Issues printing STL with fine details  

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

It seems impossible to me to print lines with a 0.4mm nozzle that are narrower than the nozzle diameter.

https://www.help.prusa3d.com/en/article/extrusion-multiplier-calibration_2257

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

Are you sure your friend is printing with 0.2 extrusion width ?  Are you confusing  Width with with 0.2 LAYER HEIGHT which is a very common value and its easily done if you are new.  

Basically the default profiles for a prusa printer in Prusa Slicer will have an extrusion width of 0.45 for a 0.4mm nozzle.  Its very iffy trying to print walls thinner than the nozzle diameter, its like trying to draw a fine line with a big fat crayon.  It doesn't work too well.  You just cant print a 0.2mm width line with a 0.4mm nozzle reliably.   For really thin parts then yes your smaller nozzle would be the correct thing to fit (please make sure you follow the nozzle change guides exactly to avoid other issues).

You will have to either find or create your own profile for a 0.15 nozzle as the smallest pre-built one is for a 0.25 nozzle.  Many settings will have to be changed and saved.  For a guide on things to look out for please read Bob's website here https://projects.ttlexceeded.com/3d_printing.html   there is lots of info for the newer member.  The nozzle profile page is this one https://projects.ttlexceeded.com/3dprinting_prusaslicer_profiles.html#prusaslicer-profiles   towards the middle/bottom.  Bob is a member here and very helpful.

Comparing profiles for a 0.4 and 0.25 nozzle would show you what is altered too and you could then extrapolate to a 0.15 and then test it in practice. 

There are software options in slicer that will make it slice thinner stuff but they will end up printing the sections thicker at what it can actuallt print.  For some things this is not a problem, it all depends on your use case.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

Bill, those look very similar to the doors and windows I regularly print for model RR buildings on the MK3S.

If you would share the .stl file here (remember, you need to .zip it to attach it) I would be willing to try a print and see what kind of success I get.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

As jsw suggested , for question of this kind it’s always a good idea to save your project as a 3mf file, which contains ALL your settings, zip and upload it, so the good people here can take a close look. 

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

@jsw

That's exactly what they are. ;o)  So often on other forums I explain what I'm doing and I can just feel the odd stares from folks that don't understand the mind of a model railroader.

I've attached a zip file containing the STL files and the 3mf file.

Here's a quote from my friend regarding this issue:

"So a little trick I discovered; Lower the wall thickness setting to .2mm-.24mm. When I do this in Cura slicing software it suggests that this usually doesn.t give good results. In this case it does and the mullions will show up. Check it in the layers view. This only seems to work on prints that lay flat like the windows and doors."

Assuming "Wall thickness" and Extrusion width are the same thing, I think he's not talking about layer thickness.

I'll have to review the links provided in the earlier messages and see what I come up with.

Thanks for the responses, I really appreciate them.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

As soon as this current print finishes I'll try it.  I have Hatchbox white PLA loaded in the I3, so it should be a very good comparison.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

Revised_Entry Doors and Frames

I didn't have time to try printing as I have another project going, I changed a few things around the the biggest was I changed the XY compensation to 0.1 I was able to do it at 0.05 however I had to turn on detect thin walls, and in this case it was doing funny things to the already very thin frames around the mullions, so I opted out I also reset a great many unnecessary changes made to the project and I switched the perimeter's to 0.35mm smallest your gonna do ok with using a 0.4 nozzle.

JSW is pretty good at these kinda projects, and has a very nice body of work in the prints hall of  "model railroad fame" but I think these changes may help either of you.

Good Luck

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

Ok, the first one just finished.  I'm doing the pieces separately, as I always do for tests.  One of the larger ones is running but it will take a few hours to complete, so the photos may be coming tomorrow.

Please excuse the blurry areas to the sides.  I'm shooting available light in the office with the lens wide open.  Poor depth of field and I did not have a flash handy.

Anyway, it printed totally as expected.  Nice straight and solid detail with no artifacts.

This was sliced with PS 2.3.0 with the defaults for Hatchbox PLA, which are pretty much the same as for other common PLAs.

Unless there is a very compelling reason to do so, I do not vary from the defaults.  I keep remembering a line from the instructor at our local 'Makerspace' a few years ago who said, and I admit he was trying to be funny, 'The defaults of the slicer will be just fine for 95% of the prints that you do -- and for the other 5% as well.'

You should be able to get equal or better results from your I3 using defaults, I say possibly better since this machine has been a few months since the last once-over belt and bolt tightening.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

Posted by: @bill-lugg

@jsw

That's exactly what they are. ;o)  So often on other forums I explain what I'm doing and I can just feel the odd stares from folks that don't understand the mind of a model railroader.

 

Assuming "Wall thickness" and Extrusion width are the same thing, I think he's not talking about layer thickness.

They’re not the same. Wall thickness in Cura is defined as:

The thickness of the walls in the horizontal direction.  This value divided by the wall line width defines the number of walls.

So if it’s 0.8 (default in Drafts), it will put down two walls, or perimeters, with a wall line width of 0.4. I must admit I am not totally sure how “wall line width” maps into PS lingo. Might be the same as perimeter extrusion width.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

@jsw

So you're saying you got that beautiful print with a 0.4 mm nozzle with extrusion widths set to 0.45 mm?  I'm using Atomic white PLA, but I can't imagine there's much, if any difference in performance.

I just selected the Hatchbox PLA with all the defaults and sliced and none of the mullions appear in the slice (see attached screenshot).  I assume that's a problem, right?

Thanks for the help and the hope of success.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

Yes, they appear properly in my sliced print.  They appear to be two strokes wide.

Your slicing screenshot looks very coarse for some reason.

Yes, stock .4mm nozzle (well, a tungsten-carbide one) and everything defaulted.

I've added a screenshot of the extrusion width part of the config below.  Should be all defaulted from the profile.

Hope this helps.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

JSW you appear to be printing these substantially larger then they appear in Bills posted .3MF project file. the entire project should only take an hour and 16min at the size hes shown.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

Bill I posted a .3mf called: Revised_Entry Doors and Frames with settings to print at the scale you have shown in your .3MF, please take a look and see if this will work for you.

Good Luck

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

I'm just printing the .stl files the way they came.  I'll try with your revised one and see what I get.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

With your revised draft, I do not see the mullions on the prepared slicing of the particular object I was printing, so I am not going to try to print it.

Sorry for the confusion on the scale.

If this were my project, I would tweak some dimensions in the draft to be printable.

The larger object appears to slice as expected and I'll print it and see what I get.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

Here are two prints at the scale you want.  I don't like how the detail of the mullions came out, so I edited the one to give them two strokes, and the came out more like what I would prefer.  I still see some holidays in there, so if it were my project I would tweak things a bit more, such as the detail on the door handles and the mullion junction to the frame.

Personally, I don't think it's a grave sin to print some details slightly out of scale if they will print better and get a more visually appealing print.  Except for the mullion detail, the prints did come out as expected, even at the much smaller scale.

Out of curiosity, what scale is your model RR?  Mine is O scale, mix of postwar and modern, almost all Lionel with some other manufacturers in there and a few S scale accessories, which really do not stand out as being out of scale.  (Lionel is currently selling some accessories as both O and S scale, particularly some re-issues of some vintage Flyer items.)

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

@jsw

I model in HO, 1953, Union Pacific between Laramie and Cheyenne.  These are parts for the depot in Laramie, Wyoming.  The curious thing is that these objects printed fine at the same scale on my friend's printer, which, if price is a measure, is not at the same level as the i3 (see the attached photo of his model).  I will definitely concede the internal details are extremely narrow for this nozzle configuration.

As I said, I'll dig into the earlier links as see what I can figure out using a smaller nozzle.

Thanks for all your help.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

That's a nice looking depot.  Are you able to share the .stl files for that?

One thing I want to do as a sanity check is to try printing one of your door files on the Ultimaker S5.  It has a long print running now, estimated at four hours and so many minutes remaining, but when that finishes I'll try one of your prints with that and see how it compares.  Depending on how that turns out, I may try slicing it with Cura instead of PS and printing it on the I3 as well.

RE: Issues printing STL with fine details

@jsw

Thanks.  Unfortunately, I don't feel at liberty to do that.  The gentleman that did this depot did it for their club ( http://wyomingdivision.org/ ) and shared them with me in exchange for a donation to the organization.  I also had access to some of the original drawings and some photographs he's been able to use in the development of the model.  He's currently reworking the model of the roof because he wasn't satisfied with the way the first one came out.  If you like I can contact him and see if he'd be willing to share them with you.

I'll be interested to see how your other tests come out.  I'm currently printing walls in another color and they are long prints so it will be a little while before I get back to these.

Thanks.