Qidi Tech 1. I used to be able to print with stock settings just fine. One day, it stopped properly printing roofs. It looks like extreme pillowing. It isn’t just cosmetic blemishes on the top surface. It starts pulling up and then crashing into it on the next pass, eventually making giant blobs of plastic stuck to the nozzle, or thrown to the side.
The rest of the print looks perfect, until the first solid top layer, and then it starts trashing that layer. I’ve tried turning the heat up, the heat down, I’ve played with the feed rates. I’ve printed with higher infill percentages. I’ve tried PLA and ABS. I’ve replaced the nozzle, twice, nothing seems to make a difference. I’ve also tried explicitly slowing down the roof layers, but MakerWare seems to be ignoring that setting, and blasts across the solid layers and rips them to shreds. I can get a beautiful calibration cube at 100%, but anything below 50% infill results in the top layers shredding off. They just don’t seem to stick to the infill.
Zapaer
2
Hi @AlwaysLinux2,
Please upload the model you are trying to print as well as any pictures you may have the failed prints.
You may also find this guide useful: https://www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/
I did submit a picture. It is inline in the original post.
All models seem to fail, but the test “hockey pucks” I pictured are just cylinders 40mm diameter by 10mm high. The two pictured squares are the stock 20mm_Calibration_box.stl that comes with the MakerWare installation. The one that looks good was printed at 100% infill (The only thing I can print successfully), while the other one was printed at 30%. All the pictured examples were .3mm prints, in ABS, with 3 bottom and 3 top layers.
Of the cylinders, the three on the top row, to the right were at 30% infill (210, 220, and 230 C). The other cylinders were 10% infill. There are many other failed prints, with other permutations of settings, that I just didn’t put in frame, all with similar defects.
Zapaer
4
Can you reupload or link to it, it’s not loading for me.
Also what speeds were you printing at?
Very odd that you can’t see the picture. Try https://www.3dhubs.com/s3fs-public/talk/attachments/20170311\_155502.jpg
Default speed is 90mm/s. I tried setting it to 30mm/s for roof layers, but just watching it, it appears to be ignoring that, and printing at 90 to spite me. The floor (first layer) does print at the 30mm though. No telling why MakerWare is ignoring the roof speed settings.
Zapaer
6
Hmm very weird, I still can’t see it I get this error message:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
AccessDenied
Access Denied
FE387B0D6AA43248
sG7uicykHSJLh9z722OfvdSV/CKzTF3S6VI1UuUFV5obCYMvoXFlK7EM5TElePGS9lkq3SNrc1w=
Clearly 3dhubs’ message board is buggy. Try this http://imgur.com/a/PgXJb
Zapaer
8
Yes. And finally I can see them.
Zapaer
9
You may want to use more top layers. Generally your want your top to be 1-1.2mm thick. So if you have a 0.3 nozzle try 4 layers.
Keep your speed and everything else normal. For ABS you should be extruding at least 230C. You can go between 230-260.
You should try 20% infill with 4-5 layers top at 245C. No fans! 0.15 mm layer height (assuming you have a 0.3mm nozzle) and 80mm/s for the speed.
Let me know if that works for you?
Also what was your layer height?
Zapaer
10
Ok, first get rid of makerware or find an older version. It does not work well with this printer. New versions are being setup strictly for their printers now. Go get FlashPrint or S3D if you can buy it, it will do ok.
Second, 90mm/sec is way to fast. Start out at 20mm/sec to get things going. Get a good bed level. Start with a .2 layer, extrusion multiplier of 1, first layer 100%, 230 extruder and 100-110 for the bed which can be reduced after the first layer a little.
Max temps for this printer are 230, maybe 235. It has PTFE tubes and sustained temps over this will start to damage them and cause additional problems.
This printer will print decent quality ABS at 230 all day long but speed has to be appropriate for the temp.
