new printer, made a few prints one messed up bad. Trying to learn, some questions...

Question 1:

So i got a new qidi tech printer and did the test cube from ReplicatorG and a few other things. They printed pretty well, examples that did great were:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:350055

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:570039

and this one (Brick Rev ver2)
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:26979/#files

All did fine...



This one failed bad:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:179150

(attached pic).
My question is what settings should I tweak or try, or maybe what did I do wrong to get it to come out all jacked up after the thumb part? Was it a setting? I used PLA and a heat setting I am guessing was too hot. It does have a heated bed too and I used recomendations made in the systems user manual. The gcode settings were this:

Object infill %10
Layer height .2
Number of shells 1
Feedrate mm/s 80
Travel feedrate 100
Print temp 220

(I am guessing the temp was too hot but no idea).

Oh use raft/support was on. None for support material. Use default start/end gcode and use print-o-matic was checked. Not sure if any of this helps, I used the settings for all things actuallly which brings me to my second question:

Question 2:

Is there anyway to mitigate the 'gaps' in a flat surface? (attached picture gaps circled).

Finally question 3:

What is the general finishing technique people use and tools? I know the support on the bottom can be peeled broken off but its still not flat? Sanding?

What paints are best? Primer? If going to paint pla model, what color filament is best as base?

Sorry for so many questions but I am excited to start to learn just not sure where to start looking, figured the forum here.












Attachment 8140

Attachment 8141

Answer 1) Didi you use supports in your slicer? The printer can't print in thin air. Example:
Attachment 8142

Answer 2) You may need to increase either the number of top layers, or you need to tweak the extrusion parameters. It could be that the printer is extruding a little less than the slicer expects. Also you may try a lower printing speed.

Answer 3) If you use PLA, sanding is a good option but increase the number of shells to at least 3. Otherwise you will sand away the shells and end up with the infill on the outside. You can also 'varnish' it with a gel epoxy (as in making glass-fibre boats and stuff) to smoothen out the layers before painting.

In general: 220 for PLA is a quite hot. Try with something in the range of 190-210 and lower the speed to the range 40-50 mm/s. That will improve the quality of your prints andbring out more detail.

ty for the response. In an odd twist, I didn't have any supports and that print worked out great to the thumbs up part..thats when it got all mushy and was just moving around melted plastic all over. I tried a second time (Before you posted here) with it a bit cooler (210) and the back right leg was all mushy as everytime it put a plastic down the whole leg would move, not the front one though and didnt do this the first time. I am curious how did these supports get into there?

I guess I need to know more about taking a stl file and getting it ready for print. The Supports I am guessing are not automagically done? Also these speeds I will play with also..and will be googling what a shell is ...and top layers, and double check my extrusion parameters. Still learning, I was happy I got a decent print from the getgo... so this is time to learn more and I am totally cool with that.

The best way to look at an object that's going to be printed is to think in horizontal layers. If you look at a model ata certin height and there are parts to print which aren't attached to the rest of the model - you'll need supports or print at a different orientation.

And shells should pretty much always be a minimum of two. A shell is the outline of a model before it starts the infill. So it's essentially the bit that shapes and details what you are printing.

Adding extra shells will also make a print much stronger without increasing infill.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by curious aardvark

The best way to look at an object that's going to be printed is to think in horizontal layers. If you look at a model ata certin height and there are parts to print which aren't attached to the rest of the model - you'll need supports or print at a different orientation.

And shells should pretty much always be a minimum of two. A shell is the outline of a model before it starts the infill. So it's essentially the bit that shapes and details what you are printing.

Adding extra shells will also make a print much stronger without increasing infill.

---

Thanks again, but I am curious how one adds supports? Is that like the model creator has to do that? or do the replicatorG and stuff recogize tings that would be printed in air and able to add supports automatically? Again referring to this model as reference:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:179150

Your slicing software (the software that takes in the stl file and generates the gcode file for the printer) will have an option to turn on supports. It will look for parts of the model that need support and generate the pillars by itself, or you can do it manually as well in most slicers.

If parts are moving while printing and generate a spaghetti mess, then you first layer bonding is not right. If the bonding is right, the parts will not move around when the nozzle lays down plastic.

Ty again. When you say first layer not bonding right what causes that? And I will have to find in replicatorg where to set the supports on. Guessin you just cut the supports out when the model is done?

I think I figured out part of the issue, in replicatorG it has a checkbox for raft/support but you still have to select Exterior or Full. I am trying a print again with Raft/Support and material set to full support.

set the feedrate to 45 and the print temp to 210, number of shells 3. Trying this.

Okay I almost got this. My replicatorG did something funky....basically after I put on full support (or even the other one) it gets stuck in the generating toolpath for model. I see the Skeinlayer analyzer tool, and i cant do anything just click close (am i supposed to do something here?), once I do it 'finishes' generating the gcode but exporting to x3g seems to do nothing as printing it has 215 for temp when I say 210 and still doesnt do supports. So I moved onto the makerbot desktop (makerweare?) and after finally figuring out how to set it to just use the left extruder... I got this with the following settings:

Temp was 210
Travel speed 150
z-axistravel speed 23. Minimum layer duration 8
extrusion speeds: not sure what was important here... but things like bridges ffirst layer first layer raft were all 50 or less.... infill and insets were 90
outlines 40 and raft was 45, raft base 10 ms
infill default layer height .20 mm
model properties were layerheight .20 mm and shells of 3. (more on this later)
roof and floor were .80mm
coarseness .00010mm
fixed shell starting point selected
multi material was set to do from the left extruder

raft was checked, left do default
supports and bridging :

support, leaky connections, align support all selected. Support angle was 68. spacings were all default for replicator dual
Extruders were left at default of diamter 1.77, retraction distance 1.3mm retraction speed 25mm/s, restart speed 25mm/s and extra restart distance to 0 and speed 25mm.

That said my questions on the results below:

In an odd twist my first print went great on the replicatorG up to the thumb... everything else was good though, mostly the legs were smooth both of them.
This print, the base was bad no idea why, I thought more shells fixed the holes...it was like the stuff wasnt sticking to itself or when the extruder moved up it yanked a bit of put down material up with it (sorta like a bent up piece of plastic from the layer)... also the right leg is bumpy sharp bumps, no idea why, but its smooth.

The detail was less than the settings I used above for my first print on the vault boy...no belt showed up and the hand against hip was not even close. Oddly arm thumb and head all printed (supports went around the neck, not sure why it was so zealous for that or how one cleans that up) the oddest thing was the face was like caved in on the left and the head had a hole on it. Again I thought shells fixed these things? Final thing that was confusing was this back left shoulder where no supports were was like 'over hanging' a few layers on the ones below it... picture too. So I am feeling I am learning more but then something new happens (the holes in the base really puzzle me). So from here what to tweak? Temperature again (this was 210) ? is it a leveling issue? was leveled before...i could relevel? ( what does bad leveling look like?)

Thanks again for the help as I learn this process...







Attachment 8151

Attachment 8152

Attachment 8153

Same old issues... temp too high for PLA and extruder not calibrated. Fix those things first then do what all the others said.

By extruder calibrated you mean leveled?

Nope, I guess he means that if you direct the extuder to pass 100mm of filament, you actually measure that 100mm has come out. You will need to remove the nozzle in order to measure that. Google is again your friend here.

I have a Qidi tech and the extruder steps/mm are an exact replicate of the Makerbot ones. Never needed to adjust those settings. Do select 'Replicator Dual' or 'Replicator 1 dual" and not the pro or dreamer settings in your slicer.

Could you try the following?: reduce the nozzle temperature to 200 C and the bed to 60 and halve all the speeds you listed (like 20mm/s for the shells, etc).

Now check the display while printing, it should read 200 C for the nozzle and 60 C fo the bed. If not then you probably have an override setting in the startup gcode which needs to be removed.

See how that works. If that gives you a good result, work from there by carefully adjusting just one parm per time. Part of getting good prints is getting to knowhow your printer (and firmware) works with your slicer.

The supports you need to break away after printing, and tidy up the spots where it touched the print. Supports in ABS are very easy to clean up, PLA and PETG are a lot harder and may require some light sanding.

Also, the quality of your filament will affect the results greatly. The free stuff you get with the printer is OK, but you need to tweak your slicer settings a lot to get good results. More expensive stuff tends to be less fussy. Having said that, with the necessary experience you will get good prints with more or less any brand, cheap or expensive.

Thanks again Alibert, I did (well am doing another print) I set it to 195c but didnt halve the speeds. I will have to google the 100mm passing filament... cause I have no idea where in makerware that setting was (I should find a slicer and just stick with it). I am still shocked the first print I attempted did awesome until the head...if I could get ReplicatorG to add supports I would be doing better, as of now its exporting a x3g model that is normally 3mb as 495 bytes. No idea why it decided to choke.

The latest build at 195c still produced a shoddy base, and what makes me really go hmm is that it fails in different ways on the head of this model. Like different sides of the face...plus I am still impressed with the first models detail on the shirt, all other attempts even though im getting the thumbs up has not near the detail on the shirt. I like that you have a qidi, and yes I am using the same stuff it came with. I am learning a ton though, just tinkering in the slicer a few things clicked of aha- thats what it is.. etc. I should check the firmware and find a good slicer. What do you use as a slicer? Tomorrow I will try again with the diff temps and halving the speed.

I took a video of this latest print at the 195c (wont post it was 54mb) but it showed the head getting all whisked around like it was gummy..the whole thing. It seems like its not cooling fast enough? or something it is mushy and that is why I think the head prints with holes etc, its not gummy though (like that first print that was just a ball of jacked up plastic). So far though happy my catan tiles turned out okay :) want to slice those again with the more shells to see if those pits and holes go away :)

Just got the print and thought id share between first one with replicator G and this one, I did also level the print bed cause I thought that was what was meant by the extruder comment in the last post.

The shape is there, but bad detail in the jacket belly part, compared to first.

Attachment 8154

Attachment 8155

Then the base again...
Attachment 8156
And the face deformity (It is a nuclear fallout spokes person I guess). I am not married to this model I think its a good one to test with though as its high res and complexish.

Attachment 8157

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by codejoy

... the head getting all whisked around like it was gummy..the whole thing. It seems like its not cooling fast enough? or something it is mushy and that is why I think the head prints with holes etc, its not gummy though (like that first print that was just a ball of jacked up plastic)...

---

You are on the right track here. Each layer has to cool before the next is made. Turn on fans in your slicer and you'll see a difference.

Sometimes, printing tiny stuff, the fans are not enough. Then I usually print two models, with a distance, too allow more cooling time. Just keep the best looking one :)

Edit: The holes in flat surfaces though: thicker shell = more horizontal layers, as well as higher percent infill helps, if the machine is properly set up.

I concur with Marrs. I too think the PLA is not cooling off enough which becomes more pronounced at the head part.

As the Qidi does not have a dedicated cooling fan for PLA, keep the front window open and the hood (top) off to allow some ventilation. You can also point a desktop fan at it after the first layer has been laid down. And reduce the speeds. And reduce the speeds. And reduce the speeds. And reduce the speeds. You are putting layer on layer too fast so that it cannot cool and solidify.

As this model has a limited XY dimension, you can also print it in ABS (you should have received a spool of that as well). In my experience ABS always gives the best detail, least ooze and best overall result. It does however shrink, so you need to scale your print if you want true dimensions and you cannot use large X-Y distances as it will curl up (warp) when it cools.

For ABS use a nozzle temprature of 230 C, a bed temperature of 95 C (forget the 110 C, that is an error from years ago that just won't die), use a glue stick or extra-strong-hold-hurricane-proof hairspray as bonding material (preferably on kapton tape or glass), and use a raft and supports.

As the glass point (where the plastic becomes deformable/rubbery) of ABS is around 105 C whereas PLA is around 65 C the layers will cool sufficiently and the object will not 'wobble'. With ABS you close the front window and keep the top hood on (unless you live in the desert and ambient temperatures are very high). Also set the speed for the shell to less than 30mm/s and the infill to less than 40 mm/s. That should give you a much improved print with good detail. Better to wait a bit longer for a print to complete than to waste hours and hours of failed prints....

Your printer looks like a Replicator 1 clone. This is a good thing.

1) Please go to the Flashforge forum and see the stickied thread for the sailfish manual. Pay particular attention to Chapter 5 regarding calibration!

2) Don't use RepG. Ideally use Makerware (download link also in the Makerware Forum) or purchase Simplify 3D.

3) Basic PLA guidelines: extruder temp +/- 200C, platform temp +/- 60C (glass point of PLA is 65C so don't exceed that)

4) Print some calibration cubes. Only once that's nailed is it worthwhile to move on.

Quote:

---

Your printer looks like a Replicator 1 clone.

---

Yes it is a replicator 1 dual clone, and a very nice one too. I use sailfish firmware with it and the results are indistinguishable to my Flashforge Creator dual (another very good rep 1 clone).

Quote:

---

This is a good thing.

---

I agree, of all my printers, the replicator 1 clones (FF and Qidi) are the least problematic and dependable. The 8mm acrylic frame of my chinese i3 wobbles too much (a new frame is in the making) and my Kossel Max build is a bowden setup which gives me a no end of headaches. The direct drive extruders of the replicator clones are much less fussy and much more precise with respect to blobbing/oozing. I am seriously contemplating of converting the Kossel max to a direct drive with a geared nema11 or nema-8 to keep the weight low....

I also agree heartily with Sebastian's point 4). No use in wasting plastic until you have the basics nailed. And buying Simplyfy 3D is a no-brainer. It will save you a LOT of grief.

Nevertheless, if you try the ABS you may find your problems solved for this particular stl file.

Thanks so much Alibert and Sebastian, and that manual to Sailfish was a total treasure. I ran through the calibration, mostly checking my diameter of my filiment and I used that to print the following test cubes. First one was printed at 10% infill, second one at a 100% infill and infill layerheight of .3mm (is that the layer height or is there another layerheight setting?)

So the 100% infill did not come out at all, rough edges, over hanging...and what confuses me is it is concave, which according to the manual is a sign of under extrusion? Though the pictures on google the rough sides and that look more like over extrusion?

The heat was 200c for pla, and 60 on the build plate. Travel speed 150mms and zaxis 23mm/s (when you say halve the speeds do you mean these as well?) I did halve all the other speeds in the extrusion speeds. I just am not used to recognizing what is going on. Also that best print i got on the vault boy with the replicatorG was done when I said the diameter of the my filament was like 1.82mm ? I got digital calipers and it showed between 160 and 165. I know things were said to be changed in small increments, but not sure where to go as I cannot tell what my cube result is doing if it is over or under? The 10% infill one was pretty nice (tiny bit of concave i.e. the 'walls' were higher than middle and only one slightly gouge this time. Though I am guessing with models with more material (vault boy?) or with more infill like the demo the settings are obviously not right as that test cube didn't come out. So still doing the PLA and just the test cube to nail down a perfect cube, just not sure what this result was? Also it did say the manual to change the feedstockMultiplier of the makerware and I cannot find that anywhere (is this in addition to filament diameter a way to adjust the over/under extrusion?)

One last thing, in regard to the Simplyfy 3D does it really make life that much simpler? Is it because it has the profiles all built in for such a printer? or makes them easier to tweak? It is 150$ and I am curious how the payoff comes?

Here are the pictures....

(Pics with 100% infill working from chapter 5)


Attachment 8194Attachment 8195Attachment 8196

and the first test with the new filament diameter and 10% infill (working from chapter 5)

Attachment 8197

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by codejoy

Question 1:

So i got a new qidi tech printer and did the test cube from ReplicatorG and a few other things. They printed pretty well, examples that did great were:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:350055

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:570039

and this one (Brick Rev ver2)
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:26979/#files

All did fine...



This one failed bad:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:179150

(attached pic).
My question is what settings should I tweak or try, or maybe what did I do wrong to get it to come out all jacked up after the thumb part? Was it a setting? I used PLA and a heat setting I am guessing was too hot. It does have a heated bed too and I used recomendations made in the systems user manual. The gcode settings were this:

Object infill %10
Layer height .2
Number of shells 1
Feedrate mm/s 80
Travel feedrate 100
Print temp 220

(I am guessing the temp was too hot but no idea).

Oh use raft/support was on. None for support material. Use default start/end gcode and use print-o-matic was checked. Not sure if any of this helps, I used the settings for all things actuallly which brings me to my second question:

Question 2:

Is there anyway to mitigate the 'gaps' in a flat surface? (attached picture gaps circled).

Finally question 3:

What is the general finishing technique people use and tools? I know the support on the bottom can be peeled broken off but its still not flat? Sanding?

What paints are best? Primer? If going to paint pla model, what color filament is best as base?

Sorry for so many questions but I am excited to start to learn just not sure where to start looking, figured the forum here.












Attachment 8140

Attachment 8141

---

All of the question has been answered correctly . Thanks for sharing here.

The 10% infill is getting you where you need to be. I would still lower the temperature to 180-190 C though.

With the 100% infill you see that too much plastic is being extruded, at 100% infill it simply has no other place to go but sideways or up. At 10%, the plastic can go sideways into the empty space....

My guess is that your slicer has a multiplier on the infill. That means that it extrudes more plastic than required in order to make stronger hatching. Have a look at the infill settings and see if you can find something.

And again: lower temperatures, lower temperatures (for PLA that is, not ABS which needs 225-235) ......

With halving the speeds I mean the extruding things, Travel speeds are OK as they were.

The feedstockmultiplier is (I think?) a setting in the menu's of your printer which are available when you are printing, and yes they do increase/reduce the amount of plastic being extruded and override the slicer settings on the run. This is usefull for fine-tuning as you can change this on the fly.

Whether or not S3D is a personal choice. Many people are perfectly happy with Makerware, Cura, etc. My experience is that S3D (apart from the pre-built profiles) is fast, accurate and handles a lot of the settings a lot more intelligently than the free slicers. Given a pre-built profile, you still have loads of fine-tweaking posibilities which are very powerful, and control of supports is excellent. What I love most is the capability of loading multiple objects and applying different profiles to them (for example one part at 100% infill, the others at 30%, or slower speeds for a part that needs finer details, etc) so that I can print a project in whole at once. By saving the 'factory file' (a S3D thing), I build an archive of ready-to-print projects.

I have no ties with the makers of S3D whatever, it just is a cracking good piece of software and I am just one of the many users. Also the online support guides are good: https://www.simplify3d.com/support/ As to the problems you are facing, have a read here: https://www.simplify3d.com/support/p...oubleshooting/

As time is money, I have got a really good return on my $150 investment so to speak. But again, the choice is yours. Don't blame me if you purchase and afterwards feel it is not worth it.

Actually I just did another print and did lower the temperatures...It is a pretty decent looking cube finally. That was at 195c. The top is still rough and the layers near the top seem to bulge and get wonky, this I think you answered with the infill question and I think maybe my infill layer height (in the makerweare) is separate from actual layer height? not sure...I set it to the .3mm in the infill section of the makerware, then just now realized that there is a seperate layerheight I had set at .2mm sure that didn't help things. The infill question though confuses me, as the sailfish manual suggests the testing at 100% infill, but at the 10% it seems more tolerant and your comment makes more sense to me. The only thing I really did here was change the filament diameter and print temp and print speed (does that really matter that much, seems after reading cheap filament can really change over the length of it anyway by decent amounts). The filament diameter I did change again on this second print, I took a second measurement using the calipers and lowered the temps and this is the 100% infill at 195c with the filament set to 1.69mm. Kept the speeds slow...


That simply3d does sound nice with the ability to change settings as to the different parts of the model. I will check the guides and keep printing the cube...then maybe go back to not the complex vault boy but the nice catan tile for a test:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:26979

those were close out of the box anyway (guessing cause they aren't to high) and really I just had the shell issues I think. I think I am almost there, thanks everyone. There is a lot going on here and learning the process is time consuming.Attachment 8202

So this is with the 10% infill, that top gap no idea whats causing it, bigger than the last time I tried with the diff diameter and temp. looks almost like an air bubble/pocket burst... I am not even sure if that is the thing. But this is a pretty nice cube on all sides and not convex or concave on top. Just really that tiny hole ...and maybe that each of the corners have a little point to them...other than that is looks good.

Attachment 8210

I also couldn't resist I printed the vault boy one more time and it came out pretty good!! though its like a few of the layers got off balance or something (detailed in picture) other than that (in pla) it turned out okay. Slowing it down and doing things I think really helped. I also printed a bunch of meeples (from a board game) and used that as a test cube as well ....figured out that increasing the roof and floor in makeware, and sorta fudging the filament numbers to fix under-extrusion made for some pretty good looking items. I will try the vault boy again later with a layerheight of .3 instead of .2 to just see if it fixes anything, that one still puzzles me, but as someone said maybe in ABS i'd have more luck.Attachment 8218

Attachment 8219

If you have overhangs it helps to decrease the layer height instead of increasing it. That way you can get away with larger angles and have less risk of the outer shell not 'catching' to the inner ones.

Attachment 8226

And yes, give ABS a try....

I thought layerheights were limited by my nozzle, and I couldn't go past .2mm, so if i get those overhangs with .2mm guessing my printer won't do .1mm as a decreases. I did print some other models yesterday they turned out pretty good...had a friend look he thought maybe a deskfan would also help too as you suggested earlier (still finding one) since the platform raises not sure which one to get that would be able to hit the plastic as its extruding.