makes me sick.
Here is another Image that was the first indication of something wrong before it just kept getting worse. I tried changing the coasting path retraction and combing but things just kept getting worse. Maybe that will give you a hint.

Thank you very much for your time and careful thoughts.

 

Thanks again for your reply.
I am currently investigating that it is my file. Around the same time that everything seemed to be going wrong I decimated my model in Blender to try and get a smaller file size. I may have gone to small. While preparing a piece of the model for QIDI to print I could see that the section is very decimated with long lines. Perhaps the extruder is starting and stopping at these points or something. I am going to try and print the large file but I think I tried that before.

I just don't see strong evidence of a bad belt or bearing or anything on the machine. ARGHHHH

Oh, that's right.....I tried printing other models and got the same results. I wana cry.

 

OK, SO, I printed the lower portion of my model with a finer mesh and it helped a lot. I can still see concerns but I think that is because of using an all metal hotend while I wait for my new normal hotend. I was never able to get great results form the all metal but I knew it worked good enough. Maybe now I will try again to tune it in for ASA. What is your opinion of using an All Metal with ASA?

I seen some blobbing on the bottom inside layers that I think can be adjusted. I'm not saying the problem is solved but I see a big improvement.

But I don't think this explains why the Flow Test Cube is such a mess.

QIDI is telling me to use "turbo fans" on the ASA. Everything I ever researched says no fans. Have you ever heard of using fans on ASA?

 

Replaced the X belt. The original belt was stretched and the adjustment was at max. I now have a tighter belt.

I ran the lower portion of the model and it doesn't have the blobs but I am 99% sure the blobs were coming from an over decimated mesh. It looks like I can get away with a 50% decimated mesh. There is some over-extrusion on the bottom layers but I think I can clear that up with the normal hotend (when it comes in) and some minor adjustments.

Thanks for your time