Topic: PLA Success made easy. Picsa
So some good news, I am successfully printing PLA.
The culprit was not so much the heat but the PLA itself.
PLA is known to stick to and gunk up majority of all metal hotends. i.e. ed3 etc.
After a load of failed prints, success, odd failures, slicer settings ... the solution that ultimately worked was "seasoning my hotend and/or oiling. There are loads of info regarding PLA jamming.
Search "Seasoning Hotend"
You take about 20cm of PLA wipe and lightly coat it with some veg oil, canola, peanut, or olive, etc. get your extruder/hotend up to 230c and feed it through ... hear a few pops etc, next feed through 10cm of regular uncoated PLA, repeat again and that's it. You will have some light oil that will burn off and not affect the print much or at all, however use gluestick afterwards. This supposedly burns into the brass metal etc keeping the sugar like sticky molecules of PLA from sticking to the walls.
Some people use dust/oiler couplers 24/7 for PLA... this is how bad it is. I repeat oiling whenever I switch Spools.
No jamming and no extra fans. I did modify the Fan that is mounted on the rear and taped up the sides. i added a molded duct to direct more air towards the 6mm hotnend bolt/channel. The front clip fan should be added to do closed printing/ also provides better bridging. Will try to get a modified clip front fan duct that directs air closer to the print/nozzle.
Printing with PLA vs ABs really shows Davinci's shortcomings. You can see all the imperfections. ESP Z banding GAPS.
PLA Glow-in-Dark is an example PLA that needs an oiler. So far the more translucent PLA's have been clog/jam prone. These filaments also tend to be rough to the touch vs more solid colors (sugar-like stickier compound). for example - this does not apply to natural as it's texture is smooth yet has a translucent like property.
Yes PLA is here to stay.
I was printing some whistles for my nieces and nephews, top layer had a few bridging issues. I will post code files that printed best as well for anyone who wants to give t a go. Filaments used were and are Makerbot, Toner Plastics, Hatchbox, & Inland. Makerbot and Toners seem Identical in quality and compound. 98% sure Toner manufactures Makers filament.
Quick tutorial for Temps 182-195 (PLA is very temp sensitive ... Darker shades tend to print best at higher temps as well as more solid colors regardless of shade. Bed temps should be set at 50 max (start at 50c and drop to 40c)
You will over extrude this is important.
Adjust your retraction set to 2-3 mm with 20mm speed 1 and 30 are the defaults. in slicer under nozzle size (still experimenting) which have been set btwn .38 - .46. These adjustments will keep your filament from forming spiderwebs drops pimples ect.
If you don't have extra fans ect. Just keep the panels off, top and door open.
Take care of the optical sensor by tapping it just like the nozzle (blue wires to the rear right corner by the top cover hinge ... you'll see a little black optical sensor.
Make sure your filament does not get snagged. Since PLA is softer when hot it may cause air prints. Best simple filament holder has been Sedzens handle side mount that routes in this order, wore pulled from the bottom towards the back then through the rear through the guide.
These suggestions have yielded me some good to great results these test prints show the downfalls and room for improvement with the davinci using slicer. The z banding is more of a hardware issue and guide can only do so much ... Live with it or mod your m8 bed rod to a m3 with a wiggling coupler... Many solid posters have done this with amazing results.
The fine tuning is very specific to your "Relative" environment/machine. I have two Davincis. I am returning one due to issues (clogged on its third print out the box, warping in a closed envirment, using only XYZ cart) that I am not going to upgrade rather invest in a better machine or slowly build a corexy.
