Spiral clock spring printing issue

I’m having some weird issues trying to print a tourbillon mechanismhttps://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2751917 .

Everything is printing fine except the spring. It’s supposed to printing at 20mm/s, but It’s doing weird things.



It’s not printing the skirt very well then it prints the central hub like I would expect but then it takes off at warp speed to print the spiral and it’s barely extruding.

I’m assuming it has to do with the line segments of the spiral being really short and close together but I’m not sure where to focus changing settings though. Slowing print/wall speed does not have any effect. Is it an acceleration issue? Something specific to Cura? Obviously people are able to print them.

Thanks, for any help.

Have you tried bumping the temperature up during print? I do this sometimes, especilly with older PLA that’s been sitting around for while. Are you using any adhesive on the bed?

I would not print this with a skirt or a brim. Using stick glue will be tricky, but will probably work if you have a spatula to lift the spring off the table. I should note that I have a TAZ6 with a glass table and have never had any problems like what you describe, except with adhesion (not using glue for certain types of filament) and old filament, which just seems to have a harder time sticking to the table! I am repeating myself now so will stop.

Does your local public library give away any 3D print services? If so, you could try their printer for this small job. I’ve been known to use my public library’s 3D printer for a second opinion, so to speak. :slight_smile:

I did get it to print finally. I found the maximum resolution setting under the experimental category and bumped it up from 0.01 to like 0.2 or something (I don’t remember at this point) and it worked. It’s definitely an extrusion issue and not an adhesion issue.

I haven’t been able to find any definitive answers on how cura handles really short polygons. I didn’t measure but I’m guessing they’re not much longer than the nozzle width. My thinking is the move between each point is so short that the extrusion amount is so fractional that it gets zeroed out and no extrusion happens because it’s extruding fine at the beginning and end of the spiral. I think this also plays into why it moves so fast on the spiral also. It seems like it begins the acceleration but the look ahead for the next point is so quick that it begins the acceleration for the next and the next and the next points before it begins to decelerate from the first move. Once I turned the max resolution down it printed the spiral portion just like any other curved part.

That’s a good tip on checking with the library too.