Print results on M2

ketil · Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:09 am

I've printed a 40mm test cube on my M2 with v1.0.3 and the M2 settings changed to 0.2mm layer height. I have to say that I'm not overly impressed.

On the very first layer, the perimeter was deposited, then the nozzled moved to the start position of the infill, and there was some stringing/ooze on the way. Then when infill was printed, nothing came out for a bit, so the corner on the first layer had no infill. Perhaps there's a retraction issue? I haven't changed those settings.
There's no fan use during print? And I can't see any intelligent fan cooling, it's either on the whole time (including on the first layer), or off.
Two of the corners curled up.
The side corners are untidy and have lots of small holes.
The infill looked untidy as it was being printed.
The top has lots of holes, mostly quite close to the perimeters.

I've been getting better prints with slic3r, to be honest. I'm sure Creator can be tuned to get better prints, and that it will be better in the future, but I was under the impression that I could buy my way out of this tuning now.

After I printed the part, I enabled the cooling fan in the config and sliced again, and when the slicing was done and I loaded the preview, I got the exception:

The following exception was encountered. Please restart the program.
vector::_M_range_check

And then the program died - but I had a print running. That is, my print was fortunately complete, my end.gcode hadn't finished yet. So it turns out that a drawback to one integrated program is that it's hazardous to use it during prints.

ketil · Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:12 am

ketil · Sun Mar 17, 2013 7:10 am

I see that v1.0.4 has been released, but I don't see any information about gcode generation or profile improvements. Is there any reason to think I'll see better prints with 1.0.4?

Sun Mar 17, 2013 8:35 pm

We have a few print quality improvements on the way, but they weren't ready in time for the 1.0.4 release. Most of them will focus around fan cooling improvements.

In the meantime, you might want to give tomlombardi's profile a try (http://forum.simplify3d.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29). He's been able to get some great print quality with a few key changes to the basic M2 profile. And I think he used some of your custom routines too

Looking at your results, I might also suggest increasing your extrusion multiplier by ~10%. Any maybe even raise the temperature a few degrees or back off the fan speed cooling. The fact that your infill extrusions aren't even making it all the way across the part are a clear indicator of this. The G-Code for one of those infill lines is one single straight-line command. If the extrusion isn't making it all the way across it isn't a problem with that specific G-Code, it's a problem with the extruder or temperature settings.

I wish we could give you the magic bullet that solves all of your print quality issues, but there is some big variation depending on what type of filament you are using, your ambient environment (humidity, air flow, temperature), and plenty of other factors. For example, tomlombardi's profile might work great for his setup, but you might need to make a few changes to get the best quality on your specific machine.

Try increasing the extrusion multiplier or temperature and let me know if that helps at all. If anyone else has suggestions, feel free to chime in as well!

tomlombardi · Mon Mar 18, 2013 2:18 am

I've printed a 20X10 calibration cube at .2mm layer and 25% infill in PLA. I had to raise my bed and extruder temperatures to get the first layer to stick. It's surprising how a slight change in temperature is the difference between pushing a ball of PLA around and actually printing a model. Here are two photos and a new M2 profile.

The changes I've made to the profile are as follows:
1st layer extruder temp 190, 2nd 185
1st layer bed temp 65, 2nd 60
Custom gcode on startup reduce to 20mm extruded

Print results on M2

Print results on M2

Re: Print results on M2

Re: Print results on M2

Re: Print results on M2

Re: Print results on M2