Simplify3D User Forum

Hey Fellow Makers:

First time poster here - I've had my printer for about a year now and still know nothing and lucky to get a good print. I'm a slow learner.



Anyway I've got a print here but I'm getting some gaps in the floor of the print where the outline meets the floor - they are tiny but recently I'm having problems with watertight prints. This is an Herb Garden which needs to be water tight.

I'm printing 4 top and bottom layers and 4 outline layers. Here is what i've tried moving each value up and down by its self and seeing if it made a difference. At no time did I adjust more than one value.

-extrusion multiplier
-filament width
-nozzle diameter (I found the gaps got smaller the smaller my nozzle dia but never disappeared)
-overlap %

Any ideas how to make these gaps go away?

You could try increasing the outline overlap to 50% or more. That adjusts how much the infill overlaps with the outline, so that's the exact gap it sounds like you are talking about.

Even if you follow Brian's advice to make the gaps smaller, you will still have issues getting a 3D-print completely watertight without any additional treatment. Adding a layer or two of epoxy will do the trick, though.

Strange that nozzle diameter and overlap % didn't already do it. Let us know how it goes after a few adjustments

Before trying to get your software tweaked, may I suggest that you get your bed level first, by just printing a single layer square on all corners will tell you if your printer is absolute in terms of build or may need some mechanical tweaks to get things level, then try another print and see.

I have the prusa mk2s an had built it twice with plenty of tweaks found, then used a 9 point calibration as suggested of one of the members on the prusa forum basically to print 9 squares on each of the print beds furthest point from center, to get a near perfect layer.

Each layer was then measured out with a caliber the max difference found was only on 2 out of 9 squares, with 10microns at the most, which I can live with.

Like mentioned above, getting water tight would be getting all your bed level within 10 microns and even with that may leak, so quick fix would be some sort of water tight spray on liquid or brush on resin.