The more stable you can get the temp for the extruder the better... the commercial extruders use very expensive temp controllers and lots of em' to keep the plastic being extruded at an even temperature, now with the SD such things as motion of the head,amount of filament going through the head among other things affect the cooling rate of the hot end and there is currently no way to counteract this however just being able to tune the hotend for normal temperature losses helps it dramatically It may be worth your while to read up on the PID numbers and see how they interact as you could tune them by hand and get it even more stable

We do a lot of that in the Shop.

The 2" print test from tealvince looks simple. Does the laser thing add that much more precision? value?

I don't really know, I think it's mostly a matter of whether you prefer to measure things or to proceed by trial and error. I haven't tried the laser method myself.

jjcuff1 wrote:

Great tips.

Brim good idea I will try that
And settings yes I will play with those

I realize the heat is an issue. My extruder temps drop down to 186-202 like every minute. And I know my place is cold and has a airflow.

I  keep seeing the glass/hairspray tips. I will have to search that to see what benefits are, what that means, and what do I need?

Thanks for the support. This thing is awesome, popping tags!

So have you calibrated the temp for the extruder? I had banding type issues when I first started with the temps surging up and down 15-20 degrees but once I did the M303 command it only varies about 3 degrees now with no thermal banding

Good work.

The autotune looks important and probably the cooling and dragging I saw in the infill sections (when it drops to 188c)

The 2" print test from tealvince looks simple. Does the laser thing add that much more precision? value?

so how does banding appear? looks better and dialed in to me form the printer stand point now it is about slicing (and more level bed)?

Do you have "randomize starting points" in Slic3r turned on? I noticed it was not working very well for me and introducing banding (I think due to XY backlash). Try turning it off.

And for optimizing the M97 parameters, try following this post from tealvince as it might give you more accurate results for the phase and let you play around more with the amplitude.

http://www.soliforum.com/topic/1388/tem … -problems/

you should do this anytime you change anything that could affect how the extruder heats... ie... adding a case or enclosure, changing hotends, or even if you switch to PLA filament or back to ABS normally you would change the '200 to what you actually print at... 195,198etc...

Great tips.

Brim good idea I will try that
And settings yes I will play with those

I realize the heat is an issue. My extruder temps drop down to 186-202 like every minute. And I know my place is cold and has a airflow.

I  keep seeing the glass/hairspray tips. I will have to search that to see what benefits are, what that means, and what do I need?

Thanks for the support. This thing is awesome, popping tags!

So have you calibrated the temp for the extruder? I had banding type issues when I first started with the temps surging up and down 15-20 degrees but once I did the M303 command it only varies about 3 degrees now with no thermal banding

The extruder calibration was MANDATORY it made a huge difference (mine is 106 now)
Then level bed and had prints

but I was surprised that the zwobble firmware update made such a huge difference way cool!

m97 A0.01 W1.41 P95

seemed to work for me

Then with that all done my flow rates settled in and I am around .78-.8 and measuring only a few layers was key. I was measuring across multiply wobbled layers and it throws your number way off if you do!

Now with some more cal cubes do you guys find you have to update the firmware calibration steps for the X & Y? does that help much with anything?

Brim good idea I will try that
And settings yes I will play with those

I realize the heat is an issue. My extruder temps drop down to 186-202 like every minute. And I know my place is cold and has a airflow.

I  keep seeing the glass/hairspray tips. I will have to search that to see what benefits are, what that means, and what do I need?

Thanks for the support. This thing is awesome, popping tags!

All in all I'm very impressed of the quick progress.

Previous Thread
http://www.soliforum.com/topic/1329/noo … ips-ideas/

I went through
Leveling
Extrusion Cal
Z Wobble print
Z Wobble firmware
Flow rate Cal (only got good results after above was performed)

Now I am playing with speeds, infill slicing settings. One problem I see now is maybe my bed is not level enough? But on the v8 block you can see the rear corner peels ups after printing? It lays down and sticks but after 5 layers it walks. I suspect now that ll is dialed in my leveling (paper method) is not that accurate and that corner is off. Especially on larger prints.

well The zwobble thing was great and made a huge difference. See prior post for other prints but here are my iphone case and v8 block after all above was done. the iphone stand looks 10x then last one and wobble and gaps are all but gone. V8 has bridging and such but such a detail model I am happy with no banding just needs more heat on bed and better settings

2nd iphone case- .3-.45 infill (line) perimeter 50mm/ss rest 35mm/s small 1st layer 22mm/s
so how does banding appear? looks better and dialed in to me form the printer stand point now it is about slicing (and more level bed)?

And for fun I had to print an engine I really want to make a working v8 model with cylinder, crank, block, heads, (maybe cam and lifters) about double this size. How does this look for first pass? I used same settings as iphone but I can see this is my first overhang print so bridging is off on underside (supports needed?) and you can see back corner peeled up a lot.