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When you slice an STL of a heat tower, you need to tell the slicer that you need a different temperature at a certain level and maintain that new temperature until another change is requested.
The way I usually do it is by using a post processing script in Ulltimaker Cura, but you can do it yourself quite easily by changing the G-code file manually.
To get ...
16
As Tom pointed out, binary search is the best way. In case that term isn't familiar to all readers, here's a little more detail:
Establish an acceleration value that you're sure is too low (call it $L$), and one that you're sure is too high ($H$). It sounds like you know such values already from experience.
Figure out the speed in the middle: $(L+H)/2$. ...
14
(source: all3dp.com)
Your printer is skipping steps in the y-direction. This can have several causes. Take a look into Shifted layer guide on RapRap.org which lists 29 possible problems that can cause this issue and how to fix them.
First items of the list:
Driver current is too low
Driver current is too high
Belt too Loose
Belt too Tight
Loose Set Screw/...
12
Basic process
To calibrate the extruder you would need to verify that the
requested amount of filament is actually what is being moved by the extruder.
Structural or temporary problem
A first thing to check when under or over-extrusion is encountered for a fresh spool of filament on a normally good working printer is to check the diameter of the filament ...
11
In my experience, the most common reason for positional offset during printing, is the motor skipping steps due to physical impact.
Your stepper motors do not give positional feedback to your printer. So, if you forcefully move your motor during print, then the printer will not notice, and simply pretend it never happened.
In particular, the motor could ...
11
When centered in the slicer correctly, without offsets defined in the slicer, the printer is most probably incorrectly configured! Luckily you can do something about that! Basically, you will have to calibrate the printer for a new center.
Printer origin?
First of all, the firmware determines where your origin of the printer is. This implies that you need to ...
10
The short answer is, you use the temps and speeds that give you good results. It's trial and error.
The temperature number your printer reports really doesn't matter. That's just a process control variable: it needs to be consistent and repeatable, but it doesn't need to be accurate against an independent reference. What you should care about is your print ...
9
In Cura (and Slic3r), you can 100% customize what the printer does before printing your actual model through custom start/end g-code.
If you navigate to the Start/End-GCode tab in Cura, then select start.gcode, you can see what operations are run before each print begins. Lines prefixed with ; are comments, and does not affect the printing in any way.
...
7
I have a dual extruder Replicator 1 and having the nozzles at the same height is a must and albeit a bit of a struggle otherwise. At one point, I had to disassemble my extruder head and the nozzles didn't line up quite right. There after, printing with the lower one obviously didn't have any troubles, however, printing with the high extruder made it so the ...
7
It looks like your first layer is way too close to the bed. The printer is trying to squash the plastic down very thinly, resulting in inconsistent extrusion. You will likely see better results if you move the nozzle away from the bed a little bit. Increasing the thickness of the first layer might help as well (this is a setting in your slicer).
Keep in ...
7
Z-offset persitently stored in memory?
Maybe the value of -2.97 for the Z_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER is retained in the EEPROM memory when you upload new firmware.
You could try to send the G-code M502 to the machine to re-load the values from the firmware overwriting currently stored values.
Alternative Z-offset using G-code commands
Note that there is a ...
6
A tool that you might find useful for experimenting with acceleration is RepRap Centrals Acceleration Calculator (at the bottom).
By setting an acceleration, length of travel and target speed, you can see:
The theoretical speed that can be achieved during the travel with your set acceleration (yellow line).
The distance required to reach your target speed, ...
6
The current to your motor driver could be set either too high or too low. If it's set too low then the torque might not be sufficient and the motor will skip steps. If it's set too high then the driver might overheat and occasionally shut down to protect itself.
Another option is that the printing speeds (or jerk/acceleration settings) are too high. I would ...
6
A .hex file is of no use to you, because it consists of compiled firmware which is very difficult to edit. You need to go to Prusa's GitHub and download the source code. Then, find the header file for your model of printer, and change Z_max_pos to the correct value. Finally, you need to compile and upload the firmware to your printer following the build ...
6
You are probably looking for something like this:
Note this is for large beds (300 x 300 mm), so you would have to X, Y scale this in your slicer.
This is a simple part that is very easily generated with OpenSCAD 3D design software (very good modeller if you are familiar with software coding), but could easily been designed in any other tool.
Another ...
6
Divide the amount overextruded by the desired amount. If you wanted 100mm but got 101mm, that's 1mm extra, or 1% over. Use an extrusion multiplier of 0.99 (1% under) to compensate - AND THEN DO ANOTHER TEST to confirm.
This modifier will be used by Slic3r to generate E values in your gcode without flashing anything.
I recommend saving this recipe with an ...
6
Filament type should have nothing to do with the issues you are facing. This is a mechanical issue or a slicing/scaling issue. The hotend should, if instructed to go to 20 mm height actually go to 20 mm (it did do that before!), it cannot "lose" 2 mm on the way up unless you have a lot of lost steps (e.g. too much load on the carriage pressing it down, but ...
6
Your calibration shape depends on what you want to calibrate on. Among the most popular:
Benchy as a general "overall" test.
Lattice Cubes for retraction/stringing and overall quality.
Two pillars to test for stringing and temperature/cooling control.
Spikes for retraction, stringing and temperature/cooling control.
Bridges for cooling control.
Cubes for ...
6
First things first:
Don't Panic
Your heated bed is made from metal with some sort of Build-Tak-Clone surface. It is not broken from what I can see. Your print is not failed, however, the quality does suffer a little bit.
Your bed does warp a little under heating. That is perfectly normal, and you should actually calibrate your layer thickness against a hot ...
6
Consider that the extruder is skipping because it is unable to push filament at the rate you are requesting. By reducing the steps to ninety percent, you are reducing the rate by that much as well.
Typically, a skipping extruder is an indication of clogging, but it does not have to be clogging caused by particulates jamming the nozzle. At higher rates of ...
5
The reason holes come out undersized is generally the slicer, so calibrating the printer itself cannot solve the issue (without making other things worse). The output of the printer is exactly what it should be, given the G-code provided to it. It's just that the G-code does not represent the hole diameter correctly.
It would be best to simply account for ...
5
All modern slicers adjust the nozzle position for the first layer in accordance with your chosen layer height. You can see this in your gcode if you slice files with different layer heights. Before you add special slicer settings and offsets, if you print 0.1mm layers, the nozzle will start at Z=0.1mm, and if you print 0.3mm layers, the nozzle will start at ...
5
After some more testing I checked that the problem shows up only on Z tower and is not related with current. Examining the tower I found very dumb mistake. Pulley on the motor didn't have a setscrew! Don't know how could I missed that. The fact that it could somehow run is even more amazing. Thanks @tom-van-der-zanden and @darthpixel for help. It is for sure ...
5
Oscar's answer is the correct solution to this issue. My printer was printing skewed and there is a built in correction for this in Marlin. Unfortunately the X5S does not have a boot loader and I don't have an ISP programmer (yet), so I am unable to re-flash my board at the moment.
In the mean time I created a software fix for this issue. I used a script to ...
5
No that will not be necessary.
However, you could use calipers to measure the diameter of the filaments (e.g. at 5 positions over a few meters) and calculate the mean diameter, if there is a significant difference between the new and the currently used filament you could change the diameter in the slicer (or the flow modifier), you do not need to calibrate ...
4
From what I've experienced, there could be three potential reasons.
Your belt(s) could be loose. Simply loosen your Y-Axis motor and pull the motor until the belt is slightly more than taught (it will relax into a taught position). Then, tighten the motor securely in its place.
One of your axis endstops could be triggered mid-print. If you have a larger ...
4
I don't have dual extruder printer myself, but to my understanding having both nozzles leveled at the same height is critical for getting successful prints.
For typical FDM printers, the lowest point of the end effector should always be the nozzle. If you, for instance, mount a fan lower than the tip of your nozzle, it will eventually collide with the ...
4
Yes.
There are more test models one can download than would be possible to list here. A search on Thingiverse results in pages and pages of useful models. A common model for testing is called the 3d Benchy, although it is not particularly parametric. Overhangs, retraction, layer alignment and other aspects of your printer are tested with this model.
...
4
According to discussions in comments, I'm pretty sure the problem lies in too low current.
Please review this answer to How do you make sure you have the right voltage on the trimpots on a A4988 stepper driver?.
Why it happens?
If there is not enough current then motors can omit some steps as the stress is not equal while going up and down. Sometimes ...
4
It is very common that FDM 3D printers "home" their position at the start of each print (as defined by the slicers preprint g-code). This is done by deliberately running the end effector towards its expected X=0, Y=0 position until it hits the endstop switches for each axis. Could it be this behaviour you are seeing? If so, I would suggest checking that your ...
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