E3D Volcano slicer settings (Page 1 of 2)

4mm is a ton of retraction on a direct setup. That's also pretty fast retraction.

Update: still struggling with settings.  Here I cranked it up to 45 mm/s on perimeters and it totally crapped itself on the second layer (first was slowed down to 30% speeds).  What am I missing?  How can I get the volcano dialed in?

As a side note: this is not intended to be a complaint thread.  I'm sure it will work great once I get it tuned correctly and I wanted to document the process for others who will get it.

I assume you calibrated your extruder and played with the extrusion multiplier?
My first few test prints actually looked a lot like the ones you show. Try upping the temp by 5c...especially if you are ramping up the speed. Adding more heat shouldn't be by much or even necessary considering the design, but I found it really helps for the impatient user Also roll your flowrate back by about 10 until you get the Slic3r settings to your liking.
Give me about an hour (hopefully) and I will show and tell.

What are you running for retraction?

.8mm layers are pretty tall. I'd say that's why everything looks squishy, its so much molten filament.

Length: .4
Speed: 35
Minimum travel after retraction: 2

I wiggling of the Volcano is only a factor when overextruding. There were a few times I was sure the heatbreak would snap, but the extra play prevented it fortunately. Perhaps something like this with a cradle for the heatbreak and top half of heating block would do the job since the design would have to factor in the E3D fan. Lining the plastic with kapton would dampen the heat, but that would fudge the dimensions in design.

Damn, this is frustrating.  I decreased layers to 0.60 (0.5997) and I'm still getting slop.  I could post another pic but its basically the same.  It seems like the larger layers require more contact time (slower printing) to bond to each other, otherwise it just rolls right off and forms slop.

I also adjusted retracting, tried both 2.0 mm and 0.40 mm at 50 mm/s.  I haven't gotten a print past the second layer yet so I really can't say how this will affect gaps. 

Also, all settings are now leaving incomplete perimeters on my print, by several mm.  Its not even close to closing perimeters now.  This seems to be a tool path issue, slic3r is just not putting the tool head where it needs to be.  It's as if it goofed up the path calculation because it doesn't know where to put the nozzle with the bigger layers. 

I slowed my first layer way down and also saw no improvements.  The slop starts on layer 2 as soon as it gets over about 30 mm/s speeds on any part of the print. 

I'm confident this is a slic3r issue.  The volcano just does what its told.  Prior to the volcano being released, I don't think many (any?) hobbiest printers were dealing with these kinds of layer heights and widths.  The path generation is all kinds of goofy.  It's also interesting that G-code preview in repetier does not really know how to show bigger layers, it shows space between layers when they get thicker.  So perhaps future versions of slic3r will be better for larger layers, but I will continue to try and get good results from the volcano.  I would like to fix the shitty tool path generation issue before trying to fix the slop  issue.

You may need a positive extra length on restart value for those gaps (same pane as retraction settings). Are they at the start or end of your perimeter loops? Remember, extra length on restart is in terms of raw filament, not extruded filament (so don't set it to the length of the gap, that won't work).

The trouble is at these larger nozzle sizes slic3rs approximations become more apparent so it may not hurt to give another slicer a shot as well.

The spacing between layers is normal in the GCode view. It is not a bug. The thickness of the lines in the preview stays the same so gaps indicate size. It's awkward but not a bug.

Ugh, this is really frustrating.  First it lays down this very nice first layer...

Then seconds later it totally goes to crap when the speeds go over 30 mm/s!  The perimeters will simply not adhere.  0.60 layers from the 1.0 mm nozzle at 60mm/s perimeters and 40 external perimeters.  My V6 could handle those speeds no problem so I am baffled as to why the volcano is not.

Also, the second layer solid infill has serious gaps between lines.  This is frustrating because it does a perfect 1.20mm single wall calibration cube, and the perimeters touch nicely.  So if I increased my flow rate multiplier to make the infill lines touch each other, I can expect to be massively over extruding on the perimeter. 

Obviously, I have several issues going to.  Any help is much appreciated.  Thanks.

I wouldn't call that vase "fine". It looks like its squirting out all over the place, like the hotend tip is rocking around. Are you sure the mount is secure and your carriages don't have slop in them?

You also may not be melting the filament fully. You didn't say what layer heights you were running on v6, but lets make assumptions:

60mm/sec * .8mm width * .3mm height  = 14.4mm^3/sec

60mm/sec * 1.2 width * .6 height = 43.2mm^3/sec

Volcano is good, but I don't know if it is triple the flowrate good.

Why don't you try duplicating AZERATE's settings to get a starting point?

I don't seem to be having any of the problems you are showing.
This is my first solid print after two calibration cubes to dial in flow.


.2963 layer height
.96 extrusion width
.80 nozzle
Same speeds I used with my v5 .6
80 mm/s
I am with Tim on this it looks like you have a wobble in your mounting.

Well, I've got another container printing now with 0.40 mm layers, 45 mm/s perimeters and 1.2 mm widths and it looks good so far, although it did struggle with the multiple solid layers on the bottom.  I'll post when its done. 

So it seems like I was indeed previously pushing it too hard before.  There is still a limited amount of plastic that can successfully come out of the nozzle per second before it either comes out too cool to adhere to the extruder gear slips because it can't push anymore.  The above comes to 21.6 mm^3/s.  I will continue to run more tests and see what I can achieve.  It is probably a balancing act- I could probably pull off those 0.80 mm layers if I slowed it down to nothing over 30 mm/s... that ends up at 28.8 mm^3/s. 

If anyone else is running a volcano, I would be interested in seeing what you can achieve too.  There is so many possible combinations!

Maybe I can get more flow rate per second if I turn up the heat, but I'm sure past a certain point it will cause other problems.  There is a guy over on reddit who was printing 0.90 layers at 25 mm/s with the 1.2 nozzle. 

Lots of learning for me today!