Quality Fail and ABS over sticking to the bed

[JuliusWS]

Hello,

I have a Flash forge bought two months ago - model Creator Pro dual extruder - and so far i have some trouble with getting it to the next level.

The overall printing is great but i’m frustrated since i can’t make them as good as i want it to be.

In the beginning i use to work with PLA using the makerbot slicer, then i switched to ABS (to be able to smooth the print with acetone) and the Simplify 3D slicer (which is great to control the support btw).

Lets get to the point. For a long time I had problem sticking the ABS - bad leveling, forgot to put the cover, AC too cold, etc - Now it’s the other way around. I can’t unstick the prints. I have to force like crazy and risk breaking them or damaging the mat. Ob some print the raft even merged with the print.

I am wondering if it could be from leveling (having the nozzle too close) or if it’s from the polycarbonate protective mat (I use a quick rub of a tissue with acetone to clean it as i have been told it’s great to take of dust and oily deposit from touching it) or something else (something too hot ?).

The other thing that is bothering me it’s i’m trying to print a bottle and the round bottom of it is always messy even with support. Any idea why it is not smooth ? Something to do with speed ? Temperature ? I tried different settings but got the same result. Maybe it’s the resolution of the support that need to be changed.

The bottle on the right was made with the Makerbot slicer. The problem was it was so hard to unstick the raft and the support ad i had no control over the support making the bottle filled with it. The two on the left are made with Simplify 3D.

Here are also some pictures of other problems that i have no idea where they are coming from. Maybe they can help you figure out what’s wrong.

Any suggestion or idea on how i can troubleshoot this and improve my prints is welcome.

Thank you in advance.

[spark]

I’ve always let the part completely cool and then when I want to take it off I heat the bed to about 90C and turn off the printer and then use a sturdy knife just to get under one of the edges and it normally just pops right off. I use Kapton tape and only apply ABS slurry to the bed when I replace the tape and then I don’t worry about it.

I also have the same printer and use simplify3d and love it. I haven’t had the problem your showing in your last photo. Though when I first got the printer one of the socket set screws where loose where the drive gear connects with the rod and gt2 belting and it was causing a lot of problems until I tightened it.

I don’t know why you are getting poor over hang results. What is the print resolution are you printing at?

Thanks

Steel Gardner

[Mark_Walker]

Sticking too well is probably as you guessed that you’re trammed a little too close for ABS (or your slicer is putting a little too much squish). You may have also made it stick better by using acetone to clean because combined with some small ABS particles smeared you may have inadvertently made it ABS to ABS sticky. You might try cleaning with alcohol, but I’m not sure that’s correct for polycarbonate mat. I’ve been using PEI and alcohol occasionally cleans it up nicely.

I think you should skip the raft and print directly on the bed. If you’re having corner warping use some brim instead (I think S3D has that as a setting). The raft can’t leave it as smooth as the bed.

The no idea problem at the end is “ringing”. This comes from a little bit of play in the mechanical stuff and when the bot changes direction (to print those ring details) it “bounces” a bit which shows up as that repitition. Some ways to help with that: slow down the print speeds, rotate the model (you usually have more ringing on one axis than the other), tweak the acceleration settings to be lower (onboard preferences in ReplicatorG). http://www.sailfishfirmware.com/doc/tuning-slicer-calibration.html#x27-720005.1.3.2

[JuliusWS]

100 microns. High quality set in Simplify 3D.

I also let the print cool down (since its taking 10hours i usually set it to run during the night) then heat up the bed to 80C for 10 minutes then start using a flat spatula to take it off but it’s ovvvvvveeeerrrr sticking as hell. Almost unstick the mat with it.

I took a look at the print in process and there is a bit of inward warping when its printing so the support is not close enough maybe. I may have find a solution i need to try. It is to set the heatbed at 110C for first layers then set to 90/95C. ( Talk Manufacturing | Hubs ) Some said turning the fan off also helps.

I’ll give that a shot and let you know

[JuliusWS]

Thank you Mark.

I’ll try slowing the print and maybe rotating the model.

Can you explain this >>> “or your slicer is putting a little too much squish”

For the cleaning not sure alcohol will be effective. Maybe i can clean it with acetone again an again to get rid of that “slurry”. I’ll try with alcohol first.

[Mark_Walker]

Some slicers adjust the z coordinate down a bit. For example, I believe RepG adjusts the Z coordinate by 0.05mm so that if you’re printing 0.2mm layers, it squeezes 0.2mm worth of plastic into 0.15mm which will be a little over extruded for the first layer. Not necessary with polycarbonate, but the amount of actual squish depends on how close you tram your nozzle. How thick is paper?

[JuliusWS]

I would say the standard thickness ^^’ The paper is a official calibrating sheet given by flashforge with the machine.
But maybe i’m not leaving enough space.

The manual says when levelling the bed you have to move this sheet until a slight friction can be felt. I would say it’s kind of inaccurate since slight friction doesn’t tell me how “slight” it has to be.

Anyway i’m having a hard time leveling. I’m doing the process several time each time but i can see that both nozzle are not correctly leveled. Also when i take the nozzle to the far edge of the board i can definitely see it’s not good.

Hopefully i’m not printing in dual extrusion or big prints.

[matthewbasaraba]

As to the bottom, I would check this setting. The overlap % and gap fill distance. I make sure to go over the previous lap at least 30% which gives good layer to layer adhesion with no gaps.

The 0.25mm setting is 4.00 or something by default and this will ignore any distances less than 4mm to fill which can leave gaps when doing fillets.

As for sticking/unsticking prints, this is why I use a sheet of .125" thick phenolic on my printer that is easily removed and can flex to pop the part off. I know a lot of people use glass on their BP but you cant flex it for hard to release prints which makes it more of a PITA than it is worth.

[JuliusWS]

Ok Andrew. Thanks for this. Indeed i was concerned about the life span of my blue build sheet ( around 70hours i guess so far). Anyway i will look into all this material but not sure i can afford it anyway.

[krusher]

Firstly regarding the bed, be aware that the print life of the blue build sheets are around 100-150 hours (more if you can print all over it and spread the wear).

However, if you’re wanting to improve quality and take your FFCP to the next level I’d recommend the following upgrades:
1. Glass bed upgrade kit (this improves the flatness of the surface you’re printing on and makes levelling easier) - many places you can get this but I prefer to order from Makersome in the USA
2. PEI sheet (long lasting print surface, works with ABS and PLA and makes it easy to remove things when they cool down) -get from Amazon
3. Hardened Nozzle Replacements (higher lubricity, don’t wear as quickly/easily when printing with mixed materials like carbon fibre and in general last muuuch longer) - Performance 3D, Protopasta and a few others sell these.

Top-end upgrades: (read $$$)
4. Aluminium extruder assembly upgrade (increased cooling and easier levelling of extruders) - wmd products is the best one I know of.
5. All metal hot-end (increased maximum temperature, removes the need for PFTE lining tube) - AVN swiss makes these

Next up, the other issues:

The rounded bottom issue you’re seeing is a result of an overhang without adequate support. If you’re using something like simplify3D then use the “Dense layers” setting in the support tab to increase the infill percentage for the support just before you reach the actual piece you’re printing. Alternatively if you’re printing in ABS, decrease the temperature a little and increase the cooling fan speed; it can also help to drop back to a smaller layer height (say 0.1mm) just until you’re past this overhang.

Hope this helps; feel free to message back with any questions!

- Andrew

[krusher]

At minimum I’d recommend checking out the glass bed upgrade (find someone in your local area who can machine borosilicate glass to the right size) and order the PEI sheet off amazon. You’ll find your prints adhere well, bed is easier to level and you don’t have to replace the PEI for months.

I’ve been printing with one printer for nearly 2,300 hours now and I’ve had a single PEI sheet on for around 4 months of solid printing; I just take the glass bed + PEI sheet out every now and again to wipe/wash it off as I also print nylon on it using a water soluble glue stick.

[ImShogun]

Sometimes, bot heads are not leveled simply because one head really is too high (or the opposite). There is a screw on the back of the metal bar that both heads are crossing that will let you adjust vertically. not super easy to access, though, you probably will need to remove both extruders. I did that one day: removed both extruders, started qualibration, adjusted the head that was too high, fixed the problem!

Another great think to do is,if you like quality, pulling up the unused head, or even, if you like extreme but powerfull measures, remove it like I did. that will lighten the heads block thus attenuate the rippling that you are complaining about.

Btw that rippling is unfortunatly typical for XY printers with heavy heads blocks and high speeds. To fight it, you need to work on these:

- lightest heads block

- tighten regularly all the bolts of the FF, add washers where you see fit (to avoid that every time that you tighten them the wood would let the head penetrate)

- moderate the speed (obviously, when one Axis is stopped at once (on a 90° corner), slower speed is less abrupt and then creates less rippling

- Try turning the part 45°, thus distributing the inertia to both axis; (One think that is quite magic with the prusa is the X and Y axis are not affecting each other, thus less ripples on these)

- check accel/deceleration settings?

[ImShogun]

Unfortunatly, the highest resolution comes with the worse overhangs. On little trick can fight it a bit: thicker walls. Aboce 50°, having multiple coutour lines gives a much better base for the next layer.

[PalmersPursuit]

Print with your lowest nozzle. Worry about leveling both nozzles later.

Measure your filament several times

Kapton or PET tape

Apply abs slurry to a paper towel and let it dry.

Then, wet the paper towel with clean acetone and wipe the bed when cold.

This will apply a super thin abs film to the print surface.

S3D

Turn skirts on and double them.

Adjust the bed while its printing the skirt.

Then try to peel the skirt with your fingers, If the skirt sticks well, then you know your bed is level.

With ABS slurry you can lower your bed temp to 80 degrees.

Lower your first layer height to compensate for the first smashed layer. That should reduce the bubbles on the first few layers.

Increase first layer extrusion width to increase adhesion

Trim off the bottom of the bottle or replace the fillets with chamfers to reduce the overhangs.

To combat shrinkage, print ABS at the lowest temp possible… This can be found by heating up the machine and manually feeding the filament while its heating up. Once the filament is easy to feed manually, note the temp an print with that. ABS on my machine is around 225-235.

Consider using PETG filament. Prints like PLA but is stronger than ABS

To combat ghosting.

Lower your print speed to around 40 or less.

Print a Nema 17 motor found of Thingaverse, run the fake stepper motor to reduce weight.

Turn acceleration on via the LCD on the machine

Meshmixer, a free program, may have better supports for this application. At times they can be difficult to remove.

Good luck, I hope this summery helps.

[3DCUBE]

Hello J, to start I have almost the same machine and is the best ever! All my prints are successful, like an Uprint,…I can let my machine running even when it doesn’t start the job, and when I came back the print is with very good results. So which are my secrets! First of all you need a glass plate, buy it from a dolar store a frame that fit in your platform,…cut it with the right dimensions,…the too is very cheap in harborfreight. Then when it was cutted you need to make it roofed as you can, so take another piece of glass and regular sand from the beach or what ever,…and put it in the surface with water, then sand the glasses with this technic one against the other and you will see the good results that you will get. Then you need to fit into the platform, my method is using kapton tape to fix it permanently and avoiding the nozzles hitting the paper clips. Forget about the ABS slurry, spread some aceton on the plate and use a missed print with the same color and swipe with the aceton over the build plate, you can repeat if you will need more, is the best for sure, very good stick and you can remove the part as easy as using just a finger. Then the slicer, Im using S3D, is the best one. You can download the profiles file from the flashforge webpage, or from klick-n-print webpage, I really don’t remember where I got it. You can control everything in your part, the layer height, but the most important part is the support,…to get the best results you need to make some print tests, the % of support doesn’t matter, whats really matter is the bed that you build betwen the part and the support, is like a raft but in the upper part, in every part that touch your model. You need to test, the separation and how many layers do you really need. But the separarion, I can remember the real name of that,…but is the setting that matter in the lower part of your model quality,…the separation, makes your model smoothly and with a really good look as your upper part of your model,…but if you decrease that much the distance it was really hard to peel out the support,…so test it print in the same build the same model modifiying this parameter in five profiles and take notes of the. I hope that it would be helpful Happy print and test

[JuliusWS]

Ok. Not sure i understood it all but i will definitely give a look at how to get better process for S3D

[JuliusWS]

I will keep that in mind. Everyone is giving me so many solutions. Not sure what to start with

[MMMavis]

Hello Sir,

This is Mavis from Flashforge. I consulted our engineer. Please check suggestions below:

1. Did you use any other glue when printing? FF already stick a blue sheet on the build plate, and this will help filament to stick on build plate. Or you can use a blue tape instead.

2. For the round bottom, we suggest you to choose support. If you print with ABS, you can choose liner support; if you print with PLA, tree-like support is better. From your pictures, the one made with Makerbot slicer looks better. You can rub the surface after the printing or choose HIPS filament as support.

3. The cause of the bottle you print is the speed of ABS printing. You can slow down the ABS print speed, and it will be better.

Please contact us if I made something wrong. Welcome your suggestions.

Thank you.

[gabriela3d]

Thanks for jumping in, guys! @JuliusWS, hope this helps

[JuliusWS]

1. I kind of used a glue despite of me. I cleaned the slate with alcohol to make sure i had a clean clean bed but there are still some area hard to remove.

2. The makerbot looks better but inside i have no control over support so it’s no point really and the support was a MESS to remove from the part. I’m using support from the begining

3. I made another try over the week end. Possibly i will run another one this week and post the results.