jsc wrote:the first layer is extruded at a height of 0.20mm, not at 0

Good catch.

I've set my startup G-Code to put Z=0 at the platform. All the layers are 0.20 mm thick, which means the G-Code shows the actual height above the platform and the first layer comes out spot on.

Exactly what should the gap bed be set to ? I set it to the same 0.20 mm that I use for the thread thickness, so that the first layer comes out exactly the same as all the others, but opinions differ. In any event, you're absolutely right about the business card thing; a round spark plug gap gauge ...

Also, the first few layers are messed up... rough edges etc. They're too sparse, because the first layer had too much vertical space. The nozzle will move vertically by the correct distance between each layer, so, after a few layers, it'll start looking pretty good... but the first few layers will ...

Could my extrusion width be off? Indeed! Have you printed a thinwall box, measured the actual thread width, and adjusted the Extrusion Multiplier so that matches what the slicer expects to produce? That's how you get an accurate extrusion, which is what you need before you can figure out what else ...

Un-wedging a spool came up a while ago, with a link to a how-to video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE9LchCtKL4

I suppose the worst case scenario would involve spilling all the filament on the floor while trying to locate the fault...

The thin results on the flat feeder show that the slicer expects more plastic to come out of the extruder than actually happens, producing that scanty fill. You must do two things: Measure the actual filament diameter & set that in the slicer Run off a few thinwall calibration cubes to find the corr...

Some insight into what I need to do would be awesome. The most important thing: careful calibration. That requires aligning ("leveling") the platform so that the first layer adheres properly, adjusting the extrusion temperature for proper plastic behavior, tweaking the speeds and accelerations to s...

The wall thickness on this is theoretically .5mm so a nozzle and half's width, I measure the parts to roughly two nozzle widths (2x.35mm) on average You may get better results by designing the walls to accommodate two (or slightly more) threads, which is the absolute minimum required for a peninsul...

you can create a gap smaller than your extrusion width Alas, the inner details still get obliterated by the need to have two parallel threads for raised areas inside the letter: W M R P X B and so forth. The finest detail an extruded-filament printer can produce in the XY plane will be about two th...

Glad to help! A Very Good Thing about OpenSCAD: the design won't get trapped inside an expensive CAD package. Anybody, anywhere, armed with a PC and Free Software can adjust the design to fit their phone & camera. Of course, some OpenSCAD models will be easier to tweak than others, but you can use t...