ZiRO Silk Gold nightmare
Long story short:
I bought a model. I am color separating it and printing it with some modifications. For the most part I am having success.
For the gold parts, I am using this PLA I bought, and it's turning into a nightmare. I have a massive failure rate with it. I ran a temperature tower successfully and I like the color at around 200C.
https://ziro3d.com/products/ziro-silk-pla-filament-1-75mm-gold
When the PLA is purging, it is pooling at the nozzle rather than flow out... It does this at 200C or even the default 220C.
It doesn't want to stick, keeps binding, causing layer shifting or just not adhering. I've had one part fail on me SIX times, six different ways, and I just need it to pass so I can move on lol.
Has anyone used Ziro Silk PLA? Have a profile that works with it? (I am not good at the tuning)
Best Answer by Neophyl:
Thanks for posting that.
Personally I'd make a few changes. I've attached a modified project file with my suggestions. While I don't have a Core One (trusty old MK3 here as well as a couple of fast klipper based machines) I would in general slow things down for such a small part. Especially for silks.
One of the main things I noticed on your pics was your bottom surfaces above the support on the curved sections. They were very loopy. If you take a look at the project I've set the XY separation between object and support from 80% to 0%. While that isn't something I would normally do, in this case with a curved surface it should be ok. What many don't figure out is that the gap between support and object on a curve not only uses the top contact z distance it also uses the XY gap too. So for curves like that it ends up being much larger than you think. I
If you look at the slice previews you will see what I mean. Just set it to different percentages, slice and compare.
As you have support below a couple of flat surfaces you cant really shrink your top z gap without them welding but in this instance you CAN reduce the XY as it wont make any practical difference on the flat areas you do have (being 1-2 layers of interface) but it will make a difference on the curves.
I've also tweaked speeds to be generally slower all around and the cooling on the filament. The idea is to force an almost constant print speed on the exterior extrusions. So setting external, small perimeters and the minimum print speed in the filament all to the same values will generally give you that. That helps with surface shine consistency, especially important with Silks.
Also silks need to be printed hotter. So I've put the temp up to 230. If your filament is dry stringing should still be minimal and hair thing which a quick pass over with a blue flame will instantly get rid of after its printed.
If you have a calliper measure the average actual diameter and change the filament Diameter to match. From my Ziro profile I had it measured at 1.72mm for the filament I had from them. You can always accurize that.
Anyway it worth a go as that part isn't a lot of filament.
Foaming filaments are always tricky as they throw away accuracy for volume, they mess with the extruder's internal pressure and there is no easy way to predict where the ooze will go.
Foaming filament of any type should be considered a technical challenge, foaming TPE has a place when the ability to vary the flexibility matters but it's semi-controlled expansion, thermal resistance and changes in strength and resilience mean that it's always going to be tricky to use and newbies should be made aware that it's going need a couple of years experience before attempting it.
Foaming PLA is often described as 'Silk' by cynical manufacturers which deceives newbies into thinking it's just a cosmetic change, it isn't, it should be regarded as a specialist, technically difficult material.
The first thing to try is printing slowly, very slowly.
Cheerio,
RE: ZiRO Silk Gold nightmare
I had the print fail on the 0.2mm structural speed. But I also got it to finally print successfully immediately after my post.
I'll slow it down to 0.1mm for the next batch.
How do I determine if a PLA is foaming? Is all silky PLA foaming? I have had great success with MatterHackers silky silver and gold. They aren't as shiny though.
I don't know about all but certainly a very high proportion. Usually there will be something in the data sheet.
Cheerio,
RE: ZiRO Silk Gold nightmare
I've also found with foaming filaments that the extrusion multiplier needs to be < 1.0 and is temperature dependent.
- Bob Marley
RE: ZiRO Silk Gold nightmare
I'm gonna try a multiplier of 0.8 to start with 1.0mm print speed.
I have more gold parts to print to finish my current project, maybe later tonight. Fingers crossed.
RE:
Well, I printed at the above settings, and this material is so unpredictable I get little holes in my print. I really do not like this filament, but it's too late to change the color now. I am also having issues with my support material layers. Note I was baking it in the dehumidifier for 3.5 hours prior to print.
RE: ZiRO Silk Gold nightmare
I believe the holes are from under extrusion. Anyway, it's a fact-of-life that some filaments are just crap. I've thrown away several rolls that I could never get to print correctly. I generally just stick with the major brands: Prusa, Overture, Polymaker, Siraya Tech etc. Every roll I thrown out has been a noname company cheap filament.
- Bob Marley
RE: ZiRO Silk Gold nightmare
Could you possibly attach a zipped up copy of your project file please. Worth checking the settings you are using and a PS 3mf file (File> Save Project As) is the easiest way to check.
While I've not used Ziro gold, I have tried their silver. It did suck. I have used a lot of silk silver filament, usually from MKOEM which I've had no problems with. I've never had to change my extrusion multiplier either, just made sure the filament diameter value on the profile matched the real world average measured diameter of the filament.
RE:
Here is my .3mf file.
I don't know if I am supposed to do this... The model is a modified copy of a model I purchased... But it's only one small piece so lets keep it between us, lol.
RE: ZiRO Silk Gold nightmare
Thanks for posting that.
Personally I'd make a few changes. I've attached a modified project file with my suggestions. While I don't have a Core One (trusty old MK3 here as well as a couple of fast klipper based machines) I would in general slow things down for such a small part. Especially for silks.
One of the main things I noticed on your pics was your bottom surfaces above the support on the curved sections. They were very loopy. If you take a look at the project I've set the XY separation between object and support from 80% to 0%. While that isn't something I would normally do, in this case with a curved surface it should be ok. What many don't figure out is that the gap between support and object on a curve not only uses the top contact z distance it also uses the XY gap too. So for curves like that it ends up being much larger than you think. I
If you look at the slice previews you will see what I mean. Just set it to different percentages, slice and compare.
As you have support below a couple of flat surfaces you cant really shrink your top z gap without them welding but in this instance you CAN reduce the XY as it wont make any practical difference on the flat areas you do have (being 1-2 layers of interface) but it will make a difference on the curves.
I've also tweaked speeds to be generally slower all around and the cooling on the filament. The idea is to force an almost constant print speed on the exterior extrusions. So setting external, small perimeters and the minimum print speed in the filament all to the same values will generally give you that. That helps with surface shine consistency, especially important with Silks.
Also silks need to be printed hotter. So I've put the temp up to 230. If your filament is dry stringing should still be minimal and hair thing which a quick pass over with a blue flame will instantly get rid of after its printed.
If you have a calliper measure the average actual diameter and change the filament Diameter to match. From my Ziro profile I had it measured at 1.72mm for the filament I had from them. You can always accurize that.
Anyway it worth a go as that part isn't a lot of filament.
RE: ZiRO Silk Gold nightmare
Thanks. I'll give it a shot later tonight.
I ran the print originally using the default PLA settings and the 0.1 speed preset. For my temp tower I noticed it worked uniformly from 190 to 240. I liked the sheen better at 220 or below, but I was planning to try hotter tonight to see what happens.
I'd redo all of the gold, but I already glued part of the model together and would need to reprint too much of it to change it for my other colors now.
RE: ZiRO Silk Gold nightmare
I tried the new profile and it is loads better. So far, it seems to work, for the most part, with the real issues being the very tiny nature of my current design.
The prints are clean. The support material is a little tricky. But I can live with that.
Note that I changed it to organic supports for a different part and it crashes Prusa slicer. So, I copied most of the settings to an alternate profile and will try that later.
RE: ZiRO Silk Gold nightmare
Had my own run of frustration with silk filaments and trying to get surface quality to not suck. The biggest thing that everything always came back to was making sure the flow rate ended up being constant through the nozzle tip. Anything that affected this resulted in zits or pock marks.
Temperature -- needs to be hot enough to flow without backpressure. 210c absolute minimum, 220c or 230c preferred for Ziro specifically.
Nozzle -- do not use CHT/HF nozzles. 0.4mm, standard nozzle.
Extruder Jerk and Acceleration -- turn these DOWN. I dropped these down to 10% of stock.
Volumetric flow rate -- cap this at 5mm^3/s.
Retraction -- lower this if necessary. Stock is 0.7mm, it can usually go all the way to 0.3mm for this silk in particular.