Re: [MakerBot] Replicator prints rough after first cm

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Matthew Marlowe

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Sep 30, 2012, 8:19:23 PM9/30/12
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> The first cm of the print works fine, then it starts getting rough. It
> starts printing a "net" basically, so really rough where its supposed to be
> the smoothed shell wall.
> My settings are the same as before .27 layer, 200 degrees, 90 print speed,
> 130 travel speed, PLA, with supports, 5% fill, 4 shells
>

I'm not familiar with PLA, but with ABS -- Rough walls usually mean
the extruder nozzle is smooshing down prior layers(leveled too low),
the build plate is vibrating too much, your extruding too much
plastic, you are printing too fast, the firmware acceleration settings
need to be tuned, or your belts are too loose.

You can narrow it down by process of elimination. If it was just the
first few layers being crappy, I'd think it was the nozzle..but the
fact that it is the higher layers would make me wonder if its the
speed (first few layers may be printed slower). Try to reduce the
print speed and check on vibration and the belts. See if you can
print one full item at low speed with good plastic callibration and
then slowly pick up speed and observe it while it is printing to get
an idea of what is going on..

Matt


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Andrew Russell

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Sep 30, 2012, 9:12:33 PM9/30/12
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Post some pics of what you are getting, and people can provide more assistance.

I haven't printed with PLA yet, so I won't have advice specifically
for that material, but there are general print issues that are common
to both ABS and PLA.
Typically not having the build platform "trammed" (leveled) with the
extruder nozzles is a sure fire way to ruin a print.
Another common issue is that your filament diameter settings in RepG
are off. This doesn't always reveal itself or cause print failures
unless the object is more complicated/detailed or is using support
material.

Good luck and remember that this is fun and eventually you will be
printing awesome stuff.
-Andy
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SpeedBump

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Sep 30, 2012, 10:41:36 PM9/30/12
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I've been having the same problem. At lower heights, circles are smooth, but as you said, about 1 cm up the extruder starts vibrating as it goes around. It appears to be the Y axis. It's not loosing steps, I thought it might be skipping over steps. I thought I was having hardware problems and have swapped the stepper drivers around to see if the problem moved but that didn't fix it. The only other things that's changed is I upgraded to 6.0 firmware. I'll try downgrading to 5.5 and see if it goes away.


On Sunday, September 30, 2012 4:26:02 PM UTC-7, Curtis Hoines wrote:
I'm new to 3D printing.  The first few prints I did were fine.  But now the prints I've been trying are not going well.


The first cm of the print works fine, then it starts getting rough.  It starts printing a "net" basically, so really rough where its supposed to be the smoothed shell wall. 
My settings are the same as before .27 layer, 200 degrees, 90 print speed, 130 travel speed, PLA, with supports, 5% fill, 4 shells

I can take a video or pics if needed?

If anyone has any suggestions or has run into this and fixed it help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
C

Sean Tu

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Oct 1, 2012, 9:56:53 AM10/1/12
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200C seems a little high for PLA but then again I'm not printing accelerated on my ToM. The only time I run PLA at 200C is when attempting to clean out the extruder when switching from ABS.

Have you tried slowing things down just to see what happens? I use 192C on the extruder,  55C on the platform, 30mm/s print speed, 27mm layer height and am getting pretty good results with the one spool of PLA that I have.

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