Solid layers on top of infill are all messed up

[smw6181]

I've been looking around and I see others with similar issues, but I'm not sure they're the same. Whenever I have infill that's lower than about 40% (which is usually) the gaps between the infill seem to be too wide for for anything solid to print over them. I've tried every type of infill, honeycomb, wiggle, etc....same issue with all of them.

I'm attaching my FFF and a picture or two to show what I mean. I'm at a loss on what else to try, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks folks!

[JoeJ]

Probably just need to add more top solid layers.

Read this for more info: https://www.simplify3d.com/support/prin ... top-layers

[smw6181]

Increasing the layers doesn't seem to have any effect. Only recourse I've seen is to bump the infill but I can't see wasting all that plastic and increasing the print times by double or triple for a part (in this case it fits into a car cup holder) that doesn't need to be super strong. There's no other way to fix this than bumping the infill up?

[CompoundCarl]

Increasing the top layers definitely has an affect for me! I don't know how it wouldn't! If increasing the top layers isn't helping, then you're probably under-extruding. Either way, the link above pretty much explains every suggestion I would have. Worth reading. There's plenty of suggestions there.

[smw6181]

Thanks, I've actually already read it and attempted most of the solutions in it. I haven't had any issues with makerware which is why I assumed it was a S3D issue. *shrug* I'll keep tinkering with it, but it's costing me a lot of time and filament. Heh.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Fred B]

If you don't want to increase the infill for the entire part you'll need to run 2 processes.

The first process is most of the part and has the low density infill.
The second process is just the top maybe 5mm of the part and has the dense infill to support the top layers.

You just have to punch in the correct start/stop inputs for each process (advanced tab).

That said, increasing the number of top layers should have helped. You may not have added enough to see a change. I've had some flat parts that needed 5 of more solid top layers in order for the finish to be decent.

[[email protected]]

Not sure if you solved this problem or not and I couldn't get the .fff file to open up. But, it looks like your infill angles are all the same on each layer. Try using, 45,-45,0,90.

[curious aardvark]

Looks like your bridging speed is too low. have you tried increasing the bridging speed multiplier ?
by default it's at 80%

Either that or lower your printing temp so the plastic doesn't slump and do you have any air blowing on the print area to cool the extruded filament ?
All of those will effect bridging.

(looks at makerware profile) As far as i can see makerware doesn't slow down for bridging. So that could be the difference.

That said I've had no issues with ether makerware or s3d. But I do have active cooling.

[billyd]

Also try increasing your overlap percentage.

[maddavo]

I agree with the original poster and the issue is not completely due to number of solid layers.

I have found that when transitioning from a solid layer to an infill layer OR vice versa, that the orientation of the infill does not change. This does not cause too much of a problem when infill goes on top of solid, but when a solid layer is built upon an infill layer, then this is a big problem. It means that only the lines above the infill are at the true layer height as other lines drop into the gap. This gap propagates throughout the solid layers somewhat - although subsequent orientation changes mitigate the effect. So increasing solid layers helps. But essentially there is a 'lost' or 'useless' solid layer in there.

I believe that S3D has a bug here and that the first solid layer above an infill should change orientation with respect to the previous infill layer.