Taz 5 Cura Profile Settings

I just recently got a used Taz 5 3D printer and I’m having some difficulty getting a proper profile going. I’m severely under-extruding (asked it to extrude 100mm and it only did around 20mm) and it seems like it’s because I don’t have a proper printer profile set up. I tried downloading the ones from the LulzBot Taz 5 support page, but they’re no longer supported with the newer Cura LE versions, and it gives me a “Reported version 1 but expected version 2” error when trying to import those files.

Does anyone have a profile I could copy to use for the following configuration? Right now I don’t mind if it’s high speed or high quality, as long as it prints and gives me a baseline to tweak the settings myself.

Cura LE v3.6.20
Taz 5 firmware v1.1.9.34
Standard single extruder head .5mm
Using 2.85mm PLA eSUN filament

Thank you for any help you can give!

Getting just 1/5th of the filament to feed sounds like something is drastically wrong (not just E-Steps) but I suppose it could be. Check the Cura “preferences” -> “printers” -> (pick your printer) -> "machine settings. Make sure it knows the correct machine type. Also switch to the hot-end tab and make sure it knows the correct filament diameter and nozzle size for that hot-end.

Inspect the “hobb” gear (the feed gear) and make sure there isn’t filament jammed into the teeth. That’ll cause the filament to slip. It’s cold/dry filament so I find a can of compressed air will blow the teeth completely clean – really easy to fix.

Also check the tension on your idler arm. You want that to be not too loose… but also not too tight. Too loose can slip. Too tight will tear up the filament more than you want (and when printing a part with frequent retractions that can result in a jam.)

The printer can have it’s “E-Steps” calibrated. E-Steps (Extruder Steps) is the number of “steps” or pulses sent to the extruder motor to advance the filament by 1mm (this is the cold unmelted filament feeding in … not the stuff being extruded out).

Factor defaults are usually “close” but not perfect. E.g. on my printers, the factory default for E-steps is 420 (420 steps to advance 1mm of filament). But when I do the calibration on both my printers, it slightly over-extrudes (about 2-3%) so I had to adjust mine down slightly.

The process is documented here:

https://ohai.lulzbot.com/project/fine-tune-mini-extruder/calibration/

You’ll notice those instructions happen to be using the LulzBot Mini … but the process is the same for all printers.

The thing to keep in mind is that when you do this, the printer should be running at whatever temperature you normally use to print your filament and make sure you are happy with the tension on your print head (changing the tension can slightly change the calibration results).

You might want to bookmark the ohai.lulzbot.com website. It’s packed with lots of useful information (e.g. completely assembly instructions for every part of your printer is there.)

As for filament profiles, eSun PLA (specifically eSun brand) isn’t in the Cura database at all anymore (I’m on 3.6.21). When I check the Cura resources directory for filaments, it lists all the PLA varieties (regardless of machine or extrusion head) … it’s not there.

But you should be able to pick any other PLA and that should be pretty close. I’ve found that even the LulzBot provided profiles for materials in the database still need some tweaking. When I use a new brand, I sometimes run a temperature tower and/or retraction tower to test & tweak as needed.

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