Esteps/mm?

I was running some single wall calibration tests to calibrate extrusion rate when I found that I had to set my extrusion multiplier to .62 in order to achieve the design wall thickness of .4mm. At an extrusion multiplier of ~1, my single wall thickness is somewhere in the range of .63mm. The problem is when I then try to print something with infill and "substance" - not just a wall, I get lots of gaps in the fill and an overall under extruded print.

Have you run any single wall calibration tests? If so, how close where the printed results to the design?

I am very interested in this as well. I tryed a single wall print where my wall thickness should have been .4 and it was off. but there is no way to change it with stock davinci settings. I cant seem to get xyzware open mod working for some reason so I have since gave up.

I am just quoting what I was told once. But the best and easiest way to calibrate esteps is very simple. Mark the filament a known distance like 20mm or so from the top of the extruder assembly where the  filament enters at. The heat the machine and tell it to feed a set distance like 10 or 20 mm and then remeasure how far the line moved. If you feed 20mm and originally measured 20mm then your line would be right at the entrance of the extruder. If it is further in or not actually there then your esteps are off.

As for the previous post I was just told once that of you print a single wall with a known layer height of .2 then the wall thickness should .4 or twice the thickness of your layer height. That being said if you want a single wall of a specific thickness then you need to set your layer height to accomplish that. Of course the limitation being you can or should never print a layer height that is greater than 40% less of your nozzle diameter. Basically you should never go higher than .26 on a .30 nozzle and so on. Otherwise you will not get the expected squish you are supposed to get.

I have been using FFF based printers for several years now and the best accuracy I have been able to achieve is down to .01. Yep just two decimals. Also you will never get the dimensions on paper to be printed unless you account for shrinkage which varies from batch to batch of filament. For example I am making a carriage for my Da Vinci so I can use the E3D hot end. I am going to use 8mm linear bearings which have an OD of 15mm. In order to get the bores for the bearing to fit snug but still allow the bearing to be put in I had to make the bores 15.25mm on paper to get 15.1mm on the printer. This is not an issue with the printers calibration, but an issue that once ABS cools it shrinks slightly. PLA does it as well  but not as bad. All fused filament materials will have some degree of shrinkage. So if you are making precise parts you will have to figure out what that shrinkage is for your current filament and then compensate for it in your design on paper or CAD.

What I do is print a 30mm cube with a 15mm vertical bore through it then measure the finished print to see what my shrinkage is like. I then adjust my design measurements to compensate.

So that being said, depending on your tolerance you may not be able to achieve it on an FFF based printer such as the Da Vinci. Even a high end printer like a Makerbot will be hard pressed to do much better simply because the limitation is not the machine but the material.

I know based on my current spool of filament but as I said that changes to a degree for spool to spool and vendor. Even rolls from the same batch can have different shrinkage factors. But just make your self a cube of known dimensions like mine which is 30 x 30 x 30 and then put a vertical hole of known dimension through it, (I use 15 just to keep things square) then measure the print and see how much it deviates. Then you know what to adjust by.

If you use the same brand, but maybe different colors you should even make a spread sheet for each color and it's shrinkage factor or compensation amount. There can be a variance in batch and the same vendor per batch but it is usually consistent enough not to be an issue. The variation comes when you try other vendors. So if you find a brand you like, stay with it to  assure better consistency in both print and shrinkage.