Re: [MakerBot] Puddling on top of print

[Luis E. Rodriguez]

Ok so lots of stuff going on in this photo. Basically you are putting out WAY too much plastic and I think you need to have 'cool" turned on. Can you tell us what Skeinforge you are using?

Luis E. Rodriguez

Are you a Maker?

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Bartholomew <bart...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi there.

I am having an annoying problem with my ToM. Regardless of how well the print turns out, the last several layers always seem to end up puddled, like for some reason the top Z increments are reduced. This happens regardless of scale (see attached pic).

Any thoughts?

Many thanks for any help,

Bart

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[Shawn]

Like Luis said - too much plastic. You can see this throughout the
print - the bottom of the eyes, the top of the nose, the little blobs
here and there, etc.

My immediate thought would be to measure your filament width, and make
the appropriate adjustment in the slicing software. Maybe test on the
20mm calibration cube with 100% fill. When you can print the cube
without the above issues, the skull will come out great.

I just spent the weekend printing the skull for the Calgary Horror-Con,
and it came out differently.
(https://twitter.com/open2space/status/249596029387825152/photo/1)
Other than people tripping over the power cable, the skulls are great
and we had fun with em -
https://twitter.com/the_runningdead/status/249991622060810240/photo/1

So I'm not saying the skulls I printed should be used as THE best
example, but the pics above do help to highlight the issues. If it
helps, mine are printed at 0.2mm layer height. Your's seem to be a
little higher - 0.3mm maybe?

Hope this helps. If not, we can dive into your settings in more detail.

Shawn

[Bartholomew]

Thanks for the fast, useful replies, guys.

I am using Skeinforge 50. 

I am not sure what you mean by turning on"cool"? I'm a neophyte.

This was done at 0.3  layer height.

Sounds like my next step is to get a micrometer and measure the filament and fiddle with a calibration cube for a while.

Thanks again!

[Shawn]

When you open the SF interface (with RepG, you edit your a slicing
profile), you see the various sections across the top as buttons. one
of those will be "cool" If you don't see it, make sure the "Craft"
button/tab further up is selected.

I have made no changes to cool other than recently to bump the Minimum
Layer Time to 15 seconds from the default 5. And this was specifically
to test the results for one particular model that would have the fine
points curl up a bit (not the first layer peeling thing - that's different).

I don't know if Cool is the cause of your issues - my skulls were
printed with the default settings for cool, but my environment is likely
different.

So, I think tuning your machine to do the 20mm cube (at 100% fill)
properly will make a world of difference. The trick there is
recognizing what "proper" is. Successfully printing the cube is only
the start. The infill should be uniform and consistent. You shouldn't
see any gaps between fill lines (too little plastic). You shouldn't see
any extra plastic pushed out to the edges of the fill lines (too much
plastic). And you should see an even finish around the entire cube
without blogs, lines, or other imperfections. Each of these issues has
a different tuning fix. Ask here as you encounter them.

On 12-09-25 11:23 AM, Bartholomew wrote:
> Thanks for the fast, useful replies, guys.
> I am using Skeinforge 50.
> I am not sure what you mean by turning on"cool"? I'm a neophyte.
> This was done at 0.3 layer height.
> Sounds like my next step is to get a micrometer and measure the filament
> and fiddle with a calibration cube for a while.
>
> Thanks again!
>
> On Tuesday, September 25, 2012 9:32:24 AM UTC-7, Luis E. Rodriguez wrote:
>
> Ok so lots of stuff going on in this photo. Basically you are
> putting out WAY too much plastic and I think you need to have 'cool"
> turned on. Can you tell us what Skeinforge you are using?
>
> Luis E. Rodriguez

> Are you a Maker? <http://www.makerfairekc.com/>

>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Bartholomew <bart...@gmail.com
> <javascript:>> wrote:
>
> Hi there.
> I am having an annoying problem with my ToM. Regardless of how
> well the print turns out, the last several layers always seem to
> end up puddled, like for some reason the top Z increments are
> reduced. This happens regardless of scale (see attached pic).
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Many thanks for any help,
> Bart
>
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[Bartholomew]

Well, I have spent the last couple of days modding every parameter in Skeinforge I could, one at a time. Nothing seems to help. I've tried v35, 47, and 50. And all I get is a blob at 100% fill. See picture attached. I'set the base flow rate to as low as 20, changed the width over thickness as low as 0.5 and everything else I can think of. I've even gone into the actual print code and changed Flow_Rate_Setting_(float) down  to 35.0. Same blob produced. It makes a clean block at 10% fill, but a right mess at 100%.

Any ideas?

Many thanks,

Bart

[Shawn]

Still looks like you are extruding too much plastic at any given point.
I'm sure you checked your filament width (use calipers to measure the
filament at a few points over a couple feet of it), and punched in the
resulting width into the Filament Diameter box (on the plastic tab of
the Generate GCode dialog). You may need to tweak it up or down in 0.01
increments to find the sweet spot.

If you've done that already, then maybe the extruder motor's stepping
rate is set wrong? I'm not familiar enough in this area to know if this
would cause the issue or not, or where to check this value though. And
I'm not sure what else could directly affect this.

Maybe if you told us what settings you are printing at? Print speed,
move speed, infill, number shells, layer height, if acceleration is on
or off, etc.

[Bartholomew]

I attached the settings I am using.

I hope I'm just doing something bone-headed.

Thanks,

Bart

[Bartholomew]

And yes, I measured my filament at 10 points with my hyper-accurate harbor Freight micrometer. :)

[Joseph Chiu]

Lie to Printomatic and usea bigger numberthan your actual measured values.  That will result in a smaller amount of plastic, and should make it nicer.

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[Mark Cohen]

And if you have been using printomatic then it has been overwriting some of your sf settings

[ddurant]

Are you using skeinforge directly or print-o-matic?

 

> changed the width over thickness as low as 0.5

 

No. Not what you want to do.. I don't think value should EVER be under 1.0.

 

Multiply your nozzle size by 1.1 then divide that by the layer height. That's usually a good place to start for w/t. So, for example, if you have a 0.4mm nozzle and want a 0.27mm layer height: 0.4 * 1.1 = 0.44;  0.44 / 0.27 = 1.63.

[Bartholomew]

I am using  print-o-matic and modifying Skeinforge.. I'm starting to see a light. So if I make changes in Skeinforge, and use Print-o-matic, my skeinforge mods get wiped out? Oy.

Thanks, guys!

[Lucas Saugen]

It's worse then that. Only SOME of your skeinforge mods get wiped out.

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[PropellerScience]

I wonder why it's so different. I printed a skull using almost default
setting and Print-o-matic. All I did was to adjust the bed and nozzle
temp for PLA.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesannio/7924166512/in/photostream/lightbox/

[Shawn]

When you generate the gcode, the settings are listed (you sent these
earlier). I believe it tells you when it is overriding the SF value.
Either way you can use that info for further diagnostics.

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[Mark Cohen]

Yes a few settings. I think i remember reading a csv file gets produced or something that has the overwritten settings or perhaps there us just a list floating around somewhere

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