Help
Hi All,
New to 3D printing but been using this excellent forum for help (on the quiet) while building my Mk2s kit. Went together well and was very happy with the early prints, tree frog and little dog printed ace.
So now the bad bit. Newbie mistake printing flex and clogged the extruder body, all sorted and seemed fine and printed well, again thanks to this forum.
Until early this week. Printing flex again and noticed a bit of "dragging" on the first and lower layers but came good and the print came out well otherwise. Now however all hell has broken loose.
Can't seem to get the "Z" right again. I have tried the help on the Z access from the "Before you ask" page, either I did it wrong or something but didn't help. PINDA has of course been checked and sits a (snug) credit card above the nozzle, not the easiest of things to position!
I have attached a couple of pictures which show the problem. After looking at them I think I'm way too low with my Live Z setting of -725mm. I never used to get the blobs and dragging that I am now getting and if I go much higher on the Live Z (less negative) I don't seem to get good adhesion on the bed. Bed is cleaned with IPA.
What else I have done/tried:
XYZ calibration - spot on and square
Z calibration
Bed temperature calibration
PIN calibration
height of PINDA checked and is snug on a credit card
Extruder value set at "1" in S3D
I have also noticed that filament does not come out of nozzle at start of print and can be a couple of cm after print starts.
Any advice / help will be greatly appreciated as I've just spent two days trolling through the forum and have ended up worse than I started, sorry for the long post..
happy printing
Brad
Re: Help
A few things to try:
1) Clean the bed with acetone. Flex may have left a residue.
2) Print the calibration square from the "before you ask" thread - and post the picture here.
3) If it looks good - print something from the SD card. PRUSA Logo. Post picture here.
4) If that looks good, try something you sliced. If that is bad, you have bad slicer settings. Post info so we can help.
Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage or loss. If you solve your problem, please post the solution…
Re: Help
aaron.S5
Thanks for your reply. To address your comments;
1) bed has been cleaned very well. Windex/acetone/ipa, as per "Before you ask" page.
2) Printed the squares as recommended on the above page and have posted results pictures with this post. These tests were run before the pictures included on original post. Pictures included with original post were the forth squares test print.
3) The squares are what have kind of got me confused. As you can see in the pictures first print at Z= -410 are reasonable quality but not accurate (printed at 200) Did second print (no pic) but at Z= -460, no change from first print. Did 3rd print of squares at Z= -510 and still very little change, (picture attached)
4) I tend to agree that my Simplify3D settings aren't good. I did download and import the Prusa FFF file but not sure if they have actually taken as I can't see any difference in the settings to original. For example S3D has print speed set at 40mm/s and read on the forum people using 80/100mm/s.
I should have mentioned also that I did the Z setting from the "Before you ask" page as per instructions and the nozzle caught the paper at around -190, so dropped it back to around -150 did a test and no adhesion at all on the bed. And now when I run the V2 calibration I'm down around the -700.
Re: Help
aaron.S5
Thanks for your reply. To address your comments;
1) bed has been cleaned very well. Windex/acetone/ipa, as per "Before you ask" page.
2) Printed the squares as recommended on the above page and have posted results pictures with this post. These tests were run before the pictures included on original post. Pictures included with original post were the forth squares test print.
3) The squares are what have kind of got me confused. As you can see in the pictures first print at Z= -410 are reasonable quality but not accurate (printed at 200) Did second print (no pic) but at Z= -460, no change from first print. Did 3rd print of squares at Z= -510 and still very little change, (picture attached)
4) I tend to agree that my Simplify3D settings aren't good. I did download and import the Prusa FFF file but not sure if they have actually taken as I can't see any difference in the settings to original. For example S3D has print speed set at 40mm/s and read on the forum people using 80/100mm/s.
I should have mentioned also that I did the Z setting from the "Before you ask" page as per instructions and the nozzle caught the paper at around -190, so dropped it back to around -150 did a test and no adhesion at all on the bed. And now when I run the V2 calibration I'm down around the -700.
Hmmmmm... You are definitely on the right track... But...
A few things to consider:
1) Is anything loose in the system? Extruder? PINDA? gantry? Things should not move in Z when powered.
2) Re-running XYZ calibration might help.
3) Some people have had strange behavior that a "factory reset" followed by installing the latest firmware seems to fix.
4) Is it possible you have a partial clog in the extruder? Cold Pull, or cleaning filament might address that.
Does a pre-sliced object print correctly?
(40mm/s seems correct to me.)
Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage or loss. If you solve your problem, please post the solution…
Re: Help
aaron.s5
Thanks again for following up.
When the printer decided to not play fair I took the opportunity to check everything for tightness and secure fit. Found the Y axis belt lose, tightened that up but otherwise only a nip up out of a couple of screws/bolts. I'll be posting some addition pics tomorrow as I'm out of steam tonight, but the thing just does not want to play ball. Did the factory reset, updated the firmware, XYZ/Z/V2 cal' just the same. What I do notice though is that the print starts out looking good (V2 Cal) but then it looks like the Z axis lifts up and it just ends up being a basically round bead of filament on the bed with next to no adhesion. Lowering the Live Z just doesn't make any difference. Do you think this could be a faulty PINDA?
Re: Help
aaron.s5
Thanks again for following up.
Do you think this could be a faulty PINDA?
That is certainly possible. Does the light seem to go off if you put metal near it?
Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage or loss. If you solve your problem, please post the solution…
Re: Help
aaron.S5
Yes, if I place a screw driver under the PINDA the red light goes off completely, kind of dims/flickers as the metal gets close.
Re: Help
aaron.S5
Yes, if I place a screw driver under the PINDA the red light goes off completely, kind of dims/flickers as the metal gets close.
I think it is time to try Prusa Tech Support....
Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage or loss. If you solve your problem, please post the solution…
Re: Help
aaron.S5
So maybe I'm not going mad!!
Thanks very much for your help. I'll move onto tech support.
Brad