What the heck am I doing wrong with my z calibration?  

Re: What the heck am I doing wrong with my z calibration?

Thanks for the advice all. I will look to the mechanical side of things. When I calibrate the xyz the printer says congratulation all perbendicular, but perhaps it is something loose. I am going to look at it and see. I was careful not to make the u bolts too tight for fear of crushing the bearings, maybe that is the issue. I am going to tear it down tonight and see. I really appreciate all the help from everyone. I hope I can get this right, learn, and contribute advice to someone who needs help in the future.

Re: What the heck am I doing wrong with my z calibration?

💡 just grabbed my silver pla and printed the prusa logo.
so here are two pictures how it should look like at a well adjusted printer.
➡

sorry for the two dark spots at the "R", must be some kind of shadow or something at the lens of my smartphone, the printed part itself doesn't show these artefacts. 🙄

and here the bottom of the part:

@scott.h4: that's how it'll look like when you've got everything set up reasonable. so keep beeing optimistic !

💡 just in case you don't know... if you want to have a closer look at the full resolution of images attached inside a post: just copy the url of it to your clipboard (inside windows a right-mouse click at the picture should show up such an option), open a new browser window and paste the url there. then you should be able to zoom into the picture as well.

Re: What the heck am I doing wrong with my z calibration?

Thank you for the insightful pictures. I am going to start the take down in a hour or so. I hope it is an obvious issue. I'll let you know the results...

Re: What the heck am I doing wrong with my z calibration?

Well ladies and gentlemen I am going to call tonight a success! Jeff you are a genius. I tightened everything up and cleaned out the nozzle. I think the u bolts on the y carriage were loose. Two were moving slightly. I put everything back together, recalibrated and success. Everything is as it should be. In fact not only am I no longer having an issue calibrating the e-steps, but I extrude 100mm at the factory defaults of 161.3. You can see in the pictures below how my prints are coming g out now. I ran Jeff's live z calibration square at -220 and I think I may be a little more than necessary. I ran the Prusa logo at -210 I think I may need to drop the z axis a little more, maybe -200 or -190. I am a happy man now. I was getting so frustrated. Thanks all for all the suggestions and help! Here are the results.

Re: What the heck am I doing wrong with my z calibration?

😛 that's how it should look like 💡

nice to get your feedback, that the issues could finally be fixed !
and happy printing from now on...