I don’t use PETG (primarily ABS), but I’ll try to fill in some of the answers to your questions:
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You’re on the right track with the dial gauges and feelers. Quantifying the nozzle / bed height takes a lot of the guess work out of leveling the bed. I’d suggest simultaneously using two dial gauges on either side of the toolhead… with just one you’ll be chasing each corner a number of times since adjusting one affects at least the other corner if not all three.
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From my experience, Cura is superior to Slic3r. I struggled through Slic3r before buying Simplify3D for my prior printer. It was night and day. So I continued with S3D exclusively for the TAZ. My honest opinion is that I believe Cura can be tweaked to as good or better than S3D.
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The “firm height the Z is supposed to be off the bed” is 18.5mm for my printer. I’m guessing it will vary depending on the printed X-carrier and printed toolhead variations. Best to find your own, using the feelers… I use a business card which measures .35mm
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Yes, a member has taken some thermal images of the bed in comparison of the glass to aluminum. I think the thread is here:
Fun with Infrared Cameras! - #5 by nopick -
Consensus isn’t out on whether IPA or Acetone is good for the PEI. I use both sparingly, but IPA more so than Acetone… Forum members report that the chemicals don’t affect the PEI, but LB has some posts (could be deprecated) warning against the use.
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Calibration of the extruders can be found here… specifically you’re looking for the step to calculate e-steps:
OHAI: Open Hardware Assembly Instructions
The basic process is to put a mark on the filament, then manaully extrude 10mm, measure how far the mark advanced. If its not amount you requested, use the formula to calculate the proper e-steps. Use the LCD to store the new setting.
As for the jamming…
- Don’t overtighten the idler. The hobbed bolt doesn’t need to dig into the filament. It should leave some marks to indicate that there’s enough pressure from the idler, but they should be superficial and not really deep. Teeth marks can possibly get caught in the transition from extruder, hotend plate and hotend… if things are misaligned.
- Check the recommended extursion temps for the PETG, go a little hot with the hotend to ensure the heat is keeping up with the filament. This introduces other things like ooze which you may need to tweak retraction settings.
- If you’ve had your TAZ for a while, you may want to check the extruder to hotend alignment… over time the screws may loosen and cause a 1-2 mm misaligment which could increase friction in the filament path.
- Also check that the heatsink blower is functioning, make sure its blowing on the heasink. I like to pivot mine .5 - 1mm down so that it hits the heatsink end block(not the heater block). This will ensure the areas of the heatsink are kept cool to best mitigate any heat creep issues.