I’m pretty new to 3d printing, I received this as a gift a couple of days ago and have been trying to get the printer all configured, but I cannot seem to get good quality prints, and support wont help me so I figured i would come to yall. As far as I know the printer is entirely stock, but as I am not the first owner I do not know. Here are some pictures of the print quality Bad print quality - Album on Imgur And here are pictures of my slicer settings Settings - Album on Imgur I am running gizmodorks 2.85mm pla at 190c on the nozzle and 55c on the bed
Taz 4 is going to be a substantial project to get printing well. I don’t recommend it if you are starting out.
Bottom line here - if you actually want to get that printer working, you need to look at existing information about it, as it needs so much done to it that those of us here with the knowledge are unlikely to feel like walking you through the extremely lengthy and involved process of making it a somewhat decent printer. If you want a taz to start with, look on facebook marketplace or eBay for a good, working Taz 6 for under $500, preferably with a modern toolhead. They happen all the time since people are moving on to faster, better printers. Example:
The Taz 4 barely has part cooling, so if you’re using PLA, it’s not going to turn out well.
Knowing everything I do about repair and maintaining these things, if gifted a Taz 4, I’d strip it down for parts. By the time you got it up to 2023 standards of print quality (let alone speed), you’d have easily spent significant money and valuable time on something the manufacturer isn’t supporting anymore.
In short, you need:
New extruder - $375 if you just get something from LulzBot. M175 and H175 are both good. Biqu H2 toolhead and an adapter plate can be done for about $100 after buying the new fans and wiring and is “easy” to add.
Auto bed leveling - $10-50 depending on what unit you do.
Filament sensor - $1-20 depending on simple or smart.
Removeable magnetic bed - $20-100. I’m happy with the fysetc dual-surface one I picked up, since I don’t do high temp often.
Of course, for all these things you’ll need to learn how to rebuild marlin for your system, or adapt to Klipper, so there’s a big time investment if you’re not already familiar with it.
If you’re looking to make learning about 3d printers your hobby, you’re going to have to do a lot of learning on your own, since few people are really using that printer anymore (for reasons). If you manage to build it up
Im not looking to get it up to 2023 standards, i just have really bad blobs in one of my prints and i dont think thats normal
All you’re giving us to go on is it might be stock and is printing bad with some photos.
Toolhead and material used are two of the basic things we need to help out.
Start with the basics of calibrating it and then let us know what further help you need.
Try running the PLA at 210 to 220 see if that helps.
1 Like
I have a 4 that I have upgraded to a lot of 6 parts and other upgrades and wrathernaut is correct on the work involved. The Taz 4 does not like PLA very well. Try upgrading to PETG, it works much better with this older machine.
The TAZ 4 is a fine machine and from the factory they worked great, except as Wrathernaut pointed out, the lack of cooling fan on the toolhead. Not long after the TAZ 4 debuted, Lulzbot came out with a cooling fan and duct kit, which helped a lot. It had one drawback though, it only directed air at the build, and not at the cooling fins of the budaschnozzle. I corrected this and uploaded my redesign to thingiverse, where it still resides as thing number 374906. We ran our TAZ 4 for many years and thousands of hours, and sold a lot of them. We skipped over the TAZ 5 and went straight to the 6 when it came out.
The budaschnozzle is most definitely NOT a fire hazard. You do not need a new extruder, the budaschnozzle works just fine. You do not need auto bed leveling. In fact I prefer the manual leveling using a sheet of paper as a feeler gauge. You don’t need a filament sensor. The original PE tape-on-glass bed that came with the TAZ 4 is a great bed and I prefer it over the PEI that started on the TAZ 5.
Looking at your Slic3r settings, I’d suggest slowing down your speeds some. I’d also suggest calibrating your e-steps. Using a light colored filament, mark where the filament emerges from the toolhead, then command a 100mm extrusion. Mark again and measure. If more than 100mm is extruded, reduce the e-steps, if less then increase. If memory serves, you should start out at around 840 or so.
What about if it has a glass bed because I have a tax workhorse & when I switched to a magnetic bed I had to crimp the wire just a heads up risk if you want to attempt a magnetic bed if your not careful correct me if I am wrong