Praise and a question

[Muggs]

First I LOVE this software. I was a little leery of spending $150.00 for software that I could get for free that "would do the same thing".
Well I tried them all, but ( and I freely admit it might be me), S3D is the one that works, is intuitive and well made. You get what you pay for.

Anyway, a few questions.
I have a TAZ 5 and although I can get really good results from PLA, ABS gives me fits. What temp do you set for ABS 240 (S3D medium default) seems too hot and I get clogging. Any thoughts on how to eliminate the clogging?

On a totally different note; when I manually go to Override Settings > Movement and up the speed from 100% to 120% (for example) does that automatically add more material through the extruder?

Thank,
Muggs

[JoeJ]

In my experience, a hotter temperature allows the plastic to flow easier. So I would usually only get clogs if the temperature was too LOW. Many times, if I was getting clogs, increasing the temperature by 10 degrees would make them go away.

However, if you go too hot and your extruder isn't designed well, the heat can escape the nozzle and start to soften the plastic outside the hotend, near the drive gear. But that's honestly quite rare these days. Most extruders are designed well enough to avoid that with active coolings fans and such.

Your best bet is to try to figure out what's actually causing the clogs. If its debris in the nozzle, no amount of temperature difference is going to help

And yes, using the extrusion override on the Machine Control Panel will extrude more plastic. So if it's 200%, it will extrude twice as much plastic. Once you figure out how much you need, set the override back to 100% and go exit the extrusion multiplier in your process settings so it happens automatically.

[Muggs]

JoeJ,

Thanks. OK so I was printing all day in ABS with relatively good results, but the last two parts failed twice with a clog. The only thing I can come up with is that both have more retracts than the others. could that be a problem? and What should I be looking at changing?

TIA,
Muggs

[JoeJ]

Well again, you have to figure out WHY it clogged. That's going to determine what you need to change. But if you would rather just make some random guesses, then you could try lowering the print speed or reducing the retraction distance. Both of those things will put less stress on the extruder. It may also help to turn up the temperature some.

But again, these are just random guesses

[Muggs]

JoeJ,

Thanks! So I'll try working through the "Clogged Extruder" part of the "Print Quality Troubleshooting Guide" and get back to you.
Are there any other places or guides that you could suggest to help me with this ongoing problem?

Thank you again.