I am having a terrible time getting parts for the Pitch channel to print in a usable form. They start out great but about half way through a multiday print they start to ward and break loos from the print bed in areas. The part that I have been working with is "(27) Lower Pitch Arm" and so far I have been through a whole roll of PLA trying to get a good one. I have tried Skirt, Brim and Raft adhesion and printing both sides on top as well as using both the old and new Cura profiles that Karl provided. I probably have 10 attempts at printing so far, some fail early on and some take more than a day to show failure.
For specifics I am printing with an Ender 3 V2 and a glass bed sliced with Cura and I check bed levelness (and cleanliness) before the prints. I am working with 100% infill per the Print Guide which is why I am using up so much time and material. The temperatures are 215 for the head and 70 for the bed.
My best success has been with the raft adhesion but with several MM's of print material the part will warp upwards around an edge, usually near the middle section. The surface becomes rough and irregular once the part starts to warp and the printer start to make noise when the head hits an area that is warped upwards. If the part is thin enough the print head will actually press it back down to the buildplate momentarily and I get a nice ripping sound as the pressure in that area is relieved and it tears loose again.
This image was taken tonight with the part almost 3/4's complete. The difference in the shade of the raft section shows just how much has come loose from the buildplate. Also you can see the irregularity in the upper surface. That odd gouge through the material that trails into a long string going off the bottom of the image was the result of pausing the printing. The print head stayed at its current height and then melted its way through a raised area and left the string of material behind as the back pressure on the head was relieved. It took almost two days to get to this point so it was a real waste of time and material. What you are looking at should be the outer surface of the assembled part so no way as smooth as it should be or has been on other parts with large surfaces. Towards the left you can see the edges of the support structure along the bottom of the part which represent the slight cutouts the part has.
So with all of this information does anybody know what I am doing wrong?
The problem is now solved. Lowering the temps made a big change but my adhesion to the glass plate was still a little bit hit and miss. I went with Karl's suggestion of using painters tape and layed down a double row of the widest stuff available and stuck with a name brand for quality. The results were excellent, actually almost too god as the part faught me a bit to get it off even with the build plate cooled. I am not sure if the tape is reusable so I put down another double row before I proceeded with another part. The double row is just adequate for the upper and lower pitch arm and it will probably require a single row for most of the small parts. It could be a bit of a nuisance if the tape needs to be replaced after each print but it is a lot better than all the wasted time and material that went with the prior wasted attempts.
So a big thank you to everyone who provided advice and I am back to steadily creating all of the parts for the control system.
@Karl Clarke @Sarah Ashmore
Warping - may I suggest you look into something called an FR4 build plate? I got mine for around 10 Euros for my Ender 3 and let me tell you it is the best investment I made for my 3d printer:
The material is superb. I believe it is some sort of glass fibre component. I print PLA on it with 60c bed temp and the plate adhesion is out of the world. If you screw up your bed levellig, sure, you will get warping, but your levelling must be so far off to get to the point. Best part of FR4 is that once cooled down you can literally just lift of the printed part from the bed with no effort at all.
Also I have some strict rules when it comes to the print bed. With the FR4 build plate there is not need to touch the build plate at all. In the rare case I need to, I would use a tool, but never my bare hands, to not put any grease on my build plate by mistake. Also the build plate gets wiped down before every printing session with alcohol. Another thing with the FR4 build plate is that you can just roughen up the surface with sand paper and you are good to go again.
Infill - afaik the strength of a printed part is not only determined by infill but also by the wall count. I recently discovered a setting in cura called "alternate walls" (or something similar). If your wall count was to be 2, then if enabled this option would make cura place an additional 3rd wall every other layer. This way the edges of the infill of a layer with 2 walls will be sandwiched between the third wall of the layer below and the layer on top resulting in sturdier print. 40% infill and this option gives you a super sturdy part.
Hi Sarah, I would print these at 40% infill. People are telling me that's more than enough. I have also noticed that part should be flat and parallel to bed. Are you sure you have placed the part flat in cura? My large prints on the cr10 also warp on a glass bed if it's a multi day print. I have used painters tape to stop this and I think this warping is due to the rooms ambient temperature changes from night to day etc. Sorry I didn't see this earlier to try and help out. But thankfully others have pointed you in the right direction in this time. Kind regards karl
Hope it all goes well. If you wish to discuss anything dont hesitate to give me PM or email. Printing is a never ending learning curve. After 2 years of non stop printing (quality acceptable) i made a small change to 3 items and the last 2 prints have been astounding.
I have an I3 Mega and cura 4.8 and run my bed at 60 for the first two layers then lower to 50 and have no issues even on long print. I print the initial layer as height 0.3 and width 140% and flow at 130% and a very slow speed (50% of normal speed - I do this on the printer front control and move to 100% after the first couple of layers. all of this gives me a fat squish on the 1st layer.
Hope this helps if only to inspect your settings for all of these items. You can bet that a simple change to one item will suddenly sort out all of your issues - Good Luck
If your using PLA turn the bed temp to 60 and the nozzle to 200. It’s taking too long to cool , if it’s PLA+ then the Nozzle temp should be ok. what speed are you printing at, I wouldn’t go above 50 if that’s 100% infill. Just some ideas to go with. Maybe a wider brim might help 10mm a slower first layer 25mm /s.
good luck , drop in an update if you get successful.
Hopefully someone has some brilliant ideas for you. I use simplify 3d and the only thing that fixed it, so far, was slowing the speed down, and changing my cooling. The curl means it’s not cooling evenly, so I learned from lots of online stuff. I added a new print cooling duct and it stopped doing that. It’s like a little arm that goes around the hot end. I have a direct drive v6 but before I changed, I had the stock Ender 5 setup. Same issue there. Seemed like cooling was too slow and the plastic was still warm and not solid enough at the base. Just my experience. I wasted a ton of filament too but it’s okay at the moment. We shall see! Good luck.