Replicator 2x Lumpy Infill

[Haas]

I have both a Replicator 2 and 2x and have been having a never-ending stream of issues with them, but I'll explain each in a separate thread.

I am in the middle of printing a large project of about 50 3"x7"x2" boxes using glow in the dark ABS on the 2x and glow in the dark PLA on the Rep2.

I got about 20 off on the 2x before things went totally haywire.

When I ran out of ABS filament, I tried to continue production on the 2x with PLA, and thats when things started getting funky.

What happens is; the bot will lay down the first layer perfectly, and the sides will be pretty good too, but the infill is a mess! It's all globs and strings, eventually building up into clumps that will strike the nozzle at around 100 layers or so, burning the plastic in places and laying down a roof that is uneven and full of holes.

Since then I have switched back to ABS, but the problem continues, and it's the same with both the right and left extruders. Also it doesn't seem to matter what color or brand of ABS I use. 

Here are some 20mm calibration boxes @ 10% infill, .2mm layers:

Part of this one actually looks ok... This is the last one I did @ 230c/HBP 110c:

Once the top goes on:

Perfectly filled bottom:

If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated. Time is running out on this project.

Some more information: 

Both my bots are running on the latest Sailfish. I level my plates obsessively, and I have tightened the drive belts.

Using either RepG or Makerware to slice, depending on whichever one seems to be giving me the best results. The boxes above were sliced with Makerware using standard settings for ABS, with the only tweaks in temperature.

Thank You,

Haas

[Jesse Vanderhoff]

There have been reports of the 2X not playing nice with PLA. I would check your extrusion and HBP temperatures first. I haven't dove into PLA on a 2X but you can search the forum and there are recommended settings around. 

In addition some users report that the lack of an active cooling fan gives problems which may or may not contribute to your particular problem. A space fan pointing into the printer as well as remove of the top hood and opening of the front hood should help.

Sorry if these answers are elementary. Just trying to start with the simplest solutions.

[Haas]

Thanks for the quick answer, but this is actually happening with ABS.
I was able to print with some limited success with the PLA, but since switching back to ABS, nothing is working right.
I'm fairly certain I've run enough ABS through the extruder to clear out any old PLA too.

[Wingcommander]

I don't mean this to sound condescending, but are you sure that's white ABS?

Otherwise it looks like you are printing too hot, try lowering your print temp or HBP temp say 225/100.

[Haas]

This was in fact  Glow in the Dark ABS (although some of them may be white, as I was trying other colors). Certainly ABS.

I have since tried actually switching to PLA and other colors of PLA and ABS but am always getting this same issue.

the first flat layers go down nicely, then once it starts creating the sparse layers everything goes wrong, even the outer layers ripple and skip. I'd almost blame it on moisture, but I have another Makerbot in the same room, using the same filament, and its not doing this at all (although it has it's own issues).

I've tried to lower the temperature down to around 190, any lower and it just doesn't even stick, but its always the same thing.

What perplexes me the most is that I have gotten quite a few successful prints out of this printer with both PLA and ABS, and now I am dead in the water.

Here are a few more images of what's happening:

Honeycomb pattern looks more like cobwebs:

Circular infill from Skeinforge seems to sort of spiral up:

10% infill once it's finished:

At 5% infill the globs get so high it will collide with the nozzle and send the x axis out of whack. 

Most recent test cube with PLA at Makerware's default High setting:

Glows real nice though:

[Haas]

It now seems that my Replicator 2 is doing the same thing!

It started out by having the opposite problem as the 2X. Infill looked great, but solid surfaces were a mess. The top surface being rough and pocketed, individual lines are inconsistent and uneven.

[John Armbruster]

You should search for some older threads containing PLA GITD filament. It is notoriously viscous, oozes terribly from the nozzle...very stringy and there is no real cure for it. It works fabulous for solid shapes, but is extremely stringy on anything with small towers or islands. Your infill seems a low percentage, and it actually looks rather normal for GITD filament.

[Haas]

Although I have seen this problem before with my GITD PLA, never this bad. I have gotten excellent results too!

I have been using the filament from ToyBuliderLabs for a while with mixed results. I wonder if they are just wildly different from one spool to another.

I'll continue searching the forums, but I started this thread because nothing really struck me as the same kinds of issues.

Also as a point of interest, I have tried other colors in both PLA and ABS on both machines, and I'm having the same or WORSE problems that I've never had before.

Here's something I've noticed (and I may need to start a new thread on this by itself) my nozzles are getting duller over time.

They are getting flatter and the hole is getting larger.

I've replaced the nozzle on my Rep2 several times and within a week, I'm seeing a nearly +0.1mm increase in diameter, and -1mm in height!

I wonder if this GITD filament is actually quite abrasive, and it's actually eating my MakerBot alive from the inside out.

I can't find any point of reference on this anywhere. 

[Wingcommander]

Try changing your infill pattern to rectalinear (or equivilent) I think you problem is that the infill pattern is causing lots of suck/prime operations whci is probably sucking air into the nozzle and allowing the filament to bake and go lumpy. The outside is a continious feed, and looks good - so I imagine if you switch to a continious feed infill pattern, it shoudl clean things up quite a bit.

[Joseph Chiu]

Dear Haas (and everyone else),

 

Thank you very much for bringing this issue to our attention. It looks like you are right about our GITD PLA being abrasive.  

 

Back in October, I saw a similar nozzle wear issue on my own setup (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JosephChiu/posts/jD1oLunvguj). In a previous (unrelated) experiment, I had sanded my nozzles, so I did not then connect the nozzle issue to the use of GITD PLA filament.

 

After seeing your post and the picture, I realized that what I saw back in October may have been caused by the GITD as well.  Clearly, as you are actively working on a project with plenty of GITD filament, you would be seeing a faster rate of wear.

 

I just completed a quick experiment to test this, and have preliminarily confirmed that at least some of our GITD PLA has this problem:

 

I scrubbed several different test samples of PLA filament against an oxidized block of brass and found that the GITD PLA sample (from batch B20130720A0) was able to abrade the oxidation on the brass while all of the other samples did not.    

 

Repeating the test with printed PLA pieces again showed that the GITD was abrasive while others were not.

 

We are putting together a list of all of our GITD PLA customers so that we can notify them of this issue. We are working out the proper course of action to help any customers affected by nozzle wear from this issue.  Please contact me off-list so that we can work together to resolve any problems that have been caused by our product.  

 

Thanks.

 

Sincerely,

Joseph Chiu

ToyBuilder Labs

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[Steve Johnstone]

Wow Joseph, what brilliant customer survice and support!

Makerbot need to take a leafe out of your book. I have never bought product from you as I'm in the uk, but just wanted to comment you on how you are handling this.

Well done Joseph.

[big_red_frog]

That is indeed the extra mile. Impressed.

Meanwhile John, where are you buying filament in the uk? It strikes me as expensive there compared to canada where I am, but looking to setup my uk family with a replicator 2.

[big_red_frog]

Sorry, meant Steve j, not john...

[delsydsoftware]

That's a shame. That's some of the best GITD filament I've seen as far as reactivity. Luckily, I didn't use much of it at all before I got distracted by holiday stuff. Still, if it's that's abrasive, I might be able to use it to unclog a spare nozzle that is packed up with PLA, or polish the exterior of my current nozzles :)

[Jetguy]

The way I view this, just print with a $5 nozzle from QU-BD considering the roll of GITD was probably $55. It seems a fair tradeoff.

In other words, this is a very generous offer by Joseph to take returns on some rather expensive filament anyway when even a genuine MakerBot nozzle is only $20, less than half the cost of the roll of material.

 

So again, if I had any say, the better option is to just offer $5 nozzles to wear out with each roll of filament rather than replacing or refunding the filament. http://store.qu-bd.com/product.php?id_product=38

 

I'm also sure my old MK5 and MK6 stainless nozzles are a lot tougher than these brass nozzles, but that's another discussion altogether.

 

Again, I cannot stress enough how impressed I am by Joseph for standing up and offering refunds.

[Haas]

I agree Jetguy,

And thank you Joseph!

I've had success with this filament before and I wouldn't return it unless theres maybe something wrong with this batch, or it is physically damaging my printer.

It may be that any GITD filament will do this due to the phosphorus materials used in the filament

I have gone through half a dozen cheap nozzles already, it usually helps for a short time. I last changed the nozzle last week and I'm already seeing it rubbing away.

I haven't tried this on my 2x yet, but I am about to change all the nozzles on both machines right now. Maybe run some simple PLA through to coat the nozzle a little first?

...maybe these cheap nozzles are a particularly soft brass? The original MakerBot nozzles did last longer. Has anyone seen Mk8 nozzles made of tougher material like stainless?

So, now I see that could be another big part of the problem that my nozzle may be "riding the mogul" as Joseph put it in his other thread.

If my head is dragging across the top of the previous layer that could explain whats happening. I usually level with the plastic backing from kapton tape, but I've tried everything from notebook paper to photo paper.

[delsydsoftware]

Wow, that's cheap. I guess it's not surprising given their history, but Makerbot is seriously overcharging for new nozzles. I think I paid $20 for a single nozzle several months ago.

I wouldn't actually think of taking a refund, honestly. I have gotten better prints from Joseph's filament than any other filaments I've used, and at a cheaper price.

[Joseph Chiu]

Thanks guys.  

At this point, my current understanding is that the high-performance glow-in-the-dark compound is a very hard material, and the granules vary in size with some of the grains being large enough to cause more aggressive wearing.  Sort of like the difference between polish and rubbing compound.  We have already talked to our supplier about this issue, but there's no immediate resolution in sight for having a "softer" replacement.

It may very well be that replacing fast-wearing nozzles is the only viable solution for anyone that needs to continue printing with the GITD PLA.  I am curious to hear what other vendors filament you have tried, and how they compare in various ways to ours.  You mentioned going through half a dozen nozzles already -- is that only with ours? Or with GITD in general? 

As for "riding the mogul" -- if you had your packing density too low (or feed multiplier too high, depending on the slicer), and you were over-extruding, you will definitely have a higher contact force between the nozzle and the extrudate, which would more aggressively wear out the nozzle.  

[Darrell jan]

I tend to agree with Jetguy. Don't know if you want to get into the nozzle business, but I would be happy to accept a new nozzle, or perhaps pay $5 (and maybe get free shipping?). I see the nozzles are currently out of stock on the qu-bd website.

Being on vacation, I haven't had a chance to inspect my nozzles yet. It'l be interesting to compare the left and right nozzles. The right one has gotten the vast majority of wear and tear, with and without GITD filament.

[Steve Johnstone]

My last batch was off amazon - Jet ABS. I have also had some from Robosavy which was reasonable.

I have only been printing for 9 months so I'm pretty new to all this. I have a list of supplier I want to try and don't mind paying a
Little extra for a quality filiment.

I just wish there was some one like Joseph in the UK.

[big_red_frog]

Thanks Steve,

Nine month makes you qualifies you to be an expert pundit on the bbc :-)

I take it that jet abs was from 3d printer supplies?

I will be after pla, prices look far more reasonable than I had been seeing, but quality realy does mater.

I have a cheap supply here in canada that I am impressed with, so you can get quality at reasonable cost.

Would be very interested in your ongoing experience with material sourcing in the uk.

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

Thanks.

[Steve Johnstone]

For PLA I have heard faberdashery is the place to go... I haven't tried them as PLA on the 2X is a pain at the moment.

http://www.faberdashery.co.uk/products-page/

[big_red_frog]

At 23 pound 100 meters / 300g thats 76 pound a kg!?!

That needs to be doped with gold :-/

[Jetguy]

Nope, regular printer ink still beats even MakerBot's insane plastic pricing considering they charge $130 for a KG of certain filaments.

76 British Pound Sterling =  $124.97 US today so even Faberdashery is cheaper (OK not apples to apples but still funny).

http://reflectionof.me/relative-prices-of-different-liquids-1

 

Print with Human blood, it's cheaper.

[Jetguy]

Follow on since I railed completely off topic, but if you are asking," where do I get human blood to print with?"

 

The Big Lebowski:

You want a toe? I can get you a toe.
Believe me, there are ways, Dude.
You don't wanna know about it, believe me.
Hell, I can get you a toe by 3:00 this afternoon,
with nail polish.

[Haas]

SUCCESS!!!

So, after changing nozzles on both my printers, I have both printing GITD PLA as as good as new!

The 2X is even doing a wonderful job.

I ended up accidentally slicing one of the power cables on the Rep2's filament blower, but since the duct had broken off months ago, this hadn't been doing much anyway.

So I've rigged up a case fan to provide some active cooling, and it seems to be doing a nice job. 

I've duplicated the setup on the 2X as well.

The only slight issue I'm having now is curling, but I know this can be fixed with any combination of blue tape, ears or a raft.

I'm back in business!

Thanks for everyones help on this! I'll update if anything changes.