Having a few issues with my printer
Hello, thanks for taking the time to read this post.
I've had my printer for about a year and a half now, but these issues have always been in my prints occasionally, but I just blew them off as, "its a $300, what do you expect?" but a coworker has convinced me that some of these issues are fixable and frankly unacceptable regardless of how much the printer cost. We have an MK3 at work and it prints fantastic, but we also have a mini and it gives somewhat of the same quality as my at-home printer.
I have been to the pages in the Prusa help section, but none of the suggestions really alleviated my issues or there aren't good ways to implement fixes on the mini(specifically extruder changes as its not recommended for the bowden extruder) or it might be that I haven't properly identified the issue and therefore the correct fix hasn't been found.
I updated the firmware and ran through the setup, I found my first layer wasn't quite correct in this troubleshooting run, but the print I'm going to enclose was after my terrible attempt at troubleshooting.
After a long winded introduction, here are the images of my recent print that sparked coming to this forum. I have some layer shifting (?) and a very strange line part the way through the print, with other not so noticeable lines throughout the print, and warping on the edges of the first layer.
I have enclosed a thingiverse page that contains the STL incase my design is the problem, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5186563 (its 1 of 5 of a mechanics gag gift, named diagnostic dice, that I made myself in Tinkercad (don't judge me for this haha.)) I printed with PETG at 0.15mm (Quality) default setting on Prusaslicer, with the filament temp being the default settings for PETG (1st:nozzle:230C bed:85C other:nozzle:240C bed:90C) and the filament I used was some random amazon $20 one, (no company name on the reel), but I experience the same issues across all brands and I live in a rather dry area so they don't have much of an opportunity to absorb water.
Thanks in advance, hoping to get some very critical advice!
... there are some signs of damp filament but your most obvious issue is belt tension.
Make your next print this:
https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/46639-tension-meter-for-the-gt2-belts-of-i3-mk3s-or-prus
It MUST be printed in Prusament PETG or the spring tension will be wrong.
Cheerio,
RE: Having a few issues with my printer
Thank you much for your reply, I will print that tomorrow at work and see how it goes!
RE: Having a few issues with my printer
Well, I printed and checked all my belts and they seem to be in order, so I don't think that was my issue. I will continue to investigate and hope that someone else has more insight. Going to create a retraction tower from this website,
https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html#retraction
and hope that this makes things a little more clear for me.
May also try a temperature tower as I've never endeavored into that either. Maybe its just time to ditch PETG unless I'm building a structure or something that needs to be used outside.
That doesn't look like a retraction issue. You might be able to print a little cooler but that won't change the quality.
At this stage I suggest printing slower, cut the speed by 20% and see if there is any useful difference.
Cheerio,