Answered Weird problems with using PETG with my Robo R1+

Hey guys,

I've had my Robo R1+ for a little over a year now. I was primarily using PLA before with no problems. A few months ago, I got into a bit of a cosplay kick and I'm looking to print armor pieces using my printer rather than manually making everything out of EVA foam. I have the .STL files for the armor I'm looking to make but I'm having a few problems. I'm trying to use PETG filament primarily because of the increased strength and the practically nonexistent warping. However, I'm having a problem where the layers are splitting and curling and stuff. With my limited experience, it's hard to explain it so I've attached a few pictures. I attached a few pictures of one armor piece that I tried printing in two parts and then glued together. You can see where at some of the edges, the filament started...sort of fraying. And then at the upper part, it just didn't stick at all. I'm not sure if it's a problem with some of settings or the file.

I'm also currently printing a baseball and the layers underneath are starting to get wonky. I also attached a picture of that.

For settings: I'm printing at 230C with the bed at 80C. I had the Z offset at 0.7mm for the armor piece and now I'm trying to print the baseball at 0.9mm. Important: I cracked my glass bed and replaced it with an aluminum bed. The aluminum bed is 3.175mm thick.

I'm using MatterControl 2.0 with default settings aside from temperature. Can anyone offer any advice? Am I just better off using Cura or Simplify3D?

 

1. I'll try lowering the bed temperature--thanks.
2. Usually I get a good first layer, it's the layers afterwards that are giving me problems. It's almost like the extruder is too low and is pushing the filament around while it's cooling which is knocking everything else off track. Perhaps that's related to the bed heat.
3. Thanks for the tip for the release agent. PETG really likes sticking to blue tape....
4. I should have taken the pictures with the support structures still in place...the small overhangs that the filament is moderately messed up did have support structures. The supports actually printed rather well for those but the actual model was still messed up. I think I may try printing the model horizontally instead.