$800 door stop  

looks like

It looks like under extrusion.  You may have a partial jam.  Try a cold pull and pushing the filament out with a 1.5mm welding rod.  

$800 door stop

Thanks for the reply, but I have been down that route several times with the E3D extruder/hot-end and the BondTech extruder is virtually brand new. Everything in the filament pathway is clear.  

OK, lets's go back to basics.

Please dry some filament, PLA or PETG, tell us which you choose, then do a first layer Z calibration print and show us a picture of the result.

If we can get a decent first layer the rest will have something to stick to.

Cheerio,

RE: suggestions

Then try Diem's suggestion and post an image.  We are trying to help and I suggest you go step and step and humor us.   We have all been down this trail several times.  

Posted by: @diem

OK, lets's go back to basics.

Please dry some filament, PLA or PETG, tell us which you choose, then do a first layer Z calibration print and show us a picture of the result.

If we can get a decent first layer the rest will have something to stick to.

Cheerio,

$800 door stop

I will be more than happy to try again, but it will have to wait till tonight or tomorrow. I have to take care of some honey-do items the remainder of today. I will post the results later, and it will be with ABS.

thanks

John

Listen up! (And other thoughts.)

I had a few similar experiences early on. A few things that might help at least reduce your frustration:

1. The problem you are having is most likely independent of the slicer or filament. You can verify this by trying to print one of the Prusa-supplied gcode samples. A small one will suffice. You just want to confirm that it's nothing specific to your settings. If the Prusa sample has the same appearance, it's a printer issue.
2. I have had minor issues with firmware upgrades on 2 occasions, but never anything that gave such results. Here again, I think you can put aside concerns about firmware.
3. Moisture issues with filament usually cause blobbing, but fresh or dried filament can't hurt.
4. It is very likely something mechanical, be it your filament feed path or hotend blockage. I have found it very useful to listen during the print. 3D printers make odd buzzing noises, but clicks or scrapes indicate something's amiss. You might find it useful to observe the extruder (front-most motor) and either mark it, or put a small "extruder visualizer" on it so you can see if the extruder motor is kicking back.
5. From your description, I think you're still going to have 1st layer and bed adhesion problems. I would normally focus on those first, but I can see why you are concerned about the sparse prints. You should NOT need a raft or goop on the build plate for normal printing on the Mk3.

I think you've just had an unfortunate combination of failures. Stay calm, keep some notes, work through the issues one at a time, and you should be able to get this working properly. 

$500 door stop

bobstro,

I think you are correct in that the issue is mechanical. I was thinking about the extrusion issue and remembered a calibration step from my original printer. Basically you would find a reference point and measure up 100mm from that point on the filament. Next you would tell the printer to extrude 100mm of filament. Then you would check and see how close your mark was to the reference point. If it was off my more than 1 or 2 mm, you could make a change to one of the settings and get the output very close to where it should be.

I measured the 100mm on my filament and old the printer to extrude 100 mm. when it stopped, it had only extruded 40 mm of filament. If you know where I go to adjust the extrusion amount, I can try adjusting that and see what happens. 

I wanted to see if by chance I had a bad extruder motor, so I plugged it into the Z axis port and told the printer to move the head 50mm to the right. The motor started spinning as it should to move the head. I them told it to move the head 50mm back the other way and saw the same movement in the reverse direction. I then plugged the Z axis motor back in and did the same movements again, this time watching that motor. The speeds of both motors was very close, so that quick test was telling me that I had a good motor and a good port on the mother board.

I also noticed that the stream of filament that was being pushed out of the nozzle was about half as big around as what I remembered the stream of extruded filament when I would change filaments or start a print when the printer was working correctly.

I don't know if this a value in the firmware that got messed up or  if it is a setup setting that I am not seeing as being incorrect (because it is flagged with a white dot) and am not bothering to change it.

At least this is a starting place.

Thanks for the nudge.

John

RE: Slow and steady

Posted by: @john-3

[...] I was thinking about the extrusion issue and remembered a calibration step from my original printer. Basically you would find a reference point and measure up 100mm from that point on the filament. Next you would tell the printer to extrude 100mm of filament. Then you would check and see how close your mark was to the reference point. If it was off my more than 1 or 2 mm, you could make a change to one of the settings and get the output very close to where it should be.

That sounds like the procedure documented on Matt's Hub.

I measured the 100mm on my filament and old the printer to extrude 100 mm. when it stopped, it had only extruded 40 mm of filament. If you know where I go to adjust the extrusion amount, I can try adjusting that and see what happens. 

Well, that is certainly underextrusion! However, that procedure isn't really needed on the Prusas since they have such high consistency between printers of the same type. The firmware defaults are usually correct. You might just want to do a factory reset to get everything back to the out-of-the-box settings.

I wanted to see if by chance I had a bad extruder motor, so I plugged it into the Z axis port and told the printer to move the head 50mm to the right. The motor started spinning as it should to move the head. I them told it to move the head 50mm back the other way and saw the same movement in the reverse direction. I then plugged the Z axis motor back in and did the same movements again, this time watching that motor. The speeds of both motors was very close, so that quick test was telling me that I had a good motor and a good port on the mother board.

That's a good check and confidence builder.

I also noticed that the stream of filament that was being pushed out of the nozzle was about half as big around as what I remembered the stream of extruded filament when I would change filaments or start a print when the printer was working correctly.

If you open the extruder door, heat the nozzle, and push it through manually from the top, down past the open gears, into the PTFE tubing, and down through the hotend, do the extrusions look normal-ish? That takes the firmware and extruder out of the equation. You might even remove the nozzle and verify you can poke filament down through there. I use a 1.5mm brass rod for this test.

If you've got a partial clog, you will usually see the filament squirt out to one side. Normally, filament extruded into open air should coil neatly below the nozzle.

I don't know if this a value in the firmware that got messed up or  if it is a setup setting that I am not seeing as being incorrect (because it is flagged with a white dot) and am not bothering to change it.

For now, I'd skip using the slicer as that only adds variables. Just print one of the Prusa-supplied smaller prints (e.g., the Prusa logo) for testing purposes.

At least this is a starting place.

Thanks for the nudge.

Hey, I've been there myself, and life has a way of making focus difficult. Go through slowly and work on understanding what each piece is doing and you'll find it starts to click mentally and less physically as you go.

Also keep in mind that you haven't fixed your 1st layer/adhesion issues yet, so don't be too put off if the part moves around. You do need to get that going soon since good prints are entirely dependent on a good 1st layer. I'd just want to see some semblance of good extrusion in your shoes. Focus on one thing at a time.

RE: $800 door stop

Obviously you need to resolve your 50% under extrusion problem first but ..

Normally, filament extruded into open air should coil neatly below the nozzle.

I know I've a partial block when the hot filament curls immediately on leaving the nozzle.

A clean, grease free build surface is vital for first layer adhesion. Try to make it a habit never to touch the build surface with your fingers. There are several methods of cleaning the build plate, the consensus sic is boiling water, dish soap (washing up liquid) and a good hard scrub.

RE: $800 door stop

Good news. This has been a multi issue problem. First I had some left over data from a previous upgrade that did not get dumped properly. The factory reset cleared that issue. next came the issue of extrusion. I got the correct steps per mm from Bondtech and that got that issue cleared. Next came the first layer issue. That one took a bit of time, but it all came down to a PINDA adjustment. I was making the adjustment according to the suggested distance of the width of a zip tie. After several attempts and some more in-depth reading or reply comments I found a reference that suggested using a bit thicker distance (2 credit cards) and things started to get much better immediately. After a couple of hours of playing around with the Live Z settings I am back in business again. I no longer have a door stop, but a functional printer. Thanks again for all the hints, tips and support.