niklaswik
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:21 pm

Not filling to outer perimeter around holes

See picture below. (Sorry about the quality but the issue is still visible.)
holes1.jpg
The part is 6 mm and the hole is Ø3 mm which means there is 1.5 mm on each side of the hole that should be filled. Seems like it shouldn't be a problem but apparently it is. Extrusion width is 0.5 mm.

I'm guessing there should be a simple way to solve this issue but I haven't found it.

This part is not the first one I've had the same issue with. Holes being printed "stupidly", leaving gaps. Come to think of it, I have a photo of a different part with much bigger holes showing the same problem towards the part perimeter. See picture:
holes2.jpg
CompoundCarl
Posts: 2005
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:23 am

Re: Not filling to outer perimeter around holes

It looks like you need to increase your "outline overlap" setting on the Infill tab. That will decrease the gaps between the infill and your outlines. For example, if it's currently at 10%, increase it to 30% or something like that.
niklaswik
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:21 pm

Re: Not filling to outer perimeter around holes

It's not really the infills though, it's the top (and bottom) layers. So I think more infill overlap wouldn't help. Also, it's already at 25% if I recall correctly (currently at work so can't check).

But thanks for trying to help!
CompoundCarl
Posts: 2005
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:23 am

Re: Not filling to outer perimeter around holes

That setting DOES affect the top and bottom solid layers. Trust me. Increasing it to 40% will most definitely improve the tiny gaps you have there.
niklaswik
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:21 pm

Re: Not filling to outer perimeter around holes

I'll give it a try tonight. :)
niklaswik
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:21 pm

Re: Not filling to outer perimeter around holes

I've made a little experiment and can confirm your tip about increasing the overlap. However, this seems like a stupid workaround for a problem based in poor "pathfinding" in the software.

Below are screenshots of the printing preview using different values for infill overlap, from 10% up to 90%. Setting it to 90% as opposed to 10% requires about 11.5 meters of filament for this print instead of 10.5, so that's about 10% extra material, for filling in a few really tiny gaps. 50% probably is enough but still seems like a waste to me.

With Mattercontrol (Matterslicer) this same object is printed without the gaps using only 12% infill overlap.
10% overlap
10% overlap
50% overlap
50% overlap
90% overlap
90% overlap
Fred B
Posts: 30
Joined: Thu Jan 22, 2015 7:07 pm

Re: Not filling to outer perimeter around holes

Adding overlap is one of the last things that I change when I have this problem.

What you want is to force the thickness of the wall to be a multiple of the extrusion width. Assuming you have a 0.4mm tip try reducing the extrusion width slightly until the issue goes away. I've also had luck increasing the width in some cases. This will not increase the amount of filament used for the print.

Increased overlap basically forces over extrusion at the ends of the tool paths. A small amount won't matter but a large change will have that over extruded look especially for smaller parts.
niklaswik
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:21 pm

Re: Not filling to outer perimeter around holes

Thanks! I'll try playing around with the extrusion width a little bit. Just read a thread here on the forum about it, very informative.
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jimc
Posts: 1124
Joined: Wed Aug 28, 2013 11:02 pm
Location: mullica, nj
Contact: Website

Re: Not filling to outer perimeter around holes

i agree, as you can see if you have a 1.5mm space, the hole and outer perimeter wall account for 1mm of it. you can see that the second perimeter will add 2mm which wont fit. you need to either set your perimeters to 1 wall OR lower your extrusion width down narrow enough for 4 extrusions to fit your 1.5mm space. you shouldnt lower the width lower than your nozzle dia so if you still cant get it with that then you can start bumping up the overlap.
niklaswik
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:21 pm

Re: Not filling to outer perimeter around holes

I'm bumping this as I have not printed much since this previous post, but today I'm doing a print with lots of holes and some of them (not all, strangely enough) have this issue even though they are not near the outer perimeter (or other holes) at all. See sample below. As you can see the individual "stripes" are not even really touching in some places...

Settings used are: extrusion width 0.5 mm (physical nozzle width = 0.5 mm), infill overlap 50%.
gaps.jpg
It seems to get a lot worse as the nozzle moves toward the limits of the print bed (the leftmost white line is basically the end of the printable area) which I guess is not really surprising as I understand most printers behave that way, but I would still like to get some hints as to what can be done (if anything) setting-wise to make it a little bit better. I'm hoping the following layers will fill these gaps somewhat but I doubt it will turn out very good.

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