Can I do anything with undersized Filament
I am currently mass producing a part, and have been getting through a fair few rolls of PLA.
I have recently started a new one, which was actually a branded one for a change, and I was really impressed with the quality of the print.
Yesterday I happened to be hand finishing one of them as it had a little burr sticking out and when I twisted the part I heard a crack. But I didn't think anything of it...
I then took another and twisted it he same way and it cracked again, so this time I was a little more brutal and as I twisted it, it totally fell appart at the layers.. I looked at the others and they are all the same.. If you twist them they just come appart at the layers.
I compared this to others I have done from other rolls and they are fine.. But every one from this new roll breaks up when you twist it.
I then started to look at the filament and could immediately feel that something was wrong.. It just felt "thin".. And true enough, when I measured it, it was 1.65mm thick...
So my theory is that it volume is around 10% less than it should be.. And as such, its under-extruding.
To prove my theory I weighed the object.. And the good ones are 5.2g, where as the delaminating ones are only 4.8g.
I have now moved onto another roll and everything is good again, so I was going to scrap the bad roll.. But I just wondered if there was anything I could do to use it up? Perhaps using the Extrusion Multiplier? If I increased it, could I compensate for the thinner filament? Or could I just set the filament diameter to 1.65 in the settings?
I don't really care if the quality or accuracy is sacrificed, it just seems a shame to waste 3/4 of a roll if I could use this up by changing some settings?
I will play around with the settings tomorrow, but I just thought I would ask if anyone knew so I had something to look at in the morning.
Thanks in advance
Jon
RE: Can I do anything with undersized Filament
Yes, just modify your filament profile and set the filament diameter to the real size of the filament. It’s the very first step I do tuning a filament normally. It’s more important than extrusion multiplier as every calculation on extrusion uses this as a basis. If set to match then you shouldn’t actually need to touch the EM.