1 Topic by Hunter Green (edited by Hunter Green 2013-06-11 16:44:12)

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Topic: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

Back before my month-long downtime, I was trying to print a name-plate in blue filament, after a lot of success in white.  I didn't have a highly accurate caliper and hadn't adjusted for the filament width, and my print attempt came out like this:

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/183089_651271784887170_1163353454_n.jpg

People suggested that getting an accurate measurement of filament width for Slic3r would help, but by time I got my calipers, the print bed heater was dead.  Now I have both, and gave it another try, but had the same results.  Tried a few more times with these changes:

  • More thorough hairspray coverage

  • Extruder up to 205 (normally I run at 200)

  • Rotated design so it wouldn't get so close to the edge of the glass

  • Print with bed at 80, then drop to 70 after a few layers (normally keep it at 90)

Note that I do have an enclosure, and that the same design prints fine in white.  This is my first venture into other colors, apart from my very first prints with the tiny sample of vivid-green Solidoodle sent me.

So I tried a very simple print of something smallish and mostly flat, just a few layers, to try to separate out the "using blue filament" factor from the factors about the design.  I chose this design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:32720

And here's what I got:
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/1001334_670011159679899_1403265002_n.jpg
Afterwards I had a buildup of blue on the extruder nozzle's outside, and a lot of filament shavings and dust in various places, including inside the extruder.  Clearly, a lot of filament that was supposed to be being laid down wasn't.  Half the model is just not there, including virtually the entire last layer or two.

Do I just have a crappy roll of filament?

(This filament was one of those I got with the SD3 from Solidoodle initially.  I haven't done anything to keep it especially "cool and dry" but it's in the same place as the white filament.  I'm in Vermont, so I have "cool" down, but not "dry".  Do people have a special climate-controlled closet for their filament or something?)

Or do I need to adjust flow rate, print rate, extruder temp, filament size, or any of the hundred other settings I can adjust?

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2 Reply by IanJohnson

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

I have a roll of blue that does the same thing, but it came from a different vendor.  Might be the same manufacturer, you can't really tell.  I didn't have it stored very well, so I chalked it up to moisture.  Try drying it in the oven on low (170f probably) for a few hours and see if it is any different.   Is there much variation in the size of the filament over several feet?

3 Reply by Hunter Green

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

nlancaster asked for my Slic3r speed settings:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1003880_670031726344509_821328360_n.jpg

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4 Reply by iowajames

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

The white is fine, as it contains light dyes, but the addition of smurf dust is where they went wrong. Gargamel found out they tasted horrible & they didn't really turn to gold, so he sold off the remaining ones as dehydrated dye colorant.

Just goes to show that smurfs really are good for nuthin'.

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5 Reply by mikefree41

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

I have run into the same problem with some yellow and green. I have been thinking it is all temp related. Today I have been running some gray that works real well, until I got into it a little and it turned to crap mid part. I was running at 195. I reset but kicked the temp up to 205, it's printing great, at the moment. I think quality control is probably not great. How much regrind and recycled material in the mix VS 100% virgin will really change the equation. Does anyone know if the filament people test their product in a machine to find out what can work and what can't?

6 Reply by Hunter Green

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

My next test was to try the same print in purple.  It came out pretty good.

http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/34/c2/4b/29/4d/1006167_670101116337570_1561598698_n_preview_featured.jpg
A little acetone vapor bath and it would be a work of art, but I think I'll leave that up to the person I am going to give it to -- I myself am not into Doctor Who.

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7 Reply by elmoret (edited by elmoret 2013-06-11 20:54:21)

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

Hunter Green wrote:

nlancaster asked for my Slic3r speed settings:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1003880_670031726344509_821328360_n.jpg

That's slow. I can print 3x that speed!

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8 Reply by Hunter Green

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

I didn't change anything from defaults.  Faster would be better, as Captain Mal would say, but I'll wait until I'm successful more often than not before I start trying to go faster!

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9 Reply by Staffordknot

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

What brand of filament are you using? I have formfortura abs and unfortunately the solidoodle won't heat the blue or yellow hot enough to print with. Extrude some in mid air, if it looks flakey or or rough when you scrape it between two finger nails it needs to be hotter.  I've been ok with their black, white and atomic green. I am waiting for my new e3d hot end to try again.

10 Reply by dkeeling728

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

what kind of enclosure do you have? plastic bags tapped to the frame? or good sealing acrylic? delamination like that is something you can usually trace back to a temperature change either at the hotend or in ambient. check your temp log next time it happens to see if you see any dips. and do ALL the calibration steps again for flow rate and PID autotune, including checking your extruder steps per MM to see if the new filament is jamming in the hotend causing the extruder to miss steps or spin on the filament.

also, a lesson i just learned, clean your nozzle when you switch filament, even the same brand. if you know anyone who plays guitar, an old high E string may be procured when they change their strings to make a perfect nozzle poker. a tiny partial clog can cause all sorts of unpredictable results, yet look as if nothing is wrong since filament is still coming out. if you haven't yet, load up your good working white filament and print a MK4 extruder and hotend retainer (so your hotend cant wobble around) and replace the stock acrylic cookie cutter piece of crap that comes stock on the SD. that will make your life so much easier for hotend/nozzle maintenance, and makes it easy to attach and detach accessories like fans, dial indicators, etc.

also, go to your local sporting goods or gun shop and get a gun safe dehumidifier. its basically a large canister of silica gel that works a hell of a lot faster than the little packets, or alternatives such as crystal kitty litter. get you a large rubbermaid storage tub, a tube of gasket forming silicone from the auto parts, and make yourself an air tight filament storage bin, toss that filament in there for a few days and see if it prints any better.

11 Reply by Hunter Green

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

Dehumidifier is almost certainly the solution here.  I can consistently get this kind of bad printing with that roll of blue, but the exact same setup and design prints just fine in the SainSmart purple.  The only ones that give me this problem are all a) the ones I've had longer, and b) the darker colors.

When I started with this, it was March in Vermont, and the idea of keeping things "cool and dry" didn't seem like a big deal -- almost everything asks you to do stuff like that, but this is Vermont so "cool and dry" is pretty much de rigeur.  Now that I know how sensitive ABS really is to humidity, though, this is what I'm doing:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/q81/s720x720/1000147_678781535469528_362671016_n.jpg

That's a bag of dried rice in there with the filament, and the lid snaps on fairly tightly.  Pretty soon I'll be getting one of these:

http://dehumidifiers.sourceforge.net/images/GoldenRod+36+inch+Dehumidifier+7D+36.jpg

But the rolls of blue and green I got from Solidoodle with the printer (upper left in the image) are probably beyond saving (which is why I bought another roll of Octave blue, upper right).  I tried baking the blue in the oven for a few hours at 170 but it didn't make a difference.

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12 Reply by Hunter Green

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Re: White filament works fine, blue filament fails badly

So I have a bunch of brand new rolls of Octave and one of them is blue and I decided to try printing in it, but amusingly, it failed exactly as badly (or worse) and in exactly the same way.  Admittedly, the fact that I'm printing on one of the most humid days ever may have contributed.  At least I hope it's that.  I'd much rather laugh at how blue is "cursed" when it turns out to work fine when I try again on a more seasonable day, than find it actually is and I have two full spools of unusable blue.

FlashForge Creator, SketchUp 2013