Wall thickness calibration (Page 1 of 2)

What's the thickness of free air extrusion?

Never mind. I figured it out.

It's ranging from 0.55mm to 0.63mm depending on where I measure.

That could be possible. I had a few problems with filament getting stuck in the hot end and it took quite a bit of force to unclog the damn thing.

So I guess I need to replace the nozzle. Which could be a problem since I can't separate it from the barrel. And I am of course the lucky owner of one of the original SD2 printers that have that crumbly cement thing heat core which can't be separated from the actual barrel. Which basically means that I have to replace the whole hot-end.

Any other ways of solving this problem?

Thanks for the tip. After some measuring and testing I set slic3r to use 0.63mm nozzle. And then I set the wall size to 0.65mm (slic3r was using 1.4mm if I set it to auto).

After 21 prints (this calibration thing: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:52946 ) I finally got the perfect result. Those two calibration plugs fit together nicely (with a bit of force of course) and the wall thickness is 0.65mm as I wanted.

E3D looks like a good choice but I will wait a bit before I switch. I need to replace the power supply and the stock extruder before that. I am sick of the stock extruder constantly stripping filament and I can't stop it no matter what I do (it prints more or less fine, but a lot of filament dust gets stuck between the two rollers).

I wasn't talking about the extruder motor. I was talking about the actual assembly - dust getting stuck everywhere. Fiddling with the thumbscrew a bit changes the amount of dust and the print quality a lot. I am not exactly sure how to fine tune this.

But you are probably right that the problem is in the hot end. Because it clogged two times before and it took hours of work to unclog it. And I am still not sure that it's completely clean.

Hint....Hint.... E3D will most likely solve your problems.  If not the bulldog XL most certainly will and it's just fun to mod your printer

Power supply shouldn't have to be replaced with E3D. If you're worried you can unplug the LED strip, that will roughly make up the difference.

http://www.soliwiki.com/E3D_extruder

You can.

At this point if you have flickering lights then you definitely have a supply Issue.  Do you have the newer printer board with the barrel style 12V connector?

How do the connections on the PSU seem?  Mine had bad solder joints on one end.  It was easy to fix but part of the problem was the hole through the case for the wires was not aligned properly and put a lot of force on the solder joint.  Once there was a good load it would heat up enough for the connections to pull loose.  I would almost guarantee that's what's going on with your flickering lights.  The Jury is still out as far as needing to upgrade the PSU for the E3D.  My advice would be buy on and try it with your (hopefully now working) PSU.  Do me this favor unplug the PSU from the wall and crack that thing open.  When did you say you got your printer?

Well I looked inside the PSU. And although the soldering is quite shoddy it doesn't look like there are any bad solder joints or joints that are strained. But... the whole board is bent quite a bit. That could have something to do with it although there isn't much that I can do about that.