I have a self-built printer, built on the design of the M Prime one. I use Cura and has an unheated bed.
It seems that the extruder isn’t extruding evenly. I have tried to lower the hotend down but it does
not seem to help. Take a look at the added image.
The top part, shows clearly how unevenly it prints. I did manage to print out a piece that turned out fine. Used the finest quality at 0.1. Took forever, so I lowered the quality to 0.2 for my second piece.
First layers are always tricky, you may want to try increasing the first layer thickness, for a 0.4 or 0.5 nozzle try a 0.3mm thickness, and make sure your bed is level.
Withe extruder off the bed lets say at 50mm does it extrude cleanly and smoothly if you tell it to push out 50mm? You did calibrate the exturder? Do you have the correct thermistor table selected?
Here is a link to a site that talks about print issues, it’s by Simplify3d but the principles are the same.
I checked calibration on the extruder, its acurate.
Great website! definitely bookmark worthy.
From that I can tell that my printer is not extruding enough plastic. When I help it along by pushing in the filament, then the layer is as it should be. Will check this out tonight.
If you need to push along filament then something is adding pressure onto the motor and preventing that from working properly. That might be anything from a clogged nozzle, too low extruder motor current, not enough tension on the extruder gearing so it can’t grip the filament, filament grinding, too low temperatures on the nozzle (wrong thermistor maybe), or a nozzle too close to the heatbed (although that looks differently) As suggested before try extruding mid air and see what can fix your problem.
Hoi,
looks like that the 1st layer is too near to the bed.
Try to level the bed wit the built-in option of CURA.
What Nozzle diameter do you use and what kind of Fila ?
It looks to me like your extruder is clogged. With the extruder away from the bed run 100 mm of filament through it with 215C temps at a faster speed than you can print. I use Simplify3D so don’t know how to do that in Cura. If the filament comes out wavy and/or sticks to the tip, you are still clogged. Clean the tip’s surface with a towel and extrude another 100mm. Keep doing that until the filament comes out straight and not wiggling around as it comes out of the tip.
Great success. I increased the extruder motor current. Increased the flow rate a bit and made the top and bottom a little thicker. Looks like it worked. Thanks all for your help.
I did a test to see if the bed was even. Found out that it varies from 0.1 - 0.5mm. That explaines why it has so much problems on the first layer. I use aluminum plate, think its 3mm thick. Have now ordered a glass plate, and are going to mount it above the alu plate with adjustable screws to make it as level as possible. The test semicube object I’ve been using as been small enough so that its not effected by the “bumps”. But when I tried something bigger it fails completly.
more pics of the printer would help… either your extruder drive gear is slipping or your temperature is too low. I print all the time at 0.24mm and the prints are fine. 0.1 is only needed for very small prints or prints with too many details…
