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[TheBoy]

As said, extrusion/hotend temp might be high, retraction too low or print speed too fast.

[dave the builder]

I think it might be a while before I can print anything ... useful



That's meant to be three perfect little cone shapes - not the blobby mess that it currently is!

sell it on Ebay as a one off, collectible  "Frozen 2" merchandise $£$£   

[aaronjb]

As said, extrusion/hotend temp might be high, retraction too low or print speed too fast.

I've tried lots of combinations of that so far - results remain the same.. temp down to 190C (which is the low end of what it's meant to be printed at, according to the spec sheet with the PLA), retraction up to 12mm, print speeds down to 45mm/s and up to 100mm/s, it all looks pretty much identical, which is weird..

Probably need to put some more time into the basics first really - calibrate the extruder, then calibrate the per-mm settings for everything else, then try again 

But it's printing a Benchy Boat right now, just for shits & giggles so that will be tomorrows job

[STEMO]

I take it the raw material used is cheap enough for you to be pissing around like a small child 😂

[aaronjb]

I take it the raw material used is cheap enough for you to be pissing around like a small child 😂

£20 gets you 300m of the stuff .. so it's fairly inexpensive Cheaper than bar stock and sheet metal, anyway!

[aaronjb]

Boaty looks a bit off .. there's even a little burnt looking blob in there:



That was down at 190C, 45mm/s print speed, 10mm retraction. I think perhaps I'm over extruding and/or the print head is hotter than it reports or the filament is a bit crap..

Any recommendations on filament?

[Steve B]

Now is the time to go join that facebook thing that we all avoid...Join into the closed groups who are all into this 3D printing..

I know its facebook,but there really is some great closed groups for these hobbies.

[TheBoy]

Try with the speed much lower. Just to see.

I personally use Hobbyking PLA, which costs around £6 - £15 per kilo, but be wary of ordering from their Global warehouse, as not only will customs hit you, but their courier, ArseholeForce, will also scam you £15 on top.


I've honestly never printed a Benchy, but just for shits, I might.  I did promise myself I'd fix some of the wear and tear issues on mine this Christmas, and relocate to a better location, but I've not been feeling too great .  My X axis belt is a loose as a dorset girl in a marina, and I have a slight twist on the frame.

[aaronjb]

I think I may have found the primary culprit in the stringing and blobbing - the part cooling fan wasn't running

If I print from the SD card, it runs fine - spins up while the warming cycle begins and continues spinning throughout the print, resulting in much, much less stringing and regular looking parts (still some stringing, but I'd gone back to "default" settings for this test).
If I print the same gcode from OctoPrint, the fan spins up while the warming cycle is going and then the instant the head starts moving .. the fan stops.

Googling around, there's lots of other people reporting the same thing with various causes - some people have had driver boards fail (but then surely it wouldn't run printing from the SD card), others have noted that using auto levelling fixes it (I'm using just manual levelling right now).

Very odd, that the same gcode one way works fine but another (streamed over USB) doesn't, which implies a firmware problem to me. The firmware is open source so technically I could go digging.. but y'know, I just wanted to print some stuff 

[TheBoy]

Firstly, forget Octoprint.  Its a buggy PoS, and adds complexity and unreliability for no benefit*

Get it sorted on the SD card method, then worry about trying to make it annoyingly complex.

Fan speeds are set in the slicer - what are you using?

[TheBoy]

The fan is small, so you wont get driver problems unless you are a complete moron.

Try to look at generic causes of these types of bad print - it was obvious yours was too hot or too fast - rather than specifics for your printer. As a person involved in (proper) IT, you will soon learn that most 3d printer forums are full of idiots


Also, don't adjust stuff in the firmware, adjust it in the slicer instead .  Trust me, it works better, particularly if you change materials.

[aaronjb]

Firstly, forget Octoprint.  Its a buggy PoS, and adds complexity and unreliability for no benefit*

But the internet* says it's great!

Fan speeds are set in the slicer - what are you using?

Cura 4.4.1 at the moment - I have read that slic3r is meant to be "better" but requires a lot more tweaking, Cura has an out-of-the-box profile for the printer so I figured that would be a good place for a n00b to start

I think the remaining stringies on my last test print (190ºC print temp, 60ºC plate temp, 6mm retraction, 45mm/s print speed, 100mm/s travel speed, cooling at 100%) are probably because the cooling fan only blows from one side - the stringies are all from the 'leeward' side, so to speak, as the print head moves down-wind..

Running another couple of little test prints right now, one at 'draft' layer height and one at the finest layer height in Cura's default profiles, slightly slowed down from draft.

All printing from the SD card now, since then the fan actually runs 

[TheBoy]

Cura is pretty good now TBH, its improved massively since v2.

On Thingiverse, are there any fan ducts to improve cooling at the nozzle?

[aaronjb]

On Thingiverse, are there any fan ducts to improve cooling at the nozzle?

Yup .. many! I just joined one of the FB groups like Steve suggested and that's a commonly discussed first 'upgrade'.. granted one person commented that they were printing their upgraded fan duct on their 'other' 3D printer - an SLA printer

I'll have a bash at printing one - the stock cooler fan is incredibly weedy (barely a breeze, I could blow harder ) so there are some ducts that take standard 40mm (24V) axial fans, too.

Ah, upgradeitis

[TheBoy]

You will print a few, trust me

Also, you may find that you may need to print in ABS, as the PLA ones can go a bit soft in the hot air around the extruder.  So plenty of experimentation to be done.


I have printed loads of different ones for my Anet A8, and settled on one that blows from 2 different angles. Its so effective, I have to set the slicer to use max fan speed of about 40%