MakerGear Forum

Hey guys,

So yesterday I got in blue ABS from intservo, 1.75mm. I printed a few of these parts at 20% infill with not perfect but pretty good quality
http://imgur.com/424jDrt

Next I printed a few of the parts for the makergear overnight, in a ~4 hour print, 100% infill. They came out looking like this (this is supposed to be the belt clamp)
http://imgur.com/ylQGy4s

Figured I just shouldn't print at 100%. Was planning on showing my printer at an event today and was going to print a sample part, so I printed one at home to make sure it is fine for tonight. This is how it turned out at 20% infill, pretty badly and with all kinds of uneven surfaces.
http://imgur.com/Ck7nJpy

Then I noticed the default Simplify3D settings have the extrusion multiplier at 1.1, so I lowered it to .9 as I'd seen some others have. Didn't improve the quality much.
http://imgur.com/2dPPFw8

All these were at 4800 mm/min or slower. I've plented off a ton of parts with great quality since I received this printer in mid january. I did just put the printer in the ikea hack box two days ago, but one of the doors is cracked open due to power cables and the air around the case is pretty cold. I do not think it is the new material either, as I printed off multiple parts with success.

Can anyone help? I haven't had a ton of time to diagnose this yet and will not have time until tomorrow but any pointers on what to look for will be appreciated.

Have you tried it with the door full open? Post the factory file (zipped) and maybe someone can see if there's anything else in your profile that's out of whack.

I recently began having problems with my new printer also. Turns out the adjustment screw on the filament drive had backed out causing the extruder to extrude very sporadically.

Just one thing to check off your list of things to check.

jeffpowell101 wrote:Hey guys,

So yesterday I got in blue ABS from intservo, 1.75mm. I printed a few of these parts at 20% infill with not perfect but pretty good quality
http://imgur.com/424jDrt

Next I printed a few of the parts for the makergear overnight, in a ~4 hour print, 100% infill. They came out looking like this (this is supposed to be the belt clamp)
http://imgur.com/ylQGy4s

Figured I just shouldn't print at 100%. Was planning on showing my printer at an event today and was going to print a sample part, so I printed one at home to make sure it is fine for tonight. This is how it turned out at 20% infill, pretty badly and with all kinds of uneven surfaces.
http://imgur.com/Ck7nJpy

Then I noticed the default Simplify3D settings have the extrusion multiplier at 1.1, so I lowered it to .9 as I'd seen some others have. Didn't improve the quality much.
http://imgur.com/2dPPFw8

All these were at 4800 mm/min or slower. I've plented off a ton of parts with great quality since I received this printer in mid january. I did just put the printer in the ikea hack box two days ago, but one of the doors is cracked open due to power cables and the air around the case is pretty cold. I do not think it is the new material either, as I printed off multiple parts with success.

Can anyone help? I haven't had a ton of time to diagnose this yet and will not have time until tomorrow but any pointers on what to look for will be appreciated.

If you grab the extruder assembly (about where the filament comes in), can you wiggle it front to back? I bashed my binder clips the other day and it torqued the print head enough to strip the screws slightly and let that assembly wobble. It wasn't noticable when stationary, but when printing, the force of the plastic smooshing against the previous layer would actually push the entire carriage back. I replaced the two stripped screws (the carriage, and surprisingly enough the ABS part too, held up fine) and it's all snug again.

Bad filament?
You might pull the filament drive and make sure the teeth on you gear are clear, and the gear itself is not lose on the shaft. Have you noticed any "slipping" sounds from the extruder?

As above, check your extruder motor mount, Angle of your hotend (pointing straight down?).
Check your bed for play (I've forgotten to put bed clips on a few times), and check your belt tension.
Post back when you figure it out

I have not gotten to work much on this issue, but it's at the top of my to-do list. I have done this:

I printed this hex shape. It came out fairly well though the top has a small gap, and the build plate was a little too high so the bottom layer is wide.

http://imgur.com/jMptdNG,SFCjcuk,sVdA8xZ

So then I printed a larger part, here, with worse success.
http://imgur.com/jMptdNG,SFCjcuk,sVdA8xZ#1
http://imgur.com/jMptdNG,SFCjcuk,sVdA8xZ#2

The above file was printed with the process in the attached file (EDIT: the factory file is not permitted to upload? Will try google drive - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2ZcS- ... sp=sharing). The hex part was printed with the same process but .88 extrusion multiplier.

I also took this video of what I think is my printer making a bad noise.
https://vid.me/cmCv

thanks for the help guys. Hopefully I can try a different material today to see if results are similar or different.

That 'bad noise' sounds like gap fill. Most of your problems look like acute under-extrusion, perhaps from a snagging filament roll or out-of-spec filament.

Check your E-Steps for Marlin, make sure they didn't get cosmic-ray-bit-flipped. It should be 491.5 (or 471.5, I can't remember...), Z is 400.

insta wrote:That 'bad noise' sounds like gap fill. Most of your problems look like acute under-extrusion, perhaps from a snagging filament roll or out-of-spec filament.

Check your E-Steps for Marlin, make sure they didn't get cosmic-ray-bit-flipped. It should be 491.5 (or 471.5, I can't remember...), Z is 400.

Thanks. How do I check the E-Steps for Marlin? I'm not even actually sure what that means.

However, look at the octopus pictures from before. That does not seem like acute under-extrusion to me. It seems like some of the layers are shifted from where they are supposed to be.

If you haven't messed with your firmware I wouldn't start there. Go through the mechanical checks recommended above first, I bet you'll find something.

i've taken off the filament driver (plastic part and the gear) and cleaned it out. there was some junk in it, it collected a lot of dust before I put it in an enclosure. I guess there's a possibility my shaft/nozzle needs to be cleaned out.

I tried printing this off in bridge material with the process here ( https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2ZcS- ... sp=sharing ) and got this ugly result, including the inner hollow column being filled. I've printed this spool out before with great results.

http://i.imgur.com/gE3o1yi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/5QlU3lh.jpg