Print quality suddenly changed

[AvMDesign]

Hi,

Back from a 2 week vacation and my printer (XZY Davinci) suddenly doesn’t produce the quality prints it did before.

See attached image for the difference. Orange is what it used to print like (have dozens of flawless prints like that) and the white is what it produces now.

It zigzags in the Z direction and there are a lot of small gaps.

My first suspect was the software update from Repetier Host, after a few test prints I did a rollback on my computer to get the old software back. That worked but didn’t affect the prints quality.

Of course I tried doing the obvious tweaks. Levelled the bed, cleaned the nozzle, tweaked Z offset, extrusion multiplier and print speed. Most where set correctly so they didnt have any significant effect on the quality.

I’m not sure what I can tweak or look at any more, so I’m hoping someone has had the same experience and can point me in the right direction.

Right now I’m leaning more to a hardware issue, but I wouldn’t know what to look at.

Thnx for any help/advice you can give me.

[Andy_Ftp]

Could be the filament, try the orange again.

[Mi7che11]

Have you checked the tension in the belts on your machine? This can cause major problems sometimes. If there is a lot of movement in the belts, in the x or y direction try to tighten the belt until it is taught, then try to test your print quality again. If this does not solve the problems you could also check for any loose screws in your machine that cause any kind of wobble. Also you could try greasing up the smooth rods to aid in smooth movement for the extruder. Make sure all your print setting are as they were before, e.g.no change in feed rate or flow rate. I have had a similar issue on my da vinci, I did all of the above and it seems to print good now (most of the time anyways).

Hope this helps somewhat.

[snoobler]

First, I find white to be a very unforgiving color. Temp might be an issue as it’s a different pigment. I printed a lot of white at around 215°C. When I look at the orange for similar issues, I can see them (perimeter voids and waviness), though they are diminished. I’d double check the severity by printing something in orange for comparison.

Do you have the bearing slop issue? Grab the front of your bed and move it back and forth. Is there significant wiggle? Check out this video:

I have this issue. When printing round, curved or thin wall parts, I see waviness like that when it starts to loosen. I have to re-jam the shim into the gap. I expect the plastic yields with heat and time increasing the gap.

[SpannerHands]

This may sound silly but if you using the XYZ ABS in white, it prints terrible… so change material and see if that makes a difference…

Also check the white idler pulley on the carriage belt, as that’s prone to wear if not lubricated frequently, the metal pin in the centre of the the pulley wears into the plastic causing quality issues with prints…

[holtane3000]

It’s possible the filament may have gotten wet from humidity.

[FatJesus]

It sounds like you went from one print two weeks ago and everything was fine, come back and everything is off with the only thing really changing is the filament. I think Andy and Spanner have the right idea in putting the orange back in to see how it prints.

I agree with them that it’s probably the filament. Either due to the temperature as snoobler mentioned or, if the white was sitting out while on vacation for two weeks, it may have absorbed a little moisture if it was humid. Two weeks probably isn’t enough time to have much of an effect but if you had adjusted the A/C to not run as much since your were going to be away and it was in high humidity it may be possible.

[TheNewGuy]

Did you by chance change the heated bed settings? Perhaps recalibrate the bed with a micrometer? I am betting on bed heating issues. One reason I am switching to Repetier is to control the heated bed more effectively.

Bearing slop was already addressed so I will just say, I had that issue, but resolved it with a knife blade.

I no longer use the Davinci filament, as I get better and cheaper results with third party filament. I would say that the issue is likely one of the ones suggested before my post, or the heated bed settings mentioned in my post.

[AvMDesign]

I forgot to mention I don’t use the stock XYZ cartridges, the white from XYZ is terrible looks more yellow then white.
White ABS is my most used filament and prints in the same quality as the other filaments. I used the orange print because it was easier to point out.

I will change the filament, never hurts to test it.

[FatJesus]

Looks like holtane posted the same idea about the humidity as I was typing my reply. Now that I think about it more, I was focused on the two weeks away. Depending on how/where you store your filament, it could have slowly been absorbing moisture prior to the vacation as well. Filament storage is something easy to get sloppy about since it doesn’t usually matter much if you’re in a climate controlled environment and actively using the printer. I have some stored in a plastic tub with desiccant but a few just out on the table next to the printer. Now that I’ve said all that, I’ve never actually had issues with humidity myself yet but have noticed that some brands seem to produce more consistent prints than others. You didn’t mention the type of material and whether or not the white and orange were the same brand. That could be a factor.

[AvMDesign]

I actually had a different filament out at the time (forgot about it) and the white was in a closed cardboard box. I’m testing a different filament now to see if there is any difference.

[Cliff_Cannon]

I suspect moisture in the filament the only downside to abs is its hydroscopic quality. I’m still using stock software in my 1.0 and I had a similar issue I checked everything ended up tearing the whole machine apart screw by screw and came across cracks in the factory bearing supports when the machine reached temp the cracks would open and cause poor quality prints. I printed a couple bearing holders from the davinci section on thingiverse. I’ve been thinking of loading repetier but I’m still a little timid on the software side of things.

[3d_caddy]

It looks like a filament issue, if it has been left idle for 2 weeks and has possibly absorbed moisture then the filament wont bond properly, which is what is looks like here. You can bake the filament in the oven to dry it out at a low temperature or use a low setting hairdryer. It can happen quite easily but isnt a well known problem. Thats assuming like you said you levelled the bed etc

[zx81]

Have you just started using the white filament ?

• have you measured and checked the diameter of the filament
• updated the filament diameter in the settings
• tried increasing/decreasing the extruder temperature to get better flow

that’s all i can think of off the top of my head at the moment

[KDan]

Try another filament spool - the voids are symptomatic of filament that has absorbed moisture from the air. You extruder drive gear could also be a problem here - it may have bits of plastic embedded in the teeth which causes the filament to flow inconsistently. Check and clean with the small wire brush. The drive gear idler is also a problem spot. It wears and gets sloppy on the shaft. I actually installed ball bearings into mine.

[LA_3D_Print]

I live in Louisiana. The biggest problem I run into is humidity. I place my spools in a ziplock bag with a little bit a desiccants that I bought from Lowes. This is what I suggest to do.

I have a big problem with nylon. I put it in a bag for 24 hours and the next day it is printing like a champ. After a week or so in the bag you will see a pool of water that it is collecting. Tons of water is stored in the plastic.

Try this out and let me know if it works for you.

[jaked]

what size ball bearings did you use in the idler? I have been packing mine full of grease lately which seems to help, but switching to a bearing would be the best thing to do.

[vlp11365]

I had same problem. this is what I did to fix it.

1. Clean nozzle with provided wire.

2. load filament, let some plastic extrude.

I did 3 times to make sure is total clean.

[AvMDesign]

I’ve put my filament in the oven for about 2 hours to dry it out. That had no effect on the print quality. Did the same (a bit longer) for another spool, also without any effect. Although I have to agree with all advice here that the filament really isn’t sticking properly.

Maybe the temperature of the nozzle isn’t correct?

There was one setting that had a big effect on the print quality. Turning infill before perimeters off. To my surprise though because before turning this setting on actually improved all my prints dramatically.

I added a pic of the results so far (also showing a whole new problem), sorry for the poor quality (new phone broke).

Left is what it printed like up to 3 weeks ago.

The middle one 3 weeks later without making any changes (besides cleaning the print nozzle and leveling the bed).

On the right is the current result.

Besides the top part getting messed up (does that every time, but only with this model, no clue yet what causes it) it looks pretty similar to the original old print. The print is still a little bit zigzagging in the Z axis, but definitely acceptable. The problem I have is the seems, they are pretty wide and go inwards while the original goes out. With this white filament the shading makes them very visible.

Is there any way to tweak this and get them seems tighter and maybe oozing(?) out a little bit.

Thanks for all the advice so far, I still have to look into some of the more hardware related solutions, because I have no idea where I can even find most of the parts that are mentioned

[jlipavsky79]

It looks like your z layers aren’t the right height, try flashing the firmware or printing something with a defined height and measure it…