Flashforge Dreamer - Not printing square

[dcohenour]

Hi All, I have had a FF Dreamer for about 1 week, and have been able to print four times. I am trying to print a 4.0 x 2.0 x .19 (inches) case in two halves. I am printing each half using a raft. It looks like each half is skewed, as in being a parallelogram, ends parallel and sides parallel, but corners are not square in the 4x2 direction. hopefully that makes sense.

Printing in ABS, 220 extrude temp, 110 bed temp. Using the blue platform cover that came with the printer. No glue.

Any ideas on how to fix this?
Any help for this newbie is appreciated.

[faross]

go to 40% infill and use a little watered down Elmer glue i like to spread the glue with a damp chip brush on the bed heat the bed to 110 seems to work good for me with abs .
Also i never use rafts to hard to remove after .

[Sebastian Finke]

Weird that it doesn't print square. If I can make a suggestion: visit the Flashforge Google Group, a lot of experts there.

On a side note... 110° on your HBP is way too hot for ABS. Drop it to 95°.

[lithgowlights]

When it does the test line along the front to clear the extruder, is it printing that parallel to the front of the bed, or at an angle back (or forward)? If it's at an angle the answer is the print head bars going from side to side are not even on each side. Easy way to check is to turn the power off, take the top of the Dreamer off, and then manually slide the print head forward, and see if the bar is even with the plastic case at the top. Mine was out about 8mm on one side, and while it sound scarey the fix is easy - manually pull and push the appropriate sides to straighten it up (You cause the belts to skip, so you will hear a pop sound as you do it. There are a few video's on youtube showing how to do it

Now as for 110c for ABS, I totally disagree with Sebastian, and this is pretty good temperature area on the dreamer, especially if you have buildtak or a glass bed on it. I found any lower than 105 and I had adhesion issues, so 108 to 115, sometimes 120 for a few of the ABS filaments here seems to be the ideal point, but trial and error is the way to find the best spot for bed temp.

[dcohenour]

Weird that it doesn't print square. If I can make a suggestion: visit the Flashforge Google Group, a lot of experts there.

On a side note... 110° on your HBP is way too hot for ABS. Drop it to 95°.

Hey Sebastian, thanks for the tip. I did drop the temp to 95 and the part just popped of are it was done. Very nice!

Also, I used the suggestion to grab the x axis bars and give them a tug to straighten them out. That appears to have worked. my latest print was out by .015 across 4.5 inches, corner to corner. So instead of trying to get it perfect, I flipped the 2nd half of the box around to see what the results will be. But one of the new halves was able to mate with one of the old halves, so my prototype will work!

I may get brave and give it one more pop, but i have work to do so It'll have to wait until Monday.

Cheers!

[dcohenour]

Hi, I followed your suggestion and it appears to have worked. See my reply to Sebastian. Thanks!

[sreisig1]

I seem to have this issue as well. What should be square seems ever so slightly askew. How did you go ahead and fix this. I don't know what videos are being referenced here

[dcohenour]

I seem to have this issue as well. What should be square seems ever so slightly askew. How did you go ahead and fix this. I don't know what videos are being referenced here

I grabbed the x axis and gave it a twist. It will make a "kaka" sound. Sounds primitive, I know, but that is what I was instructed to do by tech support. The axis was just slightly off, and that fixed it.

As an aside, just had the first major problem with the printer after about 16 months. Looks like it needs a new motherboard. But the machine paid for itself 10 times over, so I can't complain.

[sreisig1]

Thanks for the quick reply. I have the creator pro. How did you twist it? I am tryign to visualize it and cant haha. Flashforge sent me a new printer because my other one was having so many issues. Just got this new creator pro from them and I started to notice that parts aren't square.

[dcohenour]

Thanks for the quick reply. I have the creator pro. How did you twist it? I am tryign to visualize it and cant haha. Flashforge sent me a new printer because my other one was having so many issues. Just got this new creator pro from them and I started to notice that parts aren't square.

Well, on the dreamer, I grabbed one end of the x axis bars with my left hand and the other end with my right hand, out toward the sides of the case. Then I pulled one hand toward my body while at the same time, in a very quick motion, pushed the other hand away from my body. The end result was a "kaka" sound, or a crunching sound, (however you want to describe it) changing the squareness of the x axis to the y axis.

I was able to use an indicator to see the out of square condition.

That said, I doubt that perfect squareness is achievable. It's not a Bridgeport, so I would temper my expectations.
Hope that helps!