i need some advice for circles and sticking (Page 1 of 3)

thanks for the advice.  the left hand belt doesnt twang when plucked like the right.  i am suspicous that the sticking might be only with this one filament.  one question though, would a looose belt affect the squarenesss of a print.  because the squareness of the prints seems realy good.

If your circles are ovals, but still consistently round, you might need to adjust the steps/mm for the X and Y axis.  More likely though what you are seeing is flattened spots at the top and bottom of the circles.  If that is the case, then the problem would be excessive backlash, which can be fixed by getting the belts tensioned properly.

As for the sticking, I have had trouble getting Octave filament to stick as well.  I haven't tried the same print in other ABS, I just gave up an did it in PLA.  I'll have to do a test with my Solidoodle filament and see if there is a difference.   

People have reported having a harder time getting PLA from that manufacturer to stick as well.  It might take a little extra work figuring out how to get it to stick, but if you can get it to work, the cheaper price makes it worthwhile.   Try cleaning the kapton, adding some hairspray or ABS/Acetone mixture, and enclosing the printer.  If none of those work, then you might need to save that filament for prints under 100mm.

Yes, or I used to.  Lately I haven't even been using kapton.  I use the hairspray on a piece of glass that I mount onto the aluminum with binder clips.  The glass is good because I can hold it well clear of the printer while spraying it.  If you are going to spray the kapton on the bed I would recommend using a piece of paper to screen the rest of the printer from overspray.

If I am having a hard time getting something to stick, I'll try putting kapton on the glass, which is much easier than putting it on the aluminum inside the printer.  Actually I have a bare glass, and a glass with kapton that I can switch out.  I can also change glass and let one cool while another heats up, and never turn off heat to the bed.

As for the sticking problems, I would change the kapton tape to another piece. Spent many hours trying to get my prints to stick on the stock kapton and it was impossible if I didnt print in the center.
Put on a new piece of kapton and now my problem is almost the opposite.

tightening the y drive belt seemed to help alot.  it reduced the flat area by at least half.  next i am going to try leveling the bed better.

update,

I leveled the bed using a sheet of paper and cleaned the bed with a little bit of acetone.  Now once the bed warms up to 100 the Octave filament is sticking.  Next job is to speed up prints.

Prints look pretty good now.  Thanks for offering help.  The only issue I have now is what I call layer wiggle.  When I have a thin structure (like the tail on the glider from the challenge print) the lower level seems to wiggle a bit as the upper level is being printed.  This can cause some clumping of plastic and can cause the structure being printed to lean.  I'm guessing that there is a setting to fix this somewhere in Slic3r or Repetier.

Show us pictures.

I did trim the pots a little bit with an multimeter and got the Y axes Backlash to 0.15mm. The Circle is better now but i do have spikes on 2 corners.
Please look at the attached drawing for details.

Hopefully someone can help me.

It is a line of bumps. I did the same object with Skeinforge but do have the same problem.
Pringing slower or with 0.1mm doesnt change anything.

I cant tune these belts any better:)

I did tune them 8 hours:)

If there are too tight backlash increases drastically. if there are too loose they jump and accuracy is horrible.

Is there a proper way of doing this? I did thighten the belts on both sides equally and did check the pulling force with two fingers by pressing the belt together.

Yes did that one also.

Opened the four Screw on the back of the Servo, pushed the servo downwards and tigthend the screws.