Problems with print quality

[bkmartin]

I'm having problems with the corners of my test cube being "higher" then the rest of the cube. The corners are not lifting from the glass at all, but it seems extra material is left on the corners or the corners warp up for some reason. Suggestions on what I should be tuning?

PLA, 185 hotend, 65 bed temp, 1.75mm hexagon, Cura, 20 mm/s bottom layer, 80 mm/s other layers, 10 sec minimal layer time, .2mm layer height

[printbus]

I'm having problems with the corners of my test cube being "higher" then the rest of the cube. The corners are not lifting from the glass at all, but it seems extra material is left on the corners or the corners warp up for some reason. Suggestions on what I should be tuning?

PLA, 185 hotend, 65 bed temp, 1.75mm hexagon, Cura, 20 mm/s bottom layer, 80 mm/s other layers, 10 sec minimal layer time, .2mm layer height

Looks to me like you're printing on soft material since the underlying layers aren't cooling fast enough, caused by the combination of a hot print bed, fast print speed, and relatively short layer time. Adding a print cooling fan would be another consideration.

[gmay3]

Hi bkmartin and welcome to the forum!

In addition to what printbus mentioned, it also looks like you are over-extruding which is a common issue and will need to be calibrated each time a new filament is used. Basically the volume of the filament coming out of the nozzle is too much.

Check out this thread (procedures 1 and 2*) to calibrate the extrusion as much as you can.
http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...nd-Proportions

*Note: for this procedure, slic3r is used but the "extrusion multiplier" is likely the same as the "packing density" setting in cura.

[bkmartin]

Thanks printbus and gmay3. Based on printbus' input, I decreased the speed and increased the minimum layer time and got what I consider very good results with just a minor aberration on the corner closest to "home", but only in the bottom 25% of the print. I will take a look at the extrusion calibration as well.

[Schnupp]

Here is an update on my printing problems. I reversed my fan to pull air and printed the fan shroud you guys suggested. Also I noticed that my X-axis was about 5mm higher on the left side than it was on the right. I adjusted them to be equal and my prints have been pretty darn solid ever since. Here's an example:

Thanks for the help everyone

[Schnupp]

Can anyone tell me what caused the dark spot on the owl's chest in my photo? My extruding temp is set at 250. Im assuming that its too high and may lower it a bit

[gmay3]

Can anyone tell me what caused the dark spot on the owl's chest in my photo? My extruding temp is set at 250. Im assuming that its too high and may lower it a bit

Something I would check is to make sure your thermistor in your hotend is very secure. My best guess for this random darker band is an artificial temp reading on your LCD during the the middle of the print while the thermistor popped out of place for a bit and caused the hotend to heat higher than it was commanded to.

I'm guessing you're printing ABS at this temp, which I would consider a little higher than needed. Generally I have followed the RepRap Wiki as far as extruder temperatures and bed temperatures and have had good results. As a data point I have always printed ABS at 225C with a 110C bed. (I think these are from the the 8" i3v defaults from makerfarm)

http://reprap.org/wiki/ABS

[printbus]

Can anyone tell me what caused the dark spot on the owl's chest in my photo? My extruding temp is set at 250. Im assuming that its too high and may lower it a bit

If you're using the hex hot end and stock hot end shroud, another possibility is that the bottom plate of the shroud melted away, and brown-ish drips of the melted shroud have dribbled around the aluminum block and down off the nozzle. Mine dripped off a corner of the aluminum block and not the nozzle when the shroud melted, but flowing onto the nozzle seems like just as plausible. Several of us cut out that bottom plate of the shroud to prevent this from happening.

[AbuMaia]

Another possibility is that section of your filament was slightly discoloured before being run through the extruder.