Perimeter Problems after Hotend Replacement
Good morning.
As a result of a PLA blob incident I had to rebuild my hotend about a week ago. I keep having issues with zits and voids on the perimeters of the prints. In the course of attempting to debug, I've replaced the heat block itself, the thermistor and the heater cartridge to no effect. I've also attempted to tune the Z-offset and tried printing at increased temperatures.
This picture is printed with Hatchbox PETG in Lake Blue. The cube on the left uses my pre-rebuild settings, first layer at 230, following layers at 240. The cube on the right is at a higher temperature, first layer at 240, later layers at 250 (bed 85)
I have a similar if seemingly less severe issue on PLA. Both of these cubes are Hatchbox PLA, printed at 210 (bed 60). I realized I'd forgotten to add a silicone sock back on, the sockless is on the left, the socked is on the right.
I've fixed print quality issues before but this one has me stumped and frustrated and the advice I've found - higher print temperatures, replace the thermistor because it might be bad - haven't gotten me anywhere. There are a few older threads on this forum mentioning a very similar issue, but some recommendations I've tried (higher heat) to no effect, and some don't appear to apply anymore (calibrating extrusion, which I don't think the MK3s+ does?)
The one other data point, and I don't have any pictures, is that when loading and unloading filament I am noticing a fair bit of stringing. I have an MMU2s, which wasn't used on any of these tests, and am unsure if the stringing points to anything other than me being out of practice with manual unloading.
Any advice on further adjustments to test would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
What are your seam settings? Please reprint with dry filament,
Cheerio,
RE: Perimeter Problems after Hotend Replacement
I'm not positive what you mean by seam settings. The position option? That's set to 'aligned'.
I do have a still-sealed PETG (and maybe PLA) spool I can crack open and test with. I'll try that later this evening.
RE: Perimeter Problems after Hotend Replacement
I had one unopened package of filament, Hatchbox PETG in Black. Here's the same test cube at 230 for the first layer and 240 for later layers, which is the same default I'd used before the rebuild. The dark color makes it harder to tell, but certainly appears improved to me.
I'm a little surprised even my PLA has humidity problems as I don't think we've had huge humidity swings lately and I keep most of my filament in dryboxes. I'm also used to thinking of PLA as pretty humidity-resistant. That said, maybe I've just been lucky before and my luck has run out.
Better to try using my oven or spring for actually using a dryer?
The dark color makes it harder to tell, but certainly appears improved to me.
Agreed, but that too looks damp...
Better to try using my oven or spring for actually using a dryer?
Test dry in your oven but for most people a food dehydrator (lightly modified to fit spools) is the most effective.
Cheerio,
RE: Perimeter Problems after Hotend Replacement
Thanks! Odd that this lined up with the hotend rebuild, guess that turned into a red herring and threw me off. I'll try things out and get going.