I just received my TAZ 6 last Friday and it is amazing! I have some questions about filaments that are not from Lulzbot.
Everything is printing fine with the nGen they provided me with, but when I used a PLA filament from Filaments.ca I was unable to get decent results. I did 2 prints with different settings and both had pretty much the same problems, some layers are oozing a bit and the pieces break at 2-3 mm (25 microns layers) when I take them off.
My first try was with Cura’s recommendation for PLA which are 205C and 60C for hot end and bed respectively. Second one was 225C and 70C. Note that for my second print, it started at 230C and 85C for some reasons, the temperatures I had put in the Advanced interface didn’t go through because it was still using the Lulzbot nGen Quick print settings. I had to override those temp in the control board mid-print. I think that may be why my second print broke there.
I’m no expert with PLA, I never use it, but it looks to me like it’s far too hot. 225 seems excessive. Try drop it down to 180/190 and see if that works. Also do you have the fan on?
I’ll run some prints with different temperatures to try to find the sweet spot. I think my fans were on yes, but I’ll make sure they are when I do the testing. Thanks for your input!
Edit: I made sure the fans were on, there was a weird problem. Min and Max fan speed were 80% and 100%, but the LCD screen is showing 57% for some reason… Also do you guys know at what height I should enable the fans?
Hello, I have tested a lots of filament from there and it’s really good quality (better that esun filament sell by lulzbot, in my opinion).
I setup the bed @ 60°, the nozzle between 205° and 225°, depending of the colour. I don’t know why but usually darker colors require a little bit heat.
Is your bed clean ? If you printed other materials, such as ABS, PLA sometimes doesn’t stick. Clean your bed with isopropyl alcohol if it’s the case.
You shouldn’t have trouble with filaments.ca filaments, I tried PLA, ABS, PETG, Flexible TPE,… without issue !
Not sure where you live in Canada, but I get my PLA from Sayal. They sell the MG Chemicals branded stuff. Very happy with it. I print at 205c and always get good prints (black, orange, purple). They have lots of stores in GTA…
It still didn’t print the other piece with good quality on the bottom edges tho (pieces are upside down on the pictures) so that’s why I kept going with other temps. I think, considering quality and strenght of the temp tester at 205C that this is the right temp settings, but i’m lost for the rest.
It looks like you’re printing it with the little part on the bed, it’s facing up in the photo. If that’s the case, it is due to the overhang as you print. You either need to put a different face on the bed, I would use one of the large flat faces, or use supports, though supports cause their own quality issues.
I’ve printed with eSUN PLA+ and Hatchbox PLA using the standard Cura profiles without issue. Though I do find that most filaments are 3mm and not 2.85mm and that is almost a default to change the filament diameter.
At 205-degrees I’m getting good results. I had to print some MakerGeeks “dishwasher safe” filament at 230-deg recently but that’s what they say to print it at.
You can also try this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:915435
If you have Simplify3D (expensive, but a lot of control, even mid-print) you can have it change the temp for you as the print increases in height.
I wasn’t sure about that since the file was like this when I downloaded it from Thingiverse. I tried with supports but it was impossible to remove in the center and the quality of the bottom layer wasn’t good (I could sand it tho)
I’ve done some more testing (I’ll post pictures later today). I tried printing parts with very few overhangs, with or without support. My conclusion is that it is not the temperature, even when it is barely overhanging I get this oozing or whatever it is… I’m getting more lost after every print. I’m starting to think that my printer may not be well calibrated.
I just don’t get it I never had those problems with the UP! printer (Which I’m starting to think I should’ve bought instead) I hate the fact that my prints were better with a 800$ printer than a 2500$ one…In fact, I’m kind of pissed at the moment. I mean, not only the support don’t help, but they’re also such a pain to remove and it even wreck the surface every single time. I remember how it used to just peel off when I was using the UP! last year.
Cool thank you very much. You can try with the new pieces I was trying out yesterday. It is the Raptor Reloaded Hand’s fingertip.
Print it at 1.0 scale and it takes about 15-20mins with 3g of filament only. Use the model as it is, I want to see if you could have the “nail” part of the finger with good quality, that’s pretty much were it is too “overhanging” for me.
Left=196C, Right=205C both at 60C for bed. Retraction= 2mm, up from 1. Retract speed=15mm/s, up from 10.
I don’t know what causes these bumps at the tip of the finger.
Another test: 190C and 60C. Dropped printing speed from 50 to 40mm/s. 97% flow. Still get this weird bump and on the fingertip and oozing in the top right of the hole in the second picture. http://imgur.com/a/vG7CD
Last one: 205C and 60C. Went back to original PLA (Village Plastic) settings, but with 103% flow this time. Was worse lol http://imgur.com/8trkS7f
Edit: It really looks like the quality remains the same between 190C and 205C. I’m playing around with the flow as you can see, but i’m running out of ideas Also, I watched the first layers and at 190C it looked so clean, but at 205C I noticed that some cold plastic/stringing was in the way, it didnt seem to affect the quality since it got “swallowed” as the printer was adding layers. Do you think its because 205C is too hot?
For what it’s worth, I am using black PLA from filaments.ca without issue here in Montreal.
I am printing at 205 and 60 at the bed temperature.
I will try to print your model tomorrow and see how I do. My one comment, which helped me after reading what others suggested, was to really measure the thickness of the PLA with calipers and adjust for it.
The other thing that helped my prints was diminishing the extrusion percentage and seeing the impact. I now typically print at 90% to 95%.
I tried 103% flow and it was the worst quality print. 205C and 60C also seemed to be the best temp for me too, even tho 190 to 205 seemed pretty close. I tried 95% flow without much success, but I’ll definately try 90% tomorrow!
First, it looks like you are trying to print with a thin part on the bed, leaving a big overhang. Why not print that with the large face on the bed? I think PLA is supposed to struggle with overhangs isn’t it?
Second, the reason it is going so wrong at the top is because those top few layers are so small, the plastic doesn’t have enough time to cool before the next layer is dumped on top. There are a few ways of working around that, either by changing your slicer settings, printing the model in a different orientation, or by printing either numerous copies or numerous parts that will reach the same Z height.
Third, slow it all down. Try it at 25 or 30 mm/s, maybe even slower. The reason being even if R doesn’t improve the quality, going slower helps you to see where things are going wrong. Also try increase the fill ratio to 40% or 50%. If you’re using the standard 20% infill I find I doesn’t have enough meat in it for some stuff.
OK so I printed it with the default PLA settings in Cura using Hatchbox PLA which I’ve generally had decent results with. As you can see below (one on the left) it didn’t turn out too well. I tried a few tweaks that resulted in a decent 3DBenchy print, but as you can see on the right print it didn’t really help much with this item. Interesting. I may try loading up some HIPS which has yet to really fail me (except during experimentation of temps, etc).
Thank you Idiot! (Your name makes it sound funny lol)
I’m using Lulzbot’s Cura.
I don’t know which settings exactly made it work, but I slowed it down to 25 mm/s, slowing down every other speed accordingly (shells speed, infill speed etc.) I used 205C and 60C. Went from 20% to 30% infill. Went down from 30% to 15% infill for support, that made that popped out SO easily and the finish is pretty good, but could use a bit of sanding.
Thank you so much for all your inputs, will try ABS soon, so I will probably post again
I’ starting my first Raptor Hand Reloaded from E-Nable, all thanks to you guys.
Also, I watched the first layers and at 190C it looked so clean, but at 205C I noticed that some cold plastic/stringing was in the way, it didnt seem to affect the quality since it got “swallowed” as the printer was adding layers. Do you think its because 205C is too hot?
