Filament measures at 1.60-1.66; how to get 1.75 w/o slowing down?

That's music to my ears. Thank goodness S3D makes changing profiles a breeze.

Well, it seems like this vertical-extruder-by-piling-filament-on-the-floor design doesn't really work.

When the filament coil is pushing against the extrusion, I read 1.65mm, but when the filament coil is pulling the extrusion, it reads anything from 1.35-1.45mm diameter. It's clear to me that a consistent diameter requires a stable force exerted on the extrusion end, and I can see why the filawinder is designed the way it is.

Man, I don't want to give up my vertical bottle holder in changing over to a horizontal extruder with the rollers, it's so nice! lol

Well, I guess I just have to come up with a comparable 'push back' to when the coil is resisting the extrusion, I guess maybe some tubing might help here.

By rollers, I meant... *looks up the term used in the filastruder doc*... filament guide. It looks like something that "rolls" to me.

I guess I'm probably too far off the floor. And, yeah, it is right next to the wall though it seems like the coil isn't pushing against the wall during its high mark. During its ordinary "the coil isn't pushing against the flow" cycle, it's registering in the 1.3-1.45mm range which is obviously too low so I need to provide some kind of counter force, or some kind of relief at 1-2 feet below the extruder's nozzle. I'm going to try guiding it through some piping or some such.

And, I did purge for 9 hours which only used 1/3 of the bag of included pellets. Was it supposed to use all of it in those 8-9 hours?

At 180c and 3.5 feet off the ground during the purge, the diameter measures anywhere between 1.65-1.69 mm.

At 195C and 5 feet off the ground with the "shimmering pearl" colorant added, I'm seeing anywhere between 1.3-1.45mm at the low end (80% of the extrusion cycle) and ~1.65mm at the highend (The other 20%) when the coil is resisting the extrusion.

I'm going to try guide it through a tube about 1 foot after it passes the fan, I'll see how that affects things. I don't think it'll relieve the weight off the filament much since it's a slick metal tube, but I'll see.

Btw, I am seeing somewhere around 18 inches/minute (At ~1.4mm) so the current feed rate seems upto par. It might've been (probably was) misaligned during the purge, but I added alignment marks so I'm sure it's feeding well now.

My vertical feeding tube is this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:219463

I'm suspecting my alignment might be off by 5-10 degrees (Between the motor->auger->barrel), but I would assume the socket provides decoupling so that's not really an issue? Plus, the temp right next to the vertical feed is 80F (barely above room temperature), so I'd assume there's negligible barrel-rubbing losses due to possible misalignment.

Edit: The tube didn't work (Blocked it), but I did get to see the filament at a constant 1.68mm after it was blocked. The shimmering pearl looks like a pretty white color, it has that 'gleam' that a white pearl has.

Edit: Made some new adjustments. Brought the temperature down to 185C, the diameter went upto 1.55mm. I then removed the icechest it was standing on, which removed about 1.5 feet from it, so it's now 3.5 feet above the ground, and now it's consistently measuring between 1.62-1.67. Yep, turns out it was too high and too hot. Meh, I guess that's the way it works.

Hey, I already solved it. 5 feet was too high, and 195C was too hot. Brought it down to 3.5 feet and 185C and it's now extruding in the 1.65mm range like normal.

Anyway, there's some key differences between the purge and what I was doing previously just now. I'll highlight them.

Purge: 3.5 feet off the ground, 180C, no colorant -> 1.65mm ave.
Just previous: 5 feet off the ground, 195C, shimmering pearl colorant -> 1.45mm ave.

The extra distance (Greater gravitational potential energy) and extra temperature (Greater thermal energy) -> Greater "power output" (Power = energy * time) -> Significantly more extruded. There's no discrepancy. But, the tradeoff was a much greater variation in diameter and much lower average diameter, which is unacceptable for a 3d printer (Variation in particular).

(Higher temp = greater variation since it takes less force to pull the filament when it's runnier at higher temps. Less runny = Lower variation.)

Anyway, thank you elmoret for a great product! Obviously I just need to figure out how to use it by trial and error.

EDIT:

Now, the filament is no longer touching the wall (Thanks to the guide I created), and it's coiling in a nice 2 ft. wide circle on the floor. I measured and at most points it's around 1.65mm but at a few other points in certain segments of the circle, it's more like 1.52mm. Now how am I going to get this variation down?

My setup looks like (Nozzle is 3.5 feet off the ground)

|||
|\
| \
|  \
|   \
|    \
|     \
|-----0                    (This is the metal loop I created to guide the filament)
|       |
|       |
|        \
|  ____\                 (Nice and organized coil)

EDIT: Nevermind, I just took a set of proper measurements along the entire coil (Stopped it, made sure the calipers were perfectly perpendicular and close to the tip), and it varied between 1.50-1.58mm. I guess the variation isn't too bad, but average diameter is a bit low.

Oh dear, I might just have to get the filastruder closer to the ground.

I guess I could just use 1.54 mm in the software. Seems like I'm getting close to something usable.

(I also noticed that since bringing it down to 185c from 195c, the current regulator is always on whereas it never was before turning it upto 195c. I'm suspecting there's some previously melted plastic high in the barrel that's now semi-solid at 185c, increasing the auger's resistance and engaging the current limit.)

Edit: Seeing the temperature chart at http://jcflowers1.iweb.bsu.edu/rlo/Filastruder.htm , I think I'm going to try 175C.

That temperature chart is for a Filabot, which measures the temperature in a different location.

It sounds like the variation is because you haven't PID tuned yet. After tuning you should hold within 2C. Details are in the assembly instructions, it is a recommended step.

Ideally you would remove the nozzle and the screen, then drill all the way through. What you've done isn't likely to hurt you by more than 0.01mm of variation, though. Because it isn't a smooth bore all the way through, the flow isn't as laminar (smooth).

Again, what you're seeing in terms of average filament diameter is not unexpected. There a wide range of setups - horizontal, vertical, ABS, PLA, other plastics. I have to make one nozzle size work for all the setups and polymers, and that means leaning towards undersize since that can be corrected in the slicer or with a drill bit. If I provided larger nozzles and someone was producing 1.80-1.85mm filament, you can't fix hotend jamming with a slicer and you can't make the hole any smaller.