How's My Benchy Look?
I've been calibrating and honing in the first few prints on my new MK3S and I think I've about got it nailed. However I thought you guys would be the better judge on my latest print of "benchy" from the included SD card. I have been reading over the "Does your newly assembled MK3 print the best it can?" blog post here but it's nice to have a few extra experienced eyes on exactly what is going on.
I have a few questions I hope you all could help me iron out.
1. In the picture of the boat on its side you can see where a few of the side layers are not smooth and uniform with the rest. There is a feelable bump here. This is layer shift, correct? My belts seem tight with X reading 253 and Y reading 278. It doesn't seem to be a drastic shift so I guess the Y could use a bit of tightening?
2. I sometimes have issues when the extruder lays down the S pattern of a layer and the lines aren't tight together with a visible gap. You can see what I'm referring to with the lettering on the bottom of the boat or on the deck of the bow. Is this a Z height issue or an issue with tension on the extruder gears? I was initially pretty conservative on my tension of the idler but have since tightened it with the benchy being the latest print after adjustment. My Z test looks pretty excellent(to me anyways) and has no issues, so is it extruder related?
Any other issues you see? Any help or suggestions are highly appreciated! I'm brand new to 3D printing and the scene and I'm blown away at how helpful and open the community is with their models etc. I look forward to seeing where I can go with my new printer 🙂
RE: How's My Benchy Look?
Z-offset is perhaps a touch high, bottom of boat looks like under extrusion. What you're calling layer shift just looks like the infamous issue 602, generally related to the particular properties of the mk3 extruder.
Check extruder screw tension. Always worth making sure the bondtech gear grub screw is tight but it normally looks worse than this if it slips.
If you want to fix the extrusion consistency for good, you need to replace the extruder really. Either with a printable one, or the Bondtech BMG upgrade. That fixed it for me, and has the benefit of the gears being much cooler and not jamming PLA. But you can probably do it cheaper with a printable extruder upgrade.
RE: How's My Benchy Look?
Z-offset is perhaps a touch high, bottom of boat looks like under extrusion. What you're calling layer shift just looks like the infamous issue 602, generally related to the particular properties of the mk3 extruder.
Check extruder screw tension. Always worth making sure the bondtech gear grub screw is tight but it normally looks worse than this if it slips.
If you want to fix the extrusion consistency for good, you need to replace the extruder really. Either with a printable one, or the Bondtech BMG upgrade. That fixed it for me, and has the benefit of the gears being much cooler and not jamming PLA. But you can probably do it cheaper with a printable extruder upgrade.
Thanks! Since I'm brand new to printing I have never heard of issue 602(looks like more research and reading for me! No matter, I love learning about this stuff) My extruder gear tension was initially set so the top of the screw head was flush with the side of the housing as per the manual( I also read online with the manual that many like the tension on the loose side). I then read on the blog post about it generally needing to be tighter so it is now counter sunk about a mm. I guess ill play with tightening it a bit more. I just wish test prints didn't take so long and use material lol! Thanks for the experienced eyes!
RE: How's My Benchy Look?
No worries. I'd say you got a pretty darn good result for a first print.
RE: How's My Benchy Look?
As for my Z offset, it seems like if I go lower I get a very rough sharp patch on the Z test. I have not tried the test again since I adjusted the extruder idler though. I will try that now!
RE: How's My Benchy Look?
Layer one looks a bit high, but overall your test print looks mostly perfect.
There are better ways than the built in Live-Z to ensure a good layer 1. First is to use the 7x7 mesh bed level (Settings/Calibration/Mesh level (or similar).
Then, use a cal patch like these circles, or anything that has a solid infill on layer 1:
And while printing the test patch - adjust Live-Z so the patch is a solid welded layer of plastic, with no gaps between threads (too high); and no ridges between them, either (too low). This print is almost perfect, with only a few very small gaps.
RE: How's My Benchy Look?
Thanks for the tip and the file. I just changed it to 7x7 and increased the z-probe nr to 5. We'll see how it prints now 🙂