New i3V owner: A few beginner questions

[DanSilov]

printbus, gmay3, thank you for your help and advice. This all definitely helps as I slowly progress with this whole 3D-printing thing

Will check the axis and idlers, but so far everything looks pretty tight. Just to be sure, how do I set the speed to 30%, is it just by turning the knob on LCD main screen, or is there a general setting in Slic3r I need to set?

[gmay3]

No problem at all!

Yeah you've got it, its just as simple as turning the knob during printing down to 30% on the main LCD. Definitely keep the slic3r settings the same (as far as print speed goes) for this test so we have a control in this experiment

[printbus]

I wondered about that variable extrusion width setting too, but I think what clough was getting at is leaving the default extrusion width under print settings/advanced set to a value of zero. That tells slic3r to automatically adjust the extrusion width.

I think part of the trick with the print cooling fan is to get it as localized as possible on just the print. My playing around with a fan just pointed in the general area of the print usually led to problems keeping the top of the heat bed at temperature and/or the hot end tip at temperature. That's why people come up with various fan shroud schemes that focus the airflow. After incorporating clough42's version, my print quality definitely went up. There's a pressure related loss with the shrouds though, so you'll want a pretty strong fan on it. If the fan is connected to D9 on RAMPS, the slicers can be set to lower the fan speed if the fan turns out too strong or loud.

Personally, I'd stick with Cura. I tried it this week in part because I was frustrated with the way the newest Slic3r version (1.1.6) would spend so much time doing things "bits at a time" rather than in long passes. Once I got the first layer adjusted right, Cura along with the print cooler and retraction set to 10mm/sec started cranking out impressive quality. Well, impressive in comparison to what I was getting out of Slic3r without the cooler and retraction at the MakerFarm default speed.

Why not experiment with a lower driver setting for at least the extruder motor? As clough has pointed out in other threads, the MakerFarm setting for the drivers is questionable with the motors being used.