Cruddy Quality Prints. Any suggestions welcome.

[nmcafee]

Am using an Airwolf 5.5 printer. PLA at 205 degrees on blue tape, have tried temps from 190 - 215. Printing at 60 per second. Have tried every level of infill from 10 to 100. Am just getting cruddy quality, Have tried 3 different types of filament from different sources. At one time I got pretty decent quality but it has got to the point of being unusable. In addition to MatterControl I have tried Repetier with the same results. Am open to any suggestions. Currently have a .5 hotend (that came with the printer) that uses .3 filament.

The first pic is an iphone case. The side wall is so rough that I can easily snap it off. It is a model from thingiverse that prints well for others. The second shows what I get on a flat surface even if I do very heavy fill.

Please help. All suggestions welcome.


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[richardphat]

Looks like your over extruding ..... and on top of that it might also be pissed poor quality filaments.

Check the filament diameter and adjust again, and also check the actual nozzle size if you could ever do that.

[nmcafee]

One question, if I am over extruding why won't the top layer print complete. My assumption was that I was under-extruding (but I am guessing). I will bump the extrusion down in increments of 5% to see if that makes a difference. And tomorrow I guess I will pony up the $45 and buy a spool of Makerbot filament to try that. Was going to crank the nozzle off and make sure there isn't something clogging that. Thanks for the response. Keep them coming please.

[LambdaFF]

I will bump the extrusion down in increments of 5% to see if that makes a difference.

Wow wow wow not so fast. What you should do 1st is take the theoretical filament diameter; divide by the actual measured filament diameter and use this ratio as your extrusion ratio. Bumping 5% is huge already. If you need to go to 10% offset, please tell me where you bought : I want to avoid that brand as this is realy poor quality.

Seeing the walls I was intrigued, do you have a fan on to cool the PLA ? that usually helps lots for PLA.

I don't print at 60mm/s, usually the main speed is 50mm/s but the first layer and outer perimeters are max 80% of that.

Also, don't do 100% infills, in fact, 50% is the most you should consider (unless you're doing something special with magnetic / conductive / wood filaments).

As to why the top most layer is not completely filled : have you tried to look at a replay/simulation of your gcode ? At least you'll know if it is due to slicing issues or printing parameters.

[curious aardvark]

that is pretty awful.

Will the airwolf work with cura ?
And - yeah do you have active cooling ? (fan blowing on the print area itself)