1st Wall of Test Cube is Too Thin?
Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:24 pm
I just switched from red eSun PLA+ filament to a new spool of "pine" green. I always run a single wall 20 mm calibration cube when I switch filaments to set my extrusion multiplier. The red test cube had the last 3 walls right at 0.40 mm (measured in the middle of each wall), with the first wall at 0.38 mm or so, which I figured was good enough.
The green filament wasn't too far off on the last 3 walls, but now the first wall is 0.36 mm thick in the center, and it's 0.33 mm near the start, and gets up to ~ 0.38 mm near the end. It also seems to be more prone to stringing than the red.
The properties of the green filament are somehow subtly different from the red, but I'm not sure what to tweak to fix it. I can try raising the temperature to make it a little "runnier", and I'm printing another cube now with a little less retraction.
Any other suggestions on how to get all 4 walls the same thickness?
Update: It's related to my retraction settings. I had "force retraction on layer change" turned on. If I turn that off, I get 4 walls of nearly identical thickness. However, when it does retract when printing a model, the first 14 mm or so will be under extruded.
I can certainly re-tune my retraction settings, but I'm surprised just changing color of filament makes such a large difference.
Update #2: Changing the retraction from 1 mm to 0.8 mm, and the extra restart distance from -0.1 mm to 0 seems to have fixed it. The green is definitely stringier than the red, and I may drop the temperature a bit to address that, but it's good enough for the first models I need to print.
Thanks!
The green filament wasn't too far off on the last 3 walls, but now the first wall is 0.36 mm thick in the center, and it's 0.33 mm near the start, and gets up to ~ 0.38 mm near the end. It also seems to be more prone to stringing than the red.
The properties of the green filament are somehow subtly different from the red, but I'm not sure what to tweak to fix it. I can try raising the temperature to make it a little "runnier", and I'm printing another cube now with a little less retraction.
Any other suggestions on how to get all 4 walls the same thickness?
Update: It's related to my retraction settings. I had "force retraction on layer change" turned on. If I turn that off, I get 4 walls of nearly identical thickness. However, when it does retract when printing a model, the first 14 mm or so will be under extruded.
I can certainly re-tune my retraction settings, but I'm surprised just changing color of filament makes such a large difference.
Update #2: Changing the retraction from 1 mm to 0.8 mm, and the extra restart distance from -0.1 mm to 0 seems to have fixed it. The green is definitely stringier than the red, and I may drop the temperature a bit to address that, but it's good enough for the first models I need to print.
Thanks!