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Topic: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

I can print at .3 and .2 but when I try to print at .1 the infill doesnt fill in properly.
The brim and perimeters lay down perfectly, but when it starts printing the infill the plastic strings out very thin and eventually balls up like there is not enough plastic being extruded, ive tried changing infill width and first layer width and neither work.

What am I missing about .1 thats so different to .3?

I cant for the life of me figure out what is making the infill change so much from one setting to another.

Any help would be appreciated, very frustrated.

Thanks guys

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

Are you filling every third layer so it prints it at .3?  If so, try every layer.
Is the infill speed significantly higher than perimeters?
Are you using 097?  Try 093 since we've found that 097 isn't bug free.

3 (edited by macmub 2012-11-29 03:39:32)

Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

Yes im running every 3rd layer, ill try every layer and see what happens.

Im running repetier .8 with slic3r 9.6

Perimeters are running at 60mm/s and infill is 100.

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

I tried infill every layer and slowing down the infill speed from 100 to 60.
No luck.

Picture attached of the problem at hand.

Its a strange one.

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

What you are seeing sounds like a bug that Slic3r 097 fixes -

"infill flow for bottom layer was calculated incorrectly when layer height != first layer height"

6 (edited by macmub 2012-11-29 06:56:23)

Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

Hmm interesting.
Should I upgrade to 9.7 or roll back to 9.3? Sounds like 9.7 has its own issues...

I'm assuming 9.3 doesn't have this issue

Edit: my first layer height is .3, layer heights are .1

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

I've had it throw in a couple of solid layers through what is supposed to be empty spaces, but the surface quality has been better than 095.  I keep "Randomize starting points" turned off, and it seems like 095 was ignoring that, and randomizing anyway.  This meant scattering little blobs all around the surface of cylinders.

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

That's weird, as a cnc programmer...cam software will always throw a few curve balls here and there. I'll give 9.7 a shot in the morning and see how it goes. As I'm running repetier should I just install 9.7 and point repetier to its location...essentially leaving 9.6 in there. Thanks for the advice to Ian.

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

You could do that, or just update Repetier.  I think they came out with an update that bundles 97.  I've accumulated a bunch of Slic3r folders in C:\ and just point it to whichever one I want so long as it's a 9x version.

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

Ah ok.
I'll post my results.
Thanks.

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

Ive installed repetier .82 and slic3r 9.7

now it wont print at all
when i hit print it turns off the extruder heater, even after I click it back on it continues to drop, i have to hit the emergency stop button to "break" the connection to the printer so i can regain manual control.

My start gcode is as follows

M190 S90 ; wait for bed temperature to be reached
M104 S192 ; set temperature
G21; set mm units
G28 ;home all axis
M104 S192,192,192 ; set extruder temp and start heating
G90; set absolute coordinates
G1 Z15 F300 ;move platform down 5mm
G1 X10 Y10 F3000 ;move to front left corner
M109 S192,192,192; wait for extruder temp to be reached
G1 Z0.3 F200 ;move platform close to nozzle
G92 E0; reset extrusion distance
G1 E5 ;extrude anchor
G90 ; use absolute coordinates
G21 ; set units to millimeters
G92 E0
M82 ; use absolute distances for extrusion
M106 S89
G1 F3600.000 E-1.50000

Any ideas?

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

The extruder temp line is the problem.
For some reason slic3r 9.7 generates 3 values which the printer does not like.

If i manually delete 2 of the values it prints fine.

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

Hey Macmub, Ive been printing with .1mm the past few days and you can see my results in this thread.
http://www.soliforum.com/topic/544/humid-filament/

I think the most important part when printing at .1mm is the first layer. I've calibrated my bed so that my nozzle is almost digging into the bed. It's probably too close and not recommended to print at .3 or .2, but I think I'm sticking with .1 for all my prints from now on, so I rather not bother printing .2 or .3mm anyway. Theoretically the nozzle should be exactly .1mm above the bed but I just do what any true technician/engineer does... eyeball it. (J/K, to all the real engineers and technicians out there.) Then from there, I adjust the flow-rate. I can't say what a good bed temperature is, but I've been using 85-100 and its been working so far.

From the picture you posted, it looks like the nozzle is much higher than how I've got mine set up. It may seem like the little beads of filament isn't enough but it actually is. It's coming out as beads because the plastic has nothing to stick to. Once that first layer is firmly planted the beads have the first layer to stick to and it smooths out like peanut butter from the nozzle and will no longer be beads.

I'm not sure about any of the bugs that the different softwares have either as I've only been using Slic3r 0.9.5 and Pronterface that Solidoodle has up on the website. I'm not smart enough (lazy) to learn new software.

Ill try to get pics of how my first layering is coming out when I print something else.

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

Thanks for that mesh,
The nozzle height is fine, the brim, skirt and perimeters print perfectly, just the infill is out of whack.

Im just adjusting a few things then im going to test .1 again with the new slic3r.

Ill be back :-)

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Re: Infill not flowing correctly when printing at .1

Ok guys, solved the problem.

My extruder wasnt calibrated properly.
Which meant I had my flow rate multiplier down to .8

Calibrated the extruder to draw exactly 100mm (which I had done 2 weeks ago, not sure if I should be checking that more often)
Tested my thin walls - .42 exactly
Printing a 25mm test cube at the moment and the infill is going down perfectly.

I could tell not enough plastic was coming out but with me thinking I had already calibrated the extruder I figured it was something else.

Flow multiplier is now .95

In hindsight even slic3r tells you that if your mulitplier is outside of .9 to 1.1 you need to check your e-steps...I shouldve listened!!

Thanks for your input guys, appreciated.