New to 3D printing, makerfarm 10"
Hi!
I didn't see an introduction thread anywhere, and only just found this forum so haven't had a chance to really search everything, so bear with me.
I bought, assembled, and have been running a MakerFarm 10" I3v for about a week now, I've been trying to make sure I've done my research, getting things setup correctly, etc. I have not made any changes or adjustments from the factory software settings at this point.
So far, I've "leveled" the bed, I used a 0.25" feeler gauge to level it, and knowing that my fine adjustment screw for the Z stop is an M3 x 0.5mm, I turned the adjustment 1/4 turn to in theory have a 0.125mm gap between the extruder and glass.
My first print, the 20 x 20 x 20 test cube, using sli3cer, was with filament in a box marked PLA, so I was using the default config for PLA. The prints would warp up after 2 or 3 layers and then get dragged off the bed as adhesion was lost. Otherwise, to an un-trained eye, everything else appeared OK. So I ended up with some aquanet hairspray, and made a successful print, with minor warp at the corners.
The first thing I've noticed is that compared to a lot of the other prints I've seen/photos, the surface finish on this is more of a matte or flat appearance. The gears that came with the printer for the extruder are a very glossy, and very clearly defined layers. I'll get some pictures up tonight so you can see what my print looked like. At first I thought it was because the material was PLA and it must print differently than ABS.
So I picked up a roll of ABS to try, mainly because I wanted to print a spare set of parts (extruder housing and gears) right away in case anything happened. When I removed my roll of "PLA" I discovered that the sticker on the spool did not match the one on the box, and it was actually already ABS... So lesson learned there.
I figured I should start over, and that at least a few of my issues might have been because of using all of the wrong settings. Because that always works, right?
So my first test print in the new ABS settings, printing a spare extruder mount (skipping the cube). Bed is the same glass sheet with aquanet hair spray coating. I took three measurements over the first 5 feet or so of the actual thickness of the filament, which came out to 1.77mm. The default heat settings are I think 240 nozzle 110 bed. I set it to use a 15mm brim. Initial layer thickness set to 0.3mm. While it starts to print the brim, I notice that the material comes out in more of a tear drop pattern with a matte finish, not a straight flat line with a glossy finish that I think I'm seeing in some of the videos and parts others have made. Once the first layer is done, and it steps up to the next Z, the material is thick enough that the nozzle drags over it. So I thought it was over extruding, and ended up having to turn the flow rate down to about 80% but I think that was a little under extruded, but still having a hard time understanding how it could be that far off. But the extrusion remained with a matte finish, it's got almost a kind of a mashed potato texture to it, and it makes me think it's overheating the filament. The other thing I noticed was if the material sits in the extruder for more than a few seconds at that temp it discolors. I was also still getting warp after about 7mm of printing, a corner will pop off the table once and after the extruder Z height get above the warp the remaining layers will print dimensionally correct without additional warp.
But I guess my biggest issue is that I can recognize what issues I'm seeing, but I have no reference to what is normal, nor what different issues mean. Is there a guide that illustrates some of these print quality issues and what they might mean in terms of setup? I've found a few guides that illustrate hardware issues and how they manifest in the parts, but the main issue here is lack of experience in terms of print quality and warp, seems like I they are related.
I've managed to find some information about how/why the extruder needs to be calibrated earlier today, something that I didn't see in the manual, so it makes me think that there are a bunch of other little things that I needed to know to get this setup right.
Funny part is with the first roll of filament, if I use the default PLA settings from slic3r with Cura, 60 bed and 190 nozzle, I get much cleaner/smoother flow and much less warp. I thought Which doesn't make any sense at all unless the first roll of filament I bought actually was PLA as was marked on the box, and not ABS as marked on the spool? I did have the nozzle clog up once with those settings though.
I'm sure there's more, but for now I'm going to get some of my pictures uploaded.
