calibration issues? (Page 2 of 2)

Firstly, your walls look nice and tidy, so your extrusion settings are probably quite good! Nice work.
Bridging across the top of a hollow cube will always be messy, don't worry about that.

Awesome - thanks.

So the manual moves come out accurate... I'd be looking for extruder wobble back and forth now: does the carriage wobble back and forth during a print?

Not that I can see when watching - edit: printhead carriage does have a very slight side to side wobble, seems to be a bit of play in the bushings - no detectable wobble front to back.

Does the hot-end wobble back and forth if you try pushing on it (best try this cold, be wary of the hot surfaces!!)?

Will have to check that one - edit: hotend seems to be mounted solidly, I dont feel any looseness there.

Is there any looseness in the y-drive hardware?

The only hardware issue (aside from carriages) that I have right now is a stuck screw in the Y axis motor that now has a stripped head...any suggestions for getting that out? I have some longer replacements already, just need to get that one out of there...

Are the idler pulley brackets at the front firmly attached?

Yes, altho they both show signs of fatigue cracking....and mine do not have the adjustment screws that I see in so many others - including the replacement versions? all belt adjustments are done at the carriage

Is there any sign of cracking or damage in the y carriages?

Actually yes (see pic), this carriage is why I am so durned determined to get this thing printing as accurately as possible so I can print up some Lawsy carriages (bearings are on thier way already) and replace it.

I am running out of ideas as well... =P

I did try spinning the cube 45 degrees on the bed, and it comes in closer to dimension, but still just a bit off - maybe I am just expecting too much out of this machine?

having cleaned and regreased the rods several times, I can say there are no noticable burrs on the Y axis - however, the rear X rod has some sloppy epoxy goop on it (the one for the rear plastic guide bushings), but it is on the right side, not a lot of it, only extends maybe an inch or so, and doesnt really affect the center area at all...

on the carriage - it is really ugly - that pic isnt the greatest - that one section is delaminating pretty badly and the longer I use it, the worse it seems to be getting...maybe it is just my imagination, but it seems worse now than when I first got the printer...

Both of the Y idlers are showing cracks between layers so want to replace those as well... anyone have a file for the non-adjustable version they would be willing to share?

to be perfectly honest, I want to replace all the printed parts on this thing - none of them look very good - like the filament just wasnt hot enough to stick the layers together well?

I know the printhead carriage really needs to be ABS because of the heat involved, but what about the other parts? Can I do them in PLA? or is it too brittle to hold up? I printed out a fan shroud for the X motor in PLA and it seems to be doing great (best mod I have done to this thing so far! I re-purposed the fan from the back of the case to cooling this motor. LOL) and it fit fine - snugly without being difficult to get on...

the reason I ask this is I am having a hard time getting this thing hot enough to print with the ABS (Octave brand).

I understand the limitations of the stock hotend, and 230C being the max temp it can handle, but I cant even get it that high before it hits the "max temp" thing - about as high as I can get is 225C according to the readout on RH, if I bump it up to 226 it shuts down with the "max temp" error.

Is it possible for this thing to be reading the temps that far out of whack? where 225 in RH is really 230?

Glad you found it. A bunch of hysteresis caused by things moving in their mounts in a broken carriage would explain both flat spots on circles and your undersized dimensions on rectangles.

Note that the stock solidoodle hot end measures temperature a little differently to many other hot ends. Many people say it's "inaccurate", but I feel this is jumping to conclusions: SD has chosen to attach the thermistor to the nozzle itself, whereas it's more common practice to attach the thermistor to the heat block. You can go back and forth a lot on the possible pros and cons but they're all much a muchness really. The result is, for what we believe to be the same plastic temperature, a thermistor on the nozzle will read about 20C or so lower than one on the heatblock. So when you see recommendations to print ABS at 230-240C, you should probably adjust that to 210-220C on the solidoodle hotend: it should print/adhere quite ok at this slightly lower temp setting, and won't set off your over-temp alarm.