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Printer overextruding?

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by Erica Lindström, Jul 23, 2017.

  1. Erica Lindström

    Erica Lindström New Member

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    I have a issue with a print from thingiverse I want to make. The file creator thinks my printer is overextruding. He suggests that I check that my bed is leveled and it is.
    Then he suggests that I turn down the extrution ratio, where do I do it and is that something I should do?
    Finally he also suggests that I do a extruder motor calibration, again, where do I do it and is that something I should do?
    Is there any other suggestions you could give me considering the picture of the print I'm trying to do?
    The issue while printing is that the extruder seems to move back and forth at the same stretch while doing the infill, creating large amounts of PLA to be placed on the same place. This makes the print much higher in those places and forms ridges and grooves. When the extruder passes these parts it actually forces my print bed to flex downwards.
     

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    #1 Erica Lindström, Jul 23, 2017
  2. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    Yes it looks like it is over-extruding, can you tell us how you sliced this model, or if you let the R2 do everything for you?
     
    #2 WheresWaldo, Jul 23, 2017
  3. Erica Lindström

    Erica Lindström New Member

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    I let the R2 do it all since I know nothing about slicing or 3D printing.
     
    #3 Erica Lindström, Jul 23, 2017
  4. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    Hmm. that makes it a bit more complicated. You will need to wait on other R2 /C2 users to join this conversation as this is adjusted in the built in printer profiles and I don't use Cura nor have a R2 /C2.
     
    #4 WheresWaldo, Jul 23, 2017
  5. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Every slicer I have seen has a way to control extrusion percentage. 100% would be full-tilt "extrude as much as I think I need" and adjusting that number down would lower the amount of plastic extruded. If a printer is always over extruding then the better way (in my opinion) is to fix the firmware to have it actually extrude the correct amount of plastic :) That is a bit more work and on the R2/C2 it would mean that you need to manually control updating the firmware going forward (not the RoboOS part, that you could let update).

    So where does that leave you? I would suggest starting with a different slicer. Use a slicer from a PC/Mac/whatever and generate GCode that you then upload to OctoPrint and it will print it. There are a number of free ones you can try if you want to experiment.
     
    #5 mark tomlinson, Jul 23, 2017
  6. Erica Lindström

    Erica Lindström New Member

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    Ok, thx. I only had my printer for a couple weeks (first 3D printer ever for me) and just started experimenting with it. I have managed to print small things ok, but this covers the whole bed.
    The printed item should overlap a cardboard sheet in a game and, as seen in the picture, it seems like the printed item is too small. Could it be that my bed is too small, for this item, thus leading the printer to over extrude?
     

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    #6 Erica Lindström, Jul 23, 2017
  7. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    The bed size would not affect how the extruder is extruding. I can't imagine the slicer would raise the extrusion rate because the object is bigger. Make sure your layer heights are correct for the first few layers.
     
    #7 mark tomlinson, Jul 23, 2017
  8. JeffreyB

    JeffreyB Member

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    To calibrate the extruder, there are videos out there that explain it, just do a search. You basically measure out a fixed length (120mm) of filament, tell the R2 through motor controls to extrude 100mm, then calculate the difference. This will tell you if you are over or under extruding. Once you have the new "steps per unit" for your extruder take that number and put it into the eeprom under "Options/EEPROM/Steps Per Unit/E:" from the front panel. The default is 145.5 for the R2. If you are really over extruding the number you come up with after running the calibration test will be less than that. As a temporary measure you can always go into "Tune Print" on the front panel and lower the flow rate from the default 100% to say 95% and see if that helps. this is temporary as that setting is not remembered from print to print.
     
    #8 JeffreyB, Jul 23, 2017
    mark tomlinson likes this.

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