3D Printing Troublesome print

[Charles_McG]

I’m working on some Atlas parts. Ender 5, Amazonbasics white PLA. The Amazonbasics has taken some experimentation to get the first layer to go down nicely, but I think I have it dialed in. 210C first layer nozzle/ 70C first layer bed, dropping to 200/60.

I’m seeing a lot of shrinkage at the bottom. So bad it interferes with adhesion and the piece breaks loose about 75% up.

I tried a raft, instead of a brim, and the shrinkage is even worse. Thoughts? I thought bed too hot made for slumping, not shrinkage.

 

[0011001100]

Keep the warmer bed temp throughout and also try to increase extrusion multiplier by .01 at a time to help. Also brims work well on tall objects, rafts on large flat bases.

 

[Charles_McG]

I can try warmer. I upped the flow factor based on a calibration print, but increasing it further doesn’t seem to help. I’m getting about 0.75mm per two 0.40 passes. Hmm, I write that, but I found today that Cura hadn’t overwritten the gcode after changes to this print. Its possible it didn’t update the calibration print either. I’ll have to revisit.

I have problems with the tall skinny print getting knocked over. I stabilized this one by putting a little clay around the bottom. I’d like to get a better print, though.

 

[Charles_McG]

Well, I've managed to get some improvement out of this PLA, but it hasn't been easy.

I ran a couple of calibration objects at the 200C/210C, 70C bed temp that I'm get ok bed adhesion and good layer adhesion with. I keep getting low wall thickness- and the same wall thickness from 100% to 117% flow factors. (117 would be the correction from the initial trial) They come out the same - which is different from the PETG, which tuned right up. I get (rounded) 0.74mm with a 2x layer wall, not 0.80mm. So I tried an experiment. I set the line width to 0.37 (I didn't adjust the nozzle diameter) and scaled the calibration object down so that the wall thickness would be 0.74. It came out at 0.66. I decided that I really didn't understand what's going on.

Colleagues at work are struggling with a Prusa i3 mk3 that had been working, but is now underextruding and grating the filament so the extruder 'gear' teeth fill with filament. I think I've got some signs of filament slippage on my Ender 5. I realized that the lack of response to the flow factor is probably diagnostic - it doesn't respond because it simply can't force more filament through the nozzle. To reduce viscosity, I upped the temp to 205, set the flow to 105 and voila, started getting much better brims and first layer adhesion.

I haven't checked the wall thickness - but I'm not seeing the underextrusion/shrinkage on the Atlas shrouds anymore. And the brims are better line-line bonded. Not so many adjacent free strings.

 

[cwbullet]

I am new to creality. I am still trying to get my CR-10S Pro set up. They are sending me a replacement today after a weekend of frustration.

 

[Charles_McG]

That's frustrating. I'm pleased with how my Ender 5 is performing. Once tuned, it has delivered much nicer prints than I was getting from a friend at work. Well, the orange PETG is still stringy on one side of the print.

I got my Ender 5 off Amazon, from Comgrow. It had a noisy power supply. The replacement came yesterday. I had to mess up a sticker to replace it - but aesthetic only.

Good luck with your CR 10S Pro.