Print Quality issues (pictures)

[curious aardvark]

measure the diameter of the filament extruded by the printer when loading filament.
Then put this as The extrusion width in the extruder settings in s3d.

I've never bothered measuring any filament diameter, yeah all the books tell you to, but to be honest modern filament manufacturing has got to the point that even the real cheap filament is as close to 1.75 as you'd want - and it's never effected any prints. But the width the extruder extrudes DOES matter.
My 0.4 nozzle etrudes at 0.4 but my 0.5 nozzle extrudes at 0.55.
By default s3d sets the extrusion width a 10th of a mill higher than the nozzle width. But if you measure and put the correct figures in you'll get cleaner and more accurate prints.

And always remember that abs shrinks aftter cooling - so you'll never get as clean a print surface as you will from pla.

And yeah pretty much 2 layers/shells would be my minimum.

One of the things I find interesting is that a lot of people want things to look like they were injection moulded. Or they want to print at the highest resolution because it looks better.
There is very little difference between 0.3mm and 0.1mm layer prints. Except one prints 3x faster.

You will not get perfectly smooth prints from a fff machine - it's simply not how it works.
So it makes sense to print faster and either - if using abs, poison yourself with acetone smoothing the print. Or if using pla, paint or sand the lines away - doesn't take long.

Or just accept the 'penalty' for having such a remarkable machine in your home is the fact that you can point the lines out to people - most won't notice unless you do - and explain how the machine works :-)

[Alibert]

I agree with curious aardvark that it is more efficient to print thicker layers. I usually print at 0.25-0.35 layer thickness.

if using abs, poison yourself with acetone smoothing the print

That will be very hard to do. Acetone is a naturally occuring molecule in your body chemistry. All mammals (including all humans) excrete acetone with every breath. If I remember correctly ,the MAC (http://delloyd.50megs.com/hazard/MAC.html) value for acetone is 800 ppm. That is way higher (safer) than a lot of other house and garden chemicals present in the average household. There are no known perisistent effects as your body simply metabolizes it and excretes surplus acetone via lungs and urine.
To poison yourself, you will need to either drink at least 100-200 ml of it (may induce a temporary coma), or very intensely inhale highly concentrated fumes for considerable time (as if you are smoking a acetone loaded water pipe). In the latter case, a breath of fresh air will be enough to recuperate fully.

[catalyst]

if printing threaded parts, wouldn't the layer height be more of a factor, though? I've never printed above .2.

[Alibert]

Depends on the thread size/pitch I guess. For my applications I use 1/4 BSP as smallest thread size and print that at 0.2 layer height.

[Sebastian Finke]

So how do I correct the over extrusion? My filament checks out to 1.75 exactly. Is the microcenter filament poor quality?

I am printing via sdcard.

Follow this link for extruder calibration. Easy enough to do but may take a few tries.

[curious aardvark]

There are no known perisistent effects

excess acetone inhalation causes anosmia - loss of the sense of smell, which also means you can't taste anything.
Not trivial.
Acetone also causes headaches - so regardless of whether or not it;'s a naturally occuring substance - it's not good stuff to be breathing in constantly.

It's also highly combustible.

Just not good stuff to have in an enclosed office or workshop.

[catalyst]

measure the diameter of the filament extruded by the printer when loading filament.
Then put this as The extrusion width in the extruder settings in s3d.

Okay, so using this, I have a .4 nozzle that is putting out filament at .47mm.

[Alibert]

excess acetone inhalation causes anosmia - loss of the sense of smell, which also means you can't taste anything.
Not trivial.

I never heard of that one, do you have a link for me?

Acetone also causes headaches - so regardless of whether or not it;'s a naturally occuring substance - it's not good stuff to be breathing in constantly.

So does alcohol and any load of other volatiles.

It's also highly combustible.

As are organic solvent based paints, lighter fuels, cleaning spirits, rubbing alcohol, paint thinner, glue removers, etc etc.

Just not good stuff to have in an enclosed office or workshop.

As with all of the above, always use in a well ventilated area (as the packaging also will advise). My sole point is that acetone is much less harmfull than for example paint thinner or glue remover and it will not poison you. Toxicity is in the dose (an oral dose of 200 grams of table salt will kill you) and it is very very hard to get anywhere near harmful levels with acetone. Just use it as advised (in a well ventilated area). By the way, nail polish remover is 98-99% acetone with some additives to make it smell different (I won't say nicer) and add sometimes add extra oil for the nails. And that product is usually applied in poorly ventilated environments.....

[Sebastian Finke]

The deformation at the bottom is due to a too high bed temp.

The poor surface quality is due to extruder not being calibrated.

[catalyst]

The deformation at the bottom is due to a too high bed temp.

The poor surface quality is due to extruder not being calibrated.

I have to repost my prior post - the mobile version of this site deletes posts when you click on the text to edit anything. lol.

This is a CR123 Battery that I drew up quick. Its supposed to be 16.5mm wide. S3D printed it at 16.4mm wise, so it while it is a little small, it still looks pretty good, aside from the base, which had some shrinking issues going on, but it is also a solid base. 220 C with 110 Build Plate. The S3D was default "High" settings with .1mm layer height and 30% infill.



This is the same drawing in RepG. RepG prints at 220 C. with 110 build plate. I am not sure what happened to the RepG print.. it looks terrible and there were so many issues that I redid the print, and it came out exactly the same! The plastic is over extruded and feels burnt in certain spots, but up towards the top, the pattern is actually pretty cool and completely uniform.