had a belt start to split once, had all sorts of issues and could not figure it out... until i went to check belt tension.. and the end of the one belt fell off.. oops

anyway, glad you slowly getting it sorted out.
but yeah, check everything for looseness/play.. and one to verify is up/down movement of the print head.. that is bad.

I have gotten some more ground on trying to get the leveling perfect. I remembered a weird 'bad printer hack' I used to use. If I dont print in the center of the bed, leveling issues matter less. If I print in the center of the bed, it has the issue. But I've tweaked the bed a tiny bit more, and the issue is just slightly there. Will do more tests tomorrow.

Heres the one printed in the center, and one printed to the side. The one on the left has a tiny bit of the issue, but otherwise my calibration is so much better than before. My tube I printed actually fits over the tube its supposed to fit on. Before my proper calibration, it was too tight. so thanks for the help with that, made a big difference.
https://imgur.com/a/yGAoe0d

on the tube... almost looks like something is loose somewhere..
either that, or speeds are too fast, maybe?

bed level should not matter that far up the tube. only really matters for the first couple of layers..

My issue, is my tube is still having the issue. I'm starting to think its a bed leveling thing, or something not related to the over extrusion. I was over definitely over extruding before, but now I think there was more than one issue. I've tried to level my bed but I have a really hard time getting it perfect because its the dumb 3 knob system, so changing one messes up the others. I've been trying to print and then tweak my bed to see if it helps. I've also noticed the brim's of my prints is messed up, so theres definitely something up with my bed setup.

https://imgur.com/a/lG2lUAy
My test wall, the good side of my tube, second pic is the bad side of my tube that makes me think its a bed leveling issue (because its always that side)

Thanks for the info Heartless. I'll go through these steps. I was definitely calibrating wrong haha.

you are quite welcome - that is what this forum is for.

airsoftwarrior345 wrote:

So I've been trying to calibrate my printer. and, mostly have had success. Weird thing, is I dropped my steps per mm all the way down to 130, which extrudes 5 cm when I hit to print 5 cm. which is even less than I had before changing my gear, and I thought I was supposed to have to raise it with the new gear?

I've found while I get moire its significantly effected by my steps per mm, so I've been printing the thin wall tests and slightly tweaking my steps per mm to get it to a very small amount.

So my issue. I printed this small tube that printed fine the first time. I've tried printing it again, and it fails every time. It gets this awful looking artifacting, in the same exact spot every time.
https://imgur.com/a/YcvvJVU
The first is on the left. I have no idea why its not working now.

You are still over extruding big time and that is 100% of this issue. Once you get your esteps calibrated so 100 or 5 equal 100 or 5 you then need to calibrate your flow rate by print a single wall cube as set in your slicer, not designed that way. If your flaw rate is right then the walls of the cube should be .42mm thick.

Umm.... if using a 0.4 nozzle, it should be 0.48 - 0.42 would be for a 0.35 nozzle
extrusion width is wholly dependent on nozzle size - ie: 120% of nozzle diameter.

there is much more to calibration than just adjusting E-steps. Yes, E-steps are a major part of it, but that is just the feed rate. You must also calibrate flow rate, and part of that requires measuring your filament to get an average of the actual diameter and putting that into the slicing program so it knows what it is working with.

Please refer to the attached calibration document for the correct way to accomplish all of this.
That document is made up of bits and pieces of information that are scattered all over this forum from several people. All I did was to gather it up, organize it and put it into one place, in a coherent order to help people just like you.
If you follow the steps, ALL of the steps, your printer should be in much better form. Do not skip steps and expect to get good results. Calibration requires all steps be performed.

I am also including "Slicer Theory" - with permission from the original author. This document explains the reasons for needing to do the filament measuring/averaging thing.
Basically it boils down to providing the program with accurate numbers with which it performs the calculations required to print your model. Providing accurate filament dimensions results in more accurate prints.

and lastly, i am including a calibration cube to use in performing the calibrations. it is 25x25x10mm - it is plenty big enough to get the required wall thickness information providing you set things up correctly in your slicer (instructions are included in the calibration document)

So, there is your homework for the weekend. Have fun!

I fiddled with the extrusion multiplier anyway just for testing purposes because I feel like my e steps per mm should be right unless I'm mistaken (but I can set it back to 1 and do other things if you have other steps I should take). I did get it to print my little tube correctly and decently, so your over extrusion theory is probobly pretty spot on as expected. My issue is when I then went to print the wall test from before, it was so thin that with the moire on the weak pulses is literally had holes in the wall lol... So I feel like my low extrusion multi isnt right and I need to do other steps. These are shown in the link below. The 3rd item in the second pic is my wall test at 0.9 extrusion rate, and seemed to be pretty good. But that setting doesnt print my tube well, so somethings still not right. The other two are a way too low 0.65 rate which was needed to make the tube print well. but 0.65 is obviously way too low, I just wanted to see how low I had to put it to make the tube print well. Obviously, theres some other issues haha.

And I just want to say Moire is a pain in the ass. At some steps per mm its not bad, like my 139 and 0.9 multiplier wall test. but at some numbers its just terrible lol.

Thanks for the help.

carl_m1968 wrote:

You are still over extruding big time and that is 100% of the issue.

Any idea how come its only failing at that certain point every time (near the top)? I'm wondering if my 'successful' print is the one where I dropped my steps per mm to like 100. But then it was only extruding like 4cm when I hit to print 5 so I turned it back up. I'm using slicer prusa edition now since upgrading (my initial printing has blown cura out of the water for some reason). Theres no flow rate in this. Should I be changing my filament diameter or something to down my flow rate so that I can keep it at a rate that it actually extrudes 5 cm when I hit to print 5 cm? Thanks.

Edit- I googled and found how to change extrusion rate so I'll drop it and do a test. The other day I had like no settings because it was set to basic and nothing happened when I hit advanced. But today I have all the options from hitting advanced the other day haha.

So few questions. When you are measuring your extrusion, how are you measuring? What is going in to the extruder or coming out? Why 5mm the standard is 100. 5 is really not enough. You have to get your esteps correct first and exact before messing with flow rate or multiplier. Mechanical accuracy always comes before software.

In Prusaslicer the setting that you should not be messing with right is in the Filament Settings tab under filament on the left then third setting down called extrusion multiplier. Again do not touch this until you have your esteps set correctly so that when you ask for 100mm you get 100mm. There is a formula to figure it out. I have compiled most of them on this spreadsheet that has all the math embedded. Just plug in the needed values.

You are still over extruding big time and that is 100% of the issue.

Any idea how come its only failing at that certain point every time (near the top)? I'm wondering if my 'successful' print is the one where I dropped my steps per mm to like 100. But then it was only extruding like 4cm when I hit to print 5 so I turned it back up. I'm using slicer prusa edition now since upgrading (my initial printing has blown cura out of the water for some reason). Theres no flow rate in this. Should I be changing my filament diameter or something to down my flow rate so that I can keep it at a rate that it actually extrudes 5 cm when I hit to print 5 cm? Thanks.

Edit- I googled and found how to change extrusion rate so I'll drop it and do a test. The other day I had like no settings because it was set to basic and nothing happened when I hit advanced. But today I have all the options from hitting advanced the other day haha.

So I've been trying to calibrate my printer. and, mostly have had success. Weird thing, is I dropped my steps per mm all the way down to 130, which extrudes 5 cm when I hit to print 5 cm. which is even less than I had before changing my gear, and I thought I was supposed to have to raise it with the new gear?

I've found while I get moire its significantly effected by my steps per mm, so I've been printing the thin wall tests and slightly tweaking my steps per mm to get it to a very small amount.

So my issue. I printed this small tube that printed fine the first time. I've tried printing it again, and it fails every time. It gets this awful looking artifacting, in the same exact spot every time.
https://imgur.com/a/YcvvJVU
The first is on the left. I have no idea why its not working now.

You are still over extruding big time and that is 100% of this issue. Once you get your esteps calibrated so 100 or 5 equal 100 or 5 you then need to calibrate your flow rate by print a single wall cube as set in your slicer, not designed that way. If your flaw rate is right then the walls of the cube should be .42mm thick.

I've found while I get moire its significantly effected by my steps per mm, so I've been printing the thin wall tests and slightly tweaking my steps per mm to get it to a very small amount.

So my issue. I printed this small tube that printed fine the first time. I've tried printing it again, and it fails every time. It gets this awful looking artifacting, in the same exact spot every time.
https://imgur.com/a/YcvvJVU
The first is on the left. I have no idea why its not working now.

Issue 2 is in the process of my man handling I possibly killed my printer. I did partial troubleshooting. My carriage y axis was barely sliding. I pulled the x rods out separated things so I can figure out whats wrong. I got it down to that the issue is somehow related to my right y axis belts. I took the bearings out and just move that carriage (with belts) and it doesnt move well. I'm wondering if I somehow bent the thing one of the belt wheels is on or something(the black plastic one). It seems slightly tilted. Everything else looks totally normal. And theres so few issues that could be wrong. The bearings themselves slide totally fine but when its on the carriage it barely slides. Ill try it without the belts on to see if its part of the problem. But I'm not troubleshooting until I can properly use my hand haha. Too much effort right now.

This is why I've been putting off swapping my gear. I expected to somehow have an isue. And I somehow exceeded my expectations  lol...