1 Topic by Mr_Smigs

  • Mr_Smigs
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Topic: Dripping?

Ok,  by the time my printer is up to heat and ready to print,  it "naturally" extrudes about 10mm of plastic (a long dangly thread of it)

while printing,  in the time it takes the head to move 2 cm, there's enough drip that it clips into the edgs of whereever the head is moving to and leaves a glob on the side of the piece (often building up)

alas, no camera handy to show you what the result is,  but you can imagine...

I'm guessing I missed something in "configuring" the printer about flow rates,
but it seems odd that it drips even before printing starts...


what do i need to do to fix this?  or is there no fix?

2 Reply by elmoret

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Re: Dripping?

The bit that drips out while idle you have to remove manually.

You can increase the retraction in your slicer to get rid of the drips during travel moves.

Filastruder - the robust, inexpensive filament extruder
E3Dv6 All Metal Hotend - the premier 3D printing hotend

3 Reply by Mr_Smigs

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Re: Dripping?

ok... what setting is that under? (still totally new to this)

4 Reply by cmetzel

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  • From: Solidoodle2 #0091
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Re: Dripping?

do a search on the site for retraction, it's been discussed at length here with both slic3r and skeinforge

5 Reply by Brad

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Re: Dripping?

I've just accepted the fact that plastic will leak a bit while the printer is warming up. Just before I hit the print button, I use some tweezers to take off the excess plastic and its usually good to go.

Brad's Website

6 Reply by Tomek

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Re: Dripping?

There's some end-code and start-code on this forum that follows the following procedure: Heat bed,  move to one corner of the print platform, heat nozzle (it leaks), then extrude 7mm onto bed, so you stick a blob including the leaked part onto the bed, and then proceed printing. Others have talked about mounting a brush and making your end code have you run by the brush right before you print (knocking off the leakage)

7 Reply by Tomek

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Re: Dripping?

Leakage will be worse with a thicker nozzle (I noticed it with my 0.4mm nozzle) and with PLA, and depends on your nozzle depth (how long is the "tiny" portion of the nozzle. Some nozzle manufactors have 0.5mm of "exit diamter" thickness, and others have up to 2mm of exit diameter. It effects the amount of turbulence and the amount of backpressure the nozzle produces.

But thats a bit more detailed than needed? I'm not sure why I mentioned it

8 Reply by Mr_Smigs

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Re: Dripping?

the pre/post leak isn't really the problem...

it's the mid-print leaks that annoy me and I'd like to fix...

for the post-print,  I just hit the retract button and it stops shortly...

Cmetzel says there's news out there, I just gotta get the time to search for it...

9 Reply by cmetzel (edited by cmetzel 2013-02-05 21:59:43)

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  • From: Solidoodle2 #0091
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Re: Dripping?

Saved you some time, here's the search

linky no worky.   http://www.soliforum.com/search

10 Reply by nickythegreek

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Re: Dripping?

cmetzel, dead link.

Smaigs, If you haven't switch to Repetier-Host/slic3r yet I recommend doing that first and then dialing in your printer settings in that software package.

11 Reply by cmetzel

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Re: Dripping?

I was wondering if it was going to work or not.  I pasted it in a new window and it worked so I gave it a shot.  It's basically typing "retraction settings" into the search bar.  I was being a smartass.