PLA Silk Profile
A lot of people are having trouble printing with Silk Filaments all the settings, Speed, Acceleration, Jerk, and Retraction, just to name a few. Would someone who has been printing silks with good results post their Profiles. Like the Profiles that Chris Warkocki has done with PLA and PETG filaments.
RE: PLA Silk Profile
All I had to do was up the temp to 230 degrees. I also reduced the max fan to 85%. Didn’t touch anything else.
RE: PLA Silk Profile
And what filament Profile/Brand did you start with?
RE: PLA Silk Profile
The material I was printing was MKOEM silk silver. I've printed around 5-6 kg of it so far.
Several of my prints on Prusa Prints use it https://www.prusaprinters.org/social/1144-neophyl/prints this one in particular https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/59845-blakes-7-scorpio-clip-gun-blaster
As for the profile, it started of as a generic pla profile with the temps bumped up and the cooling turned down slightly. The cooling change was just for part strength as I print mainly functional or hand held items and I want the inter layer bonding to be better.
If you are having trouble printing a filament then its best to start at the basics first though. Tune and accurise the filament diameter is the very first step. If the actual real filament diameter is not 1.75mm then you need to enter a value that does match.
Every single calculation the slicer makes uses that as a basis. If its out then it throws everything else off.
I've found in practice that for basic materials I do not need to change my extrusion multiplier or mess with retraction at all. The only stringing I get is some very fine angle hair/spiderweb thin type. This is mainly due to the fact I print at the top of any temperature range for the filament. A quick pass with a lighter removes it instantly anyway so its not a problem.
This is also why in my printer>extruder settings I have turned off retract on layer change. I just don't need it
The only other check I generally do with a new filament/brand is to do a temperature tower type test and see what works best at. With the MKOEM I found I'd get the occasional click of a skipped extrusion step at anything less than 220 and lots of them at 200-210.
My main printer is a MK3, modified with a bunny and bear geared extruder but the hot end is still the standard E3d V6.
RE: PLA Silk Profile
Thanks for all the info!
RE: PLA Silk Profile
Sorry for jumping in late.
I print a lot of gears with silk PLA using the generic PLA profile. They work, but the sharp points on the gear teeth are rounded over compared to normal PLA.
The first thing to notice about silk PLA is that it has a lot of surface tension. The filament tries to pull itself into a ball when extruding. The tips of the gear teeth pull into the body of the tooth as they print. This causes the tips to be rounded over. I am not sure if a higher temperature by itself can compensate for this. Maybe a stronger cooling fan? Maybe less linear advance? Maybe some other compensation where the printer adds more material or extends the travel into corners? Are there other ideas?
I may try some experiments to see if there are any differences that can be compensated for.
Steve