FF Creator Pro and Extrusion Multiplier

[CRNorris]

Hi,

I've just started using Simplify3D with my Flashforge Creator Pro, which I've always had trouble with in terms of extrusion volume.

Someone on the Flashforge site recommended I calibrate the volume, which in Simplify3D can be done by repeatedly printing calibration cubes with 100% infill and tweaking the Extrusion Multiplier until it prints with no bulging or gaps.

I've been doing that today. Firstly my prints are already a lot better with Simplify3D than they were with Makerbot Desktop, and changing the Extrusion Multiplier was useful.

For the first cube, I left the multiplier at 1.0 and set the filament diameter to 1.73 having measured it with calipers.

That first cube bulged out at the top a bit so I turned the multiplier down to 0.9, which fixed that.

So I kept going... I'm now printing one with the multiplier at 0.6 and it still looks good. But isn't that weirdly low? I can imagine I'll get to 0.4 before I see any gaps.

So my question is: is it normal to have the multiplier set so low or is there something else wrong here?

Thanks

[JoeJ]

Well make sure you are looking at more than just the first layer. Many times the fill of the first layer is HIGHLY influenced by your bed leveling and zero position. I will frequently print a 20mm cube with 100% infill. Then I don't even bother looking at the results until layer 10 or so. This way the effect of the first layer has had time to spread out.

I generally start to see gaps on the FF machines around 0.8 extrusion multiplier

[stepman91]

Bonjour,

Hello I am Exactly at the same point than you, Start using the simplify3D and I have same printer since one month.

But I did you the ReplicatorG software firstly and result was good with sailfish 7.7.


But now I'm not so good to setup the Simplify.... and the heating part is no more in same time but sequencialy do you have this behavior ?

[dennisjm]

I'm looking into an issue just like this on a different printer, not sailfish based. I can print quite good prints at .65 multiplier. I haven't tracked down yet why it's so far off.

[CRNorris]

Right, looks like this is my fault. I wasn't looking for the right thing.

I guess I expected it to fail catastrophically if the infill was set too low, but actually on closer inspection I can see very fine holes in the prints below 0.8, it's like an extremely fine mesh. Also after the cubes cooled a bit more, the outer walls started to separate from the infill a bit in places.

I've ended up using 0.85. That seems less extreme but it would be useful to know if that's still indicative of another problem.

[kelvinr]

I have been having similar issues with Flashforge Creator Pro and the Extrusion Multiplier.

Before, I was using Makerware and was finding that my right extruder need to have a huge multiplier of 1.3. The left was good with 1.0. Same filament. I checked and checked that all other parameters were the same. never got to the bottom of it but now started using Simplify 3D.

Same filament and the right extruder is now producing fairly good results with a multiplier of 1.0 but looked to be slightly under extruding. Reducing the multiplier (effectively telling the software that the filament is smaller) makes it push more filament through, and now down to .85 is producing very good results.

The strange thing is that it's the opposite direction that I had to go when using Makerware but I guess there must have been something else wrong there.

[dennisjm]

The strange thing is that it's the opposite direction that I had to go when using Makerware but I guess there must have been something else wrong there.

In makerware the multiplier is inversed from S3D.

S3D multiplier =direct multiplier on the extrusion amount, so .9 means 90% of the filament is extruded
Makerware multiplier=a statement of what happens to the filament when it passes through the extruder naturally. So if it's .9 then the software will compensate by using more filament.