Newbie: Help to smooth out prints and firmware kinks  

Newbie: Help to smooth out prints and firmware kinks

Hi fellow Prusa Community,

I'm happy to be here and start printing. This post is mainly to help me understand what could cause some errors in my print and how to improve the overall quality of them. I hope you are not tiered to help another newbie learn the ropes 🙂 (I also looked into other threads but most stuff did not come up i guess for my issues)

I use only the gcode on the sd card for calibrating, so no slicer errors on my side are involved 🙂

Second this thread should warn about some firmware kinks i come across (most significant z height gets NOT deleted when resetting XYZ calibration!)
For this section see the end of my post. Lets start with something fun my prints 🙂

1. I have an overall question about my first layer height, is this the correct height or should i lower a bit ? How does a correct first layer look and feel like. The pics in the manual are not so helpful as a real print.

The pictures can be seen here: http://imgur.com/a/rUrkq

The prusa logo. -> I think this stripes on the top layer could be fixed with z-hop ? Or is it another issue?

How is my first layer?

On the frog: Why are these strings there ? Could this be a retract issue ? If so how can i fix this?

Frog feet: i dont know what could cause this. Any ideas ?

How can i fix the whole in the P in the whistle ?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated 🙂

Thanks a lot guys and girls!

OK so now about the firmware kinks (I just copy an email i send to prusa):

Ok so here is what i did:

Assembled the printer -> Firmware flash to 3.06 -> Selftest all good ->
XYZ Calibration - all good (total perpendicular!! )-> Printing Gcode v2
calibration -> lower Z to -1.560 -> prints really good.

Then i noticed that the pinda probe was at the same height as the nozzle
and it dragged into my print and stuff from the print bed. So i loosed
the screws and put the probe higher. Now the problems started.

I reran xyz calibration but it reported this error: XYZ calibration
failed. Bed calibration point was not found.

Remeber i only change the location of the pinda probe i did not even
touch other stuff on the printer.

OK so i did put the probe a bit lower.

Then i got this error: XYZ calibration failed. Please consult the
manual. So now things become strage. Ok so i tried to auto home the
probe and it hit the middle of the circle like a sharpshooter. So i
thought ok. lets reset XYZ Calibartion and try again. So i used the menu
to *reset XYZ calibration.*

After that i restarted the XYZ Calibration and i got the "error" XY slightly screwd (but i did not even touch the frame!! and before it was perfect.)

As stated: XY*Z* Calibration does include all Z realted stuff!!! At
least i thought so.

Due to the rearranging of the pinda probe the Z height was not correct
anymore and this lead to the noozze digging into the film who is glued
to the heatbed.

I thought that the z-height adjustment was cleared with the reset of XYZ
but it is NOT. In fact the only time im able to acces the Z-Height is at
the start of a print. I did not find a menu point where i could look at
the current level of z adjustment or change or delete it. (Did found that now)

This is clearly an issue because when the z height is not deleted and
you change the probe height it can lead to digging of nozzle into the
heat bed film. As this happend to my machine.

Right now i can not send you a picture of the damage to the bed but i
will do that tomorrow. I would like to get your damage assessment on how
this will affect future print quality and what i can do to improve this.

I would like to hear feedback about this from you.