-Skyler101

you line across your tardis door can be solved with retraction in slicer (just a setting change).  as far as the warping that is the worst i have ever seen.  have you measured the temp on the bed in the different spots to see if its actually the bed?  I also found that if i set my first layer height to .175 it really pressed that first layer down and i got really good bite on the bed.  but you better have your bed set very level

Hey Chuddly,

I have reset the bed level, and that has helped a lot. Have not measured the bed temp, I think I will do that next.
I have given up with slicer, getting better results with Cura.

-Skyler

Oh, solidoodlesupport, I sent this issue directly to you guys via email. BEFORE I posted the issue here. Still waiting for a reply.

-Skyler101

BTW - nice to see a bit more activity from Solidoodle Support, keep it up!

Its very model specific.. I tend to use 20% most of the time with 2 perimeters. That goes down to 5-10% on small models

Anything more than 65% appears to make no difference to strength, simply uses more plastic and increases warp potential.

It all depends on the model

^
Elite user right here.

Anything more than 65% appears to make no difference to strength, simply uses more plastic and increases warp potential.

It all depends on the model

If you wanted to be scientific about it, its volumes to contact surface area issue... the more volume of plastic with a lower contact surface area, the more likely that contact area will not be able to continue to overwhelm the effect of shrinkage of the much higher ratio of molten plastic...

This is why a Cube can even warp.. despite having a reasonable 'footprint', the ratio of its volume to that surface area, particularly once it gets past half-way, is quite high...

Adding brim greatly increases that contact surface area (since its an outer border - even a 2mm brim can alter that ratio substantially).

The alternative approach is, reduce the volume of 'stuff' pulling and pushing on the contact surface - i.e, drop your infill.
The difference between 20% infil (0.2) and 10% (0.1) can again be huge in altering that ratio....

Having a bed with greater thermal mass (ceramic et al) definately helps... but sometimes.. just dropping your infil 5%, 10% or 20% can be the difference between success and failure..

Likewise reducing the tempreature you are extruding at can help... 3-5° drop means its already that much closer to equilibrium with the bed, which means less time as a viscous substance that is prone to warping as it contracts...

And for models with a single wall, but a low contact surface area - you again suffer warpage for similar reasons - the ratio of molten plastic that is cooling and thus contracting to the contact surface area can be wildly skewed and its here the 'shape' makes a huge difference.... a cylinder will tend to contract evenly, where as vertices will have opposing forces and lead much more quickly to warpage....  This is why so called 'mouse ears' on the corners can be a god-send on models with low surface to high volume ratios...

Anyway... if its solid, try brim, then try reducing infil. If its not solid... keep enlarging the brim, or manually add over-the-top mouse ears to your model.

I currently am experiencing the same warpage issues. I built a full enclosure out of aluminum foil that keeps A LOT of heat in. What i have not been doing is, as suggested waiting 10 minutes, after the bed sensor says ready. Can anyone else verify what temperature a IR gun is saying? Seems like the values reported to the software are pretty much bogus, not to mention strap a piece of plate glass on top of a warped aluminumin plate. Not the best way to transfer heat when an airgap is present. I will try the waiting trick and see if that helps. I used hairspray also, but it didn't help. Trying to print the dial indicator mod to actually tram my bed, in the mean time i have just been using a feeler gauge and have tried zeroing z @ .002" and .012" (.05mm and .030mm). Is it suppose to be @ zero or .03mm??

Adrian has done a full bed test using an IR camera imaging system to show what happens, with a good explanation of thermal dynamics.

But let me lay this in pretty generic and intuitive terms without the technobabble:

The heater is underneath the aluminum bed plate. The sensor is also there. The sensor will read 95 degrees Celsius (and the microchip will use that to maintain 95 degrees Celsius) long before the top of the aluminum reaches 95 degrees Celsius. Aluminum is a great conductor of temperature. This means it conducts heat and cold. Once the heater turns off, the edges of the bed help conduct cool to the center of the bed fast. Its why CPU heatsinks are made from Aluminum. And guess what, glass and ceramic are insulators. This means they resist changes in temperature. So if we soak these insulators with heat from our forced heating, they will keep this heat long after we turn the heater off. And therefore, resists curling while the print finishes.

Glass and tile help alot, but they hurt more than help if you try printing even one second before they are ready. Patience is needed, and rewarded.

I usually get a top temp reading of 70 when im ready to print. Thats usually a few minutes after the RH reading says 99.