What's going on with my Benchy? :(

I’ve been wrestling around with trying to tune my settings. My original prints came out pretty good. I noticed that once my sample of nGen ran out and I started to use the spools of eSun PLA that i bought that things started to get funky. I used the built in Cura profile, but was getting some issues with the filament not extruding properly. Many of my prints that had fitted pieces would not fit without a ridiculous amount of post print sanding, filing and cutting. Someone had told me that I should look at lowering the temp to about 200 and reducing the extrusion a bit. So, I set the Flow % to about 90. That in combination with the lowered temp made my parts align a lot better, but still not perfect.

I printed out a Benchy model to see how it came out and about 90% of it came out great. There are just a few details that need to be addressed. I have a few spools of Hatchbox PLA on their way, and I hope that it’s maybe the filament that is causing the issues, but I’m not completely sold on that yet. Many of the models I print look good with a few small imperfections. Most of the time it’s a few bumps.

Here’s a pic of the bench I printed on eSUN color changing PLA: https://imgur.com/a/2Sl5n

I basically used the beginner mode set to eSUN PLA and then went into Advanced mode to change the temp and layer height. Settings used:

.2mm layer height
200C nozzle
60C bed
Raft
20% infill
50mm print speed

Hello fbords,

What exactly are you needing to correct? Would it be the overhang? Overall the print looks pretty good, with perhaps some cooling changes so the overhang to set up more rapidly. The filament may be part of the issue, as ESun has very inconsistent filament. I find that Verbatim PLA works extremely well with a lot less issues. If you want to point out any specifics, we may be able to iron them out.

Thanks for the reply David. I can deal with the slightly translucent look on the side of the bow. What troubles me is the extreme bumpiness on the lower part of the front. It only seems to be on the left side, the right side is completely smooth.

Hello again,

The part of the front is the overhang that usually requires a little additional fan to set the filament before it droops. Again, the filament here will be partially to blame and when you get better filament you will see the difference, but you can still adjust the settings to smooth that out.
Try reducing the temperature by 5 degrees and then turning up the fan, so that it comes on at those layers. Then see what the difference looks like. With a little experimenting, you can get better results. I hope that may help.