Quality on Mini 1 with SL .25 toolhead

I’ve fitted a Mini 1 (1.03 I think) with the new Aerostruder Micro SL toolhead.

I’m playing around with settings, but using the default settings dialed into CURA already, I was unable to print until adjusting Z height to -1.36 (from -1.25 which is how I got the printer)

Using the default standard .2mm setting, I get prints that look approximately as good as using the highest setting on the original toolhead. Using .1mm, it’s a it inconclusive still, but I think I get better detail/results. I printed a 3D Benchy at 50% scale and it looks overall pretty good, except the first layers are very rough. I did use a raft to protect the small model from heat from the bed.

At .05mm, nothing works right. Using the default settings, plus a raft, I’ve only gotten one Benchy to complete, and the lasers all look really rough or maybe under-extruded.

My first and main question is - should I even expect .05mm to work on a Mini 1?




.2mm

What material are you using? Also, avoid using a raft—minimize your variables by just printing directly on the PEI print surface.

The poorer of the two .05 benchy figures was without a raft, as was the normal sized .2mm benchy. All were printed with the sample filament included with the tool head.

I don’t have any more lulzbot green polymaker filament now. I do have some translucent polymaker pla I could try - I’m not sure how different that is versus the opaque polymaker PLA.

I’ve been doing additional prints with Verbatim PLA, gizmodorks PLA and FillaCube PLA2. I’m still using the base polymaker profile as it looks like the combo of the Mini 1 with the SL toolhead there are only a small number of predefined material profiles available in CURA.

I use the SL .25 on a 1.04 Mini - sometimes print .05mm layer height…usually stop at .1 for miniatures.

A Myconid Rotguard from Thingiverse - the tiny one was printed at .05.

Here’s the final outcome:
It turned out the factory had put a .5mm nozzle on the .25 toolhead by mistake. I didn’t know that at the time since it never occurred to me.
They shipped my printer/toolhead back with the .25 nozzle and I tested it last night, and it now seems to be printing just fine at .05 layer heights.
I can only speculate that at .2 layer heights it didn’t matter significantly that it was printing though the wrong size nozzle, which is why the preset “standard” resolution seems to work fine, but not the finer ones.


Here’s the same 50% scale benchy printed at 50 micron layer height that failed many times before using PolyLite PLA. The photo makes it looks far uglier than it is (maybe an issue with the camera capturing the translucency)

We’re glad you’re up and running, sorry you encountered that. Thank you for working with us!