simplify3d

[jimc]

you can probably increase your retraction speed. that generally want to be as snappy as you can make it. turn on coasting. start with 1mm then slowly go up from there. this stops extruding the plastic "x" distance before the end of a line. this helps reduce pressure. also turn the wipe feature on to the default 5mm.

[printbus]

jimc - I noticed that when I had wipe turned on, I was seeing artifacts on the external perimeter at the wipe distance. I wrote it off as just another spot where the nozzle stopped and turned around, and disabled wiping. I haven't explored how to correct this. Any thoughts? Go for a longer wipe distance? Is it a sign that I might be over-extruding a bit? Or...?

[jimc]

Well wipe drags the nozzle back over the already extruded filament for a certain distance. It can just make the filament look odd. There really shouldnt be anything on the surface you can feel. If the start points are randomized you wont get that. Other than random starts you really cant get rid of that

[printbus]

For the curious, here's a photo showing the wipe artifacts I mentioned earlier. This photo taken with the wipe distance set to 10mm, and the column of dots is at that 10mm distance from the corners. I don't remember seeing any difference between a wipe distance of 5mm vs 10mm. Simplify3D was configured to randomize the layer shift points.

The print is from one of my ripple tests. For the balance of the ripple prints, I just turned off wipe, to be revisited at some later date.

[jimc]

the wipe happens at the start and end of a line. usually s3d starts and ends at a corner somewhere. are your perimeters starting mid line like that? 10mm is a bit overkill. 3-5 usually does it. i dont get anything that looks like that. unless you have a really oozy nozzle and dont have retract or coast on or anything like that.

[printbus]

the wipe happens at the start and end of a line. usually s3d starts and ends at a corner somewhere. are your perimeters starting mid line like that? 10mm is a bit overkill. 3-5 usually does it. i dont get anything that looks like that. unless you have a really oozy nozzle and dont have retract or coast on or anything like that.

OK, good to know you don't see them. As I mentioned, I haven't went back to experiment other than increasing the wipe distance from 5mm to 10mm. The results were the same - I just don't have a photo of the print with wipe set to 5mm.

Retraction and coast both on. Retraction speed at 15mm/sec, about the best I can do reliably. Retraction length would have been 1.6 or 1.8mm. Coast at end for 1.6mm.

There are notches and holes in the test print that effectively carves most of the layers into four segments - one for each corner. As you said, S3D starts a line in a corner. I'm printing external perimeters first. So, the print starts in a corner and forms the outer perimeter shape of the segment. When the nozzle gets back to the starting corner, the nozzle wipes the 5 or 10mm over the starting part of the segment, stops, and moves back to the corner to start on the inner perimeter. The artifacts are occurring at the point where the nozzle stops at the end of the wipe move to move back to the starting corner.

[jimc]

ahhh so its happening at the direction change of the wipe. that says to me your just continuing to ooze during the wipe process and its just releasing at the end of the wipe. a 10mm wipe will take longer so there is more hang time there for the plastic to ooze. if you feel you need the wipe, it really doesnt need much. just a little 2-3mm shot would be fine. i would also consider or do some tests for retraction. you may get less oozing retracting more. the amt you retract is all dependent on your hot end. my e3d is short and sharp so my retract is usually 2mm. some others i have seen in the 3-5mm range for a direct drive. some hot ends are just naturally drooly. old style hot ends without an actual heat break for instance. long hot zone. the plastic itself obviously will have an impact as well. i dont use pla at all which is more liquidy. the wipe imo works really well but its not a fix all either. just something else in your bag'o trix. as with everything 3d printing, what works for one doesnt mean its works for another. lol

[pichuete]

this probably illustrate what printbus is referring . im also having the same artifacts when wipe is enable .
Wipe at 5mm



so i start "playing" a little with some setting to see if i can reduce the ozzing on layer change retraction and i found some things that did improve my prints significantly.

1. Retraction Distance : i increased the the Distance from 1.00mm to 1.30mm .
2. Retracction Speed: i bumped up the speed to 30mm/s

After this too changes i did a Cube test with outside -in Perimeter direction enabled so the Layer change point will be at the outer perimeter this will allow me to see any imperfections or blobs cause by retraction .

i noticed that i still had blobs during layer changes but i little more reduced.

3. Extra Restart Distance. i notice that with this setting the extruder will "delay" the extrusion after a retraction . first i just put a random value of -.50 mm and it was to much . after the retraction the nozzle was traveling almost 10 mm before it started to extrude again .

Decreasing this value to -0.15 did a significantly improvement on my retraction problem .

here's the Results also disabling the Wipe

ABS 3.00 LH @ 235C


Also i have notice some weird slicing process with S3D . for example when i tried to print the same cube but only with 1 Perimeter 2 Bottom Solid infill , And no top infill to do a thin wall calibration the software creates a second perimeter on the inside of the cube and a solid infill around 5 mm from the top . i manage to solve this weird slicing behaviors enabling "Merge all outlines into a single solid Body" under the Advanced Tab .

Now im playing with the Z Movement Speed my preliminary results are that lowering this value a bit (15mm/s) has improve my layers consistency .

[printbus]

Thanks for the insight pichuete.

Where are you changing the Z Movement Speed? The S3D "Other" tab? The MakerFarm value for Z in DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE is 2 mm/sec, so anything S3D asks for over that will be limited to 2 mm/sec instead. My testing led me to believe that's also about the top end for the combination we have of NEMA17s turning M5 rods to lift a fairly heavy x-carriage.

[N5QM]

FYI, if you enable the wipe and coast options, be sure to disable them when printing something in "vase" mode, it should do this automatically, but it doesn't and you end up with some large gaps in your prints.