Solved Solid Layer Print Roughness

So I'm entirely new at this. I've searched the forum here for help and have found LOTS. Thank you everyone for your wonderful input and help.

However, I have a few problems that I'm trying to solve and it's being problematic.

1. I seem to have an extrude calibration issue. When I print (with PLA), it appears all goopy with far too much material coming out of the nozzle. Yesterday I did a calibration thinking that was it, and in which I measured a 150 mm of filament, told the extruder to extrude me 100 mm and I was left with 51 mm. In order to get a decent print however, I need to turn my extruder multiplication factor to 0.73 which seems quite odd.

2. My first solid layers are REALLY rough. the nozzle is scraping over the part and is making all kinda of ruckus. After 5 or 8 layers the roughness goes away and it prints fine. Is that normal?

Thanks!
paul

 

Pictures speak 1000 words.

Print the stepped calibration and post the results: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:24238

For your extrusion multiplier, turning it down is quite weird. Why do you think it's extruding too much material?

Rough first layer is generally an indicator of being too low.

Give this a look: http://www.printedsolid.com/firstlayer/

 

it tends to expand a bit after passing through a nozzle. I generally read .45-.5mm

 

Thanks Mike for your help. I really appreciate it.
I have downloaded the 5mm calibration steps and will post photos when it's done.

 

Ok. I got some photos for you too look at. Also, for my own learning, I will try to diagnose the problem and you can tell me if I'm correct...

On to the photos.


The material is PLA
Extrusion Temperature is 210 C
The Bed Temperature is 75 C (using Hairspray for stickyness)
Note: the cooling fan was NOT on during the bridges and thus why it is all droopy. (yes?)
MatterSlice was used and a Z Offset was specified at 1.0 mm

Inside and Outside Permitters were at 80 mm/s (except when the slice size got really small, then the printer slowed down)
Infill was printed at 80 mm/s with the same exceptions.

I have another one printing where the extrude temp was decreased to 200 C.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also, could it just be possible that, on the larger pieces, 80 mm/s is just too fast?

paul

 

Mark! You are totally right. The raft looked incredible until the actual part printed. The only major difference between them was the print speed, which is why I am starting to suspect my speed of 80 mm/s is just too high.

I am printing another cube at 200 and will post photos when it's done.
Thank you for the reply.

paul

 

Ok. I'll give that a shot on the full size one.

What happens if my bed temperature is too hot?

 

Excellent. Here are the results with the following temperatures
Extrude Temp: 200 C
Bed Temperature: 75 C

THe rest of the setting were unchanged including the fan not turning on during the bridge... hmmm, I think I'm missing something in the settings.

On to the photos!



Still seems a bit melty...

 

So, that over-extrusion thing has be concerned. I did a calibration on the extruder and it appears to be spot on. (100 mm extrude command resulted in 102 mm extrusion). I'm going to look into the fan speed - I'll post more soon.

 

I tried to print my big piece. It printed beautifully at 40 mm/s. Then, like magic, it is like the printer forgot where the infill and Z was and started to run through the infill making quite a racket as I'm sure you can image. The picture shows that half of the thickness of the part is spot on gorgeous. The second half is horrible. I wonder if I need to calibrate the X and Y stages?

 

Whats your Z steps per mm in the eeprom settings

 

By some happy coincedence: the thickness of the good part of the above image is almost the same as the raft (that printed excellently) as shown prior. Interesting...

 

Ok that seems fine if you have a bottom cover. Looks like cooling issues. Stick with calibration objects until you can print those reliably.

Did you turn down your temp? 210 seems too high to me.

 

The images above were at 210 and 200. I can print the calibration object tomorrow morning at an extrude temperature of 195.