Thanks!  Direct bed measurement is how I'm planning to do it...but if I do find a discrepancy, say, 1mm short over 100mm of intended travel, what is the best way to calculate the increase/decrease in step settings?

Edit:  I think I've got it...so if the default setting for steps / mm on Z is 2268 and I move 100mm, but the reading on my dial reads that I moved only 99mm:
- The move caused the Z motor to move 226800 steps (2268 x 100)
- It only physically moved 99mm;
- So 226800 / 99 = 2290.9 steps/mm
- Then my new setting should be 2290.9 (are decimal settings allowed?)

Is that correct?

2n2r5 wrote:

Your Z steps/mm might be off. Do you have a dial indicator that you can check to make sure 10mm of Z travel = 10 mm of actual travel

2n2r5,

Just on a tangent, If you check the z-travel by indicator and it IS off by any significant amount, what is the best way to correct this?

I've noticed a height loss of up to 1.5mm on a 100mm high print, but I just attributed that to shrinkage.  Has not caused me too much trouble, but I am going to check the z-axis movement this weekend...

Hi Ironman,

Best bet would be to change your steps per MM number in the eeprom. But I'd test the high up and down as you manually move it, and not your final print (as there are a lot more issues that could happen to a print.)

Your Z steps/mm might be off. Do you have a dial indicator that you can check to make sure 10mm of Z travel = 10 mm of actual travel

2n2r5,

Just on a tangent, If you check the z-travel by indicator and it IS off by any significant amount, what is the best way to correct this?

I've noticed a height loss of up to 1.5mm on a 100mm high print, but I just attributed that to shrinkage.  Has not caused me too much trouble, but I am going to check the z-axis movement this weekend...

2n2r5 wrote:

Your Z steps/mm might be off. Do you have a dial indicator that you can check to make sure 10mm of Z travel = 10 mm of actual travel

if the cube is the correct height, you might be looking at filament size setting.

Humm I don't have a dial indicator, although it seems like a worthwhile thing to invest in. I'll poke around the hardware store and the internets later today. If you've have a specific one you like and got it online let me know.

I measured the cube too, and it seems damn close to the correct height. It's just a 20mm cube I made in SketchUp and exported as an STL.

I measured the filament again, and I think it was off a tad. Set at 1.72, when it's probably more like 1.68 though I'm not sure how big a difference it'll make, maybe just enough.

Anyways I'm heating up the printer to do another test print right now so we'll see soon enough!

Your Z steps/mm might be off. Do you have a dial indicator that you can check to make sure 10mm of Z travel = 10 mm of actual travel

if the cube is the correct height, you might be looking at filament size setting.

But I also have my flat layers more like a mess than a solid surface.

So things to try:

a) increase temp to 'spread out' the filament more
b) change the nozzle width in settings so it thinks it's a little narrower than it is.

I think I will need a good calibration test to watch the results of this.

Anybody know what's up with this? Should I just decrease my layer height?

Here are some pictures of what I'm talking about.

I think I may have gotten this one figured out. When I upgraded to RH .85b a few new setting concerning extrusion width under the "Advanced" category in Slic3r which it had set to 0 - 0 being "default", which was .42, exactly what I wanted.

Seems something's a bit wonky there though, as manually setting the 0 values to .42 fixed the problem, despite that being what they were supposed to have defaulted to anyway.

You could try setting the nozzle diameter a little smaller, like .33  It might make the rows a little closer together, though I'm not sure what other effect it would have on dimensions.

The part that's really confusing me is that the perimeters are all fine, it's just the fill that's an issue.

Good luck.

What settings do you have in RH for the fill layers?

Sorry, I'm pretty new to this - not sure I'm looking at the right thing. Where would I find those settings? (Infill?)

Right now I do have the Horizontal Shells setting at 4 and 4 solid layers for top and bottom.

Infill is .4, but at two layers I shouldn't be there yet, should I?