New i3V owner: A few beginner questions

[DanSilov]

Well, I had an interesting evening last night. First I stumbled upon this post (http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...inter-Extruder), where the video describes exactly the symptoms I was having with my prints. So I immediately decided to calibrate my extruder using that video and gmay3's post a reference.

I quickly found out that my extruder was a bit uderextruding (94mm instead of 100mm requested), and I used LCD menu to adjust E-steps. I decided to use the same G-code I printed before – a 24mm 20% infill cube. The result, well, dreadful.

Original settings (mesh at the top, not watertight, but very neat print otherwise):
IMG_8008.jpg

After calibration (a mess all around):
IMG_8011.jpg

I then reuploaded firmware using link provided in MakerFarm guide (BTW, should I try vanilla Marlin firmware, will it make any difference?), enabled EEPROM access just in case. Then I decided to try printing 20mm 100% infill cube, as per gmay3's post. I used adjusted E-steps, which I saved to EEPROP and I also set Extruder Multiplier in Slic3r to 1.1 just to see what will be the result.

Here's the result:
IMG_8013.jpgIMG_8015.jpg

I've tried two times, and both times the print started bending around corners, and then it lost adhesion (the first time this happened for me). At this point I gave up.

Looks like something is definitely off with extruder, since even Extruder Multiplier doesn't force it to extrude more material. I'm not really sure what to try now.

[gmay3]

printbus, I don't think I had the same problem with my knob but will take a look tonight and post a picture.

DanSilov, sorry you've been having a frustrating time with this. Sometimes this is how it goes with 3d printing . I would double check your calculation of the Esteps. It seems like your 24mm cube with 20% infill has less plastic (hence the caving in corner) after your changed the Esteps. Your initial commanded 94mm instead of 100mm for the Esteps cal should have had more plastic come through.

Ok so as far as the 20mm 100% infill box goes, like you said we need to get your print to stick before anything else because if the corners are bent up the print will not be accurate enough to show if your 20mm 100% infill is flat on top.

I'm assuming you are using the good ol' glass bed with hairspray method. I have had really good success with this so far as far as sticking to the bed goes. I found that in the beginning I was putting too little hairspray so try just a little more to see if this helps. (I'd recommend taking your glass off and spraying it on top of an old tee shirt, then let it dry for 5 mins or so)

I would recommend trying two things next.

1. Twist your Y bed gently clockwise and counterclockwise to see if the delrin idlers on the Y bed have loosened up. This happens for me every 20 prints or so and can mess up your bed leveling. Then re-level your bed so that the nozzle hits the z endstop at a height of about 70 to 80% of your desired layer thickness away from the glass at each corner of the bed. So for 0.2mm about .16mm.

2. I think I read that your were printing PLA at 220 or and 70 for the bed. I'm not a PLA master as I usually print in ABS but when I've printed PLA at 185 and and 60 for the bed temp I've had success.

Any way, I hope some of this helps but keep us posted with how its coming along!