Rate my weldi...I mean 3d printing

[Fred Trevvett]

Hello,

Picked up a XYZ Da Vinci 1.0 last night and have been tinkering with it today. I'm not entirely happy with the quality of the prints, and I know you are never going to get as good a surface finish as something that's been moulded, but I hope the collective can offer advice on how to improve things (hopefully without too many conflicting opinions)

Main issues:
Top of print not being closed off properly - amost like the infill 'web' comes through to the surface

Pin not printing well - should be cylindrical

Minor details:
Non round holes - I know they are never going to be perfect, and yes I can print undersize then drill out to size, but is this really as good as they can be?

For context, this part is about 75mm long. I can send the stl file if anyone wants to do some tinkering, or just let me know what settings to tweak and I will reprint however many times it's needed

 

[ajlelectronics]

It looks like over temperature and under extrusion to me. What material and settings did you use?

 

[carbon]

Looks like you need to set the e steps for x y and z and also the extruder. Setting the e steps correctly should make your holes round. Depending on what slicer you have used it’s possible to change the top layers or perimeters to get a better finish on the top as long as e steps for the extruder are correct

 

[Fred Trevvett]

I'm using the xyzware slicer (tbh I don't like it, would rather use cura but when I load up the part in cura it doesn't find the printer (connected via USB)

All settings are stock:
Quality: good
Infill: 10% rectilinear
Shells: normal
Layer height: 0.3
Speed: standard
Optimise large object print quality: unticked

That's all the settings there are in xyzware. Pretty naff piece of software if you ask me. If anyone knows how to get cura to talk to a USB printer reliably I'd love to hear from them

 

[carbon]

I’m not familiar with that printer but would have thought e steps should be set in the printer itself

 

[ukracer]

Hello,

Picked up a XYZ Da Vinci 1.0 last night and have been tinkering with it today. I'm not entirely happy with the quality of the prints, and I know you are never going to get as good a surface finish as something that's been moulded, but I hope the collective can offer advice on how to improve things (hopefully without too many conflicting opinions)

Main issues:
Top of print not being closed off properly - amost like the infill 'web' comes through to the surface
View attachment 327742
Pin not printing well - should be cylindrical
View attachment 327741
Minor details:
Non round holes - I know they are never going to be perfect, and yes I can print undersize then drill out to size, but is this really as good as they can be?
View attachment 327743
For context, this part is about 75mm long. I can send the stl file if anyone wants to do some tinkering, or just let me know what settings to tweak and I will reprint however many times it's needed

I will print it. I have just got of the phone to the hospital Trust chief exec and need to get out of the way to calm.down.

Just post STL in here.

 

[ukracer]

I'm using the xyzware slicer (tbh I don't like it, would rather use cura but when I load up the part in cura it doesn't find the printer (connected via USB)

All settings are stock:
Quality: good
Infill: 10% rectilinear
Shells: normal
Layer height: 0.3
Speed: standard
Optimise large object print quality: unticked

That's all the settings there are in xyzware. Pretty naff piece of software if you ask me. If anyone knows how to get cura to talk to a USB printer reliably I'd love to hear from them

You have to tell it what printer you have in cura.

 

[Screwdriver]

What settings are you using?

 

[ajlelectronics]

10% infill is too little, go for 20% as a test. Set layer height to 50% of your nozzle size. We still don't know what material it is, your nozzle temperature, cooling fan setting nor your bed temperature. The distorted pin is often an excessive temperature symptom.

 

[Fred Trevvett]

I’m not familiar with that printer but would have thought e steps should be set in the printer itself

I'll have another look but couldn't see anything obvious in there

I will print it. I have just got of the phone to the hospital Trust chief exec and need to get out of the way to calm.down.

Just post STL in here.

Thanks - by the way I meant find what settings work well, then let me know what to try, not print the thing for me!

You have to tell it what printer you have in cura.

Done

10% infill is too little, go for 20% as a test. Set layer height to 50% of your nozzle size. We still don't know what material it is, your nozzle temperature, cooling fan setting nor your bed temperature. The distorted pin is often an excessive temperature symptom.

Ok will try tomorrow. Out of filament now

 

[ukracer]

Thanks - by the way I meant find what settings work well, then let me know what to try, not print the thing for me.

I will need to print it to test the STL with my settings.

 

[Screwdriver]

Most likely a setting. As has been said, too hot and under extruded. Could be running too high a print speed but really, for such a catastrophic problem, it could be anything but that "thing" is probably a setting.

 

[Fred Trevvett]

I will need to print it to test the STL with my settings.

Yes sorry I realise that, my sentence didn't read very well in hindsight
I'll attach it tomorrow when I'm on my laptop
Cheers all for the suggestions, I'll do some more fiddling tomorrow when I have more filament

 

[Screwdriver]

Nozzle temp and/or poor filament are the likely culprits. 0.3 is a chunky layer height. 0.2 much better. Higher layer height means more filament needed and if your nozzle can't keep up with the requirements or the extruder can't push enough filament through, you get Mr. Blobby.

This is not a subtle issue, there is something way off here. No machine should print like that.

 

[PhillipM]

Overheating and overextruding. Mainly the overheating.

outline overlap is too low or you have some slack in your belts or motion system somewhere too.

 

[Fred Trevvett]

Nozzle temp and/or poor filament are the likely culprits. 0.3 is a chunky layer height. 0.2 much better. Higher layer height means more filament needed and if your nozzle can't keep up with the requirements or the extruder can't push enough filament through, you get Mr. Blobby.

Ok, will try again with 0.2mm

This is not a subtle issue, there is something way off here. No machine should print like that.

Very good - I was hoping that would be the case. I've never used a 3d printer before so wasn't sure what to expect

Overheating and overextruding. Mainly the overheating.

outline overlap is too low or you have some slack in your belts or motion system somewhere too.

One of the two Y axis belts was a bit slack so I've tightened it. Didn't feel like enough to make a difference but I know nothing

What nozzle temp would you use? It was at 210 so shall I knock it back to 200? 190? I don't know how much of a difference 10deg makes

STL on its way when I get my laptop turned on...

 

[Fred Trevvett]

here you go

 

[Dr.Al]

Have you tried printing some simpler (quicker) things to see how they look? For example a small cuboid or something like that.

 

[Fred Trevvett]

No but I will do when the filament arrives later today

 

[ajlelectronics]

You have still not told us what your material is ( I assume PLA?) and what your bed temperature is set to.