Help with better surface finish...

[pcenginefx]

Hello fellow M2 owners,

I got my M2 kit earlier on this month and have been printing/tweaking it in S3D for weeks now, trying to perfect printing of a pretty straight forward model that I've created (it is mostly surface area with a few segments that stick out of it).

As you can see from the photo below, the problem is that I currently have a surface area with an uneven surface finish. Does this stand out to anyone as an adjustment in S3D that I need to make? I've attached my profile to this post just in case anyone wishes to see it.

Nozzle Diameter 0.35
Extrusion Multiplier 1.00
Extrusion With 0.30
Retraction Distance 1.50
Extra Restart Distance 0.00
Retraction Vertical Lift 0.30
Retraction Speed 3000.0
Coasting Distance 1.50



Thanks for any help!
//Aaron

[jsc]

Set your extrusion width to 0.40 and extrusion multiplier to 0.90. Then starting on the second layer (so bed leveling/z height doesn't come into play), start tweaking the extrusion multiplier on the fly using the jog dial, up or down depending on what you see until it looks good to you. When you get a setting that works for you, set your extrusion multiplier to 0.90 times whatever you have on the jog dial.

[pcenginefx]

Thanks for the tips - been non-stop printing test prints and am currently at Extrusion Multiplier 1.10, Extrusion Width 0.50 and I'm getting very close to the surface finish I am looking for, but we'll see how it continues....

[jsc]

I'm surprised you're not getting over extrusion and ridging at a >1 multiplier. Most of us have found an extrusion multiplier somewhere between .9 and 1.0 to be effective. If you have calipers, measure your filament diameter at several points and enter the average into S3D. You may find that your filament is slightly undersized. (Adjusting the extrusion multiplier is effectively the same thing, but if you keep your filament diameter setting accurate, you can reuse your extrusion multiplier setting across different filaments more easily.)

[sthone]

If you have calipers, measure your filament diameter at several points and enter the average into S3D.

With this in mind do you guys make separate processes for every different roll of filament you have?

I started doing this but wanna make sure I not going about it the hard way.

-Steve

[jsc]

You should if you want absolute consistency in your prints. In practice, I don't much care as long as I end up with something reasonable, and I tend to leave the filament settings alone.

[pcenginefx]

I'm surprised you're not getting over extrusion and ridging at a >1 multiplier. Most of us have found an extrusion multiplier somewhere between .9 and 1.0 to be effective. If you have calipers, measure your filament diameter at several points and enter the average into S3D. You may find that your filament is slightly undersized. (Adjusting the extrusion multiplier is effectively the same thing, but if you keep your filament diameter setting accurate, you can reuse your extrusion multiplier setting across different filaments more easily.)

I measured the filament (it is the black PLA that came with the M2) and it's saying 1.75 (and this is what I have S3D set for). I'm still experimenting with the multiplier & extrusion width settings...unfortunately it takes at least 30-45mins of printing to see the results of the top layer so it is slow going.

[jsc]

You can see what the top layer would look like by sinking the model down through the bed so that only a few layers of the top will be printed. I'd give it maybe 2mm to be representative.