3D printing

[Darth Geek]

Woohoo! That worked! It was really easy to switch the wires around (I just had to label them to make sure I didn't screw it up) and it is not working the right way. The printer runs really quiet (not that I really cared about the noise before anyway). Unfortunately I still seem to be getting the same rippling/ghosting.
I think the next step is to replace the rollers on my X axis to see if that smooths it out. Maybe the bearings on one of them is bad or something.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Nice, one way to see if the bearings/rollers are an issue is to take the belts off the stepper motor pulleys and move each axis by hand, they should move super smooth, any resistance changes or binding as you move them means something is either not aligned or a bearing has gone bad.  If they move smooth and easy next look for wobble, you shouldn't be able to move an axis perpendicular to the direction it is supposed to move.  If the screws or bolts holding the bearings or rollers have loosened you can get a little sideways movement that shouldn't be there.

Another thing I just thought of, have you moved the printer to a different table?  If the table can vibrate you can get resonance in the printer.  Some people claim to have solved some ringing issues by putting the printer on a bed of cement pavers, to dampen out vibrations. 

[Darth Geek]

Nice, one way to see if the bearings/rollers are an issue is to take the belts off the stepper motor pulleys and move each axis by hand, they should move super smooth, any resistance changes or binding as you move them means something is either not aligned or a bearing has gone bad.  If they move smooth and easy next look for wobble, you shouldn't be able to move an axis perpendicular to the direction it is supposed to move.  If the screws or bolts holding the bearings or rollers have loosened you can get a little sideways movement that shouldn't be there.

Another thing I just thought of, have you moved the printer to a different table?  If the table can vibrate you can get resonance in the printer.  Some people claim to have solved some ringing issues by putting the printer on a bed of cement pavers, to dampen out vibrations.

I have checked the movement without belts and it seems very smooth. In fact even with the belts I can tip the machine about 45 degrees or more and get it to slide from it's own weight, which I figure is probably a good sign. But I will look at them again.

The printer is still on the same table I've always had it on, so that hasn't changed. I have heard about the cement block idea. The issue with that is that I am in a third floor apartment so getting them up there is not easy, and having them on the floor for a long time may not be good for the floor. And again, I wasn't having the ghosting before with the machine on the same table so it seems like I shouldn't have to do something like that just to get back to how it was before.

[Darth Geek]

I notice that I am getting occasional rattling of the rollers on the frame, but only occasionally. But the very fact that it can rattle at all shows that there is more play there than there is supposed to be. So I will look at that. I did order the equipment to upgrade it to linear rails, so I think that will take care of the sloppiness.
Interestingly, the fact that the pulleys have teeth instead of smooth made another issue. Because when tightening the belt tensioner the pulley attached to the Y axis motor was stationary, so the entire belt didn't tighten equally. I will have to loosen it's set screws before tensioning the belt and then lock them again.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I notice that I am getting occasional rattling of the rollers on the frame, but only occasionally. But the very fact that it can rattle at all shows that there is more play there than there is supposed to be. So I will look at that. I did order the equipment to upgrade it to linear rails, so I think that will take care of the sloppiness.
Interestingly, the fact that the pulleys have teeth instead of smooth made another issue. Because when tightening the belt tensioner the pulley attached to the Y axis motor was stationary, so the entire belt didn't tighten equally. I will have to loosen it's set screws before tensioning the belt and then lock them again.

If you are talking about the set screws on the motor pulley one of them should always be centered on the flat of the motor shaft, so you shouldn't rotate the pulley from that orientation.  The back and forth movement puts a lot of pressure on the setscrews so one should always be on the flat to prevent slipping.  The belt should make a loop so the carriage should move if the motor shaft doesn't, so I don't see how the belt could ever not tension evenly?

[Darth Geek]

I notice that I am getting occasional rattling of the rollers on the frame, but only occasionally. But the very fact that it can rattle at all shows that there is more play there than there is supposed to be. So I will look at that. I did order the equipment to upgrade it to linear rails, so I think that will take care of the sloppiness.
Interestingly, the fact that the pulleys have teeth instead of smooth made another issue. Because when tightening the belt tensioner the pulley attached to the Y axis motor was stationary, so the entire belt didn't tighten equally. I will have to loosen it's set screws before tensioning the belt and then lock them again.

If you are talking about the set screws on the motor pulley one of them should always be centered on the flat of the motor shaft, so you shouldn't rotate the pulley from that orientation.  The back and forth movement puts a lot of pressure on the setscrews so one should always be on the flat to prevent slipping.  The belt should make a loop so the carriage should move if the motor shaft doesn't, so I don't see how the belt could ever not tension evenly?

I don't think the Y axis rod for the pulleys have a flat. But I will check on that.

Last night I went through my rollers checking for bad bearings. None of them seemed to have bad bearings, but I replaced them with new rollers anyway (which I also checked and they seemed to have good bearings). I readjusted everything so they ran very smooth, and not too tight. I got the belt consistently tight all the way around (and not too tight so it isn't stretched).
Ran a new calibration cube and I am STILL getting ghosting!
I don't think it's my slicer settings. I am using 25mm/s for my outside walls (3 layer thickness), and 80mm/s for my coring. I've tried to adjust my acceleration and jerk settings and it seemed to have no effect.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

A few things you can play around with:

Try a test with 5 perimeter layers, that should tell you if it's ghosting on the surface or breakthrough of the infill.

If the ghosting goes away drop the speed of your infill so it doesn't mess up the perimeters.

If the ghosting remains play with perimeter settings, do the outside perimeter last, set the outside perimeter slower.  If your slicer doesn't have separate settings for inside and outside perimeters get a different slicer.  I was using Cura for a long time but the Prusa slicer is all I use now and you can load in profiles for just about any printer.

Did you ever switch back the extruder from direct drive to bowden?  Did the direct drive setup ever do smooth perimeters? 

Slowing down the perimeters might be the only way to solve the issue.

[Darth Geek]

A few things you can play around with:

Try a test with 5 perimeter layers, that should tell you if it's ghosting on the surface or breakthrough of the infill.

If the ghosting goes away drop the speed of your infill so it doesn't mess up the perimeters.

If the ghosting remains play with perimeter settings, do the outside perimeter last, set the outside perimeter slower.  If your slicer doesn't have separate settings for inside and outside perimeters get a different slicer.  I was using Cura for a long time but the Prusa slicer is all I use now and you can load in profiles for just about any printer.

Did you ever switch back the extruder from direct drive to bowden?  Did the direct drive setup ever do smooth perimeters? 

Slowing down the perimeters might be the only way to solve the issue.

The 5 layer walls is a good idea, I can try that. And I have been meaning to try the Prusa slicer, I hear from other people that it is better.
I still have it as direct drive. It did print for a few months smoothly.

[Darth Geek]

A few things you can play around with:

Try a test with 5 perimeter layers, that should tell you if it's ghosting on the surface or breakthrough of the infill.

If the ghosting goes away drop the speed of your infill so it doesn't mess up the perimeters.

If the ghosting remains play with perimeter settings, do the outside perimeter last, set the outside perimeter slower.  If your slicer doesn't have separate settings for inside and outside perimeters get a different slicer.  I was using Cura for a long time but the Prusa slicer is all I use now and you can load in profiles for just about any printer.

Did you ever switch back the extruder from direct drive to bowden?  Did the direct drive setup ever do smooth perimeters? 

Slowing down the perimeters might be the only way to solve the issue.

The 5 layer walls is a good idea, I can try that. And I have been meaning to try the Prusa slicer, I hear from other people that it is better.
I still have it as direct drive. It did print for a few months smoothly.

The 5 layer walls didn't have any effect, so it's not my coring (and the ripples don't follow the cubic coring style that I'm using anyway). I also set the machine down on the hard linoleum floor to see if the desk wiggle was the issue, and that also had no effect.
I am currently trying different combinations of high (1500 mm/s2) medium (700 mm/s2) and low (400 mm/s2) acceleration along with high (15 mm/s) medium (8 mm/s) and low (4 mm/s) jerk settings.
I think I'll try the Prusa Slicer as well later.

[Darth Geek]

A few things you can play around with:

Try a test with 5 perimeter layers, that should tell you if it's ghosting on the surface or breakthrough of the infill.

If the ghosting goes away drop the speed of your infill so it doesn't mess up the perimeters.

If the ghosting remains play with perimeter settings, do the outside perimeter last, set the outside perimeter slower.  If your slicer doesn't have separate settings for inside and outside perimeters get a different slicer.  I was using Cura for a long time but the Prusa slicer is all I use now and you can load in profiles for just about any printer.

Did you ever switch back the extruder from direct drive to bowden?  Did the direct drive setup ever do smooth perimeters? 

Slowing down the perimeters might be the only way to solve the issue.

The 5 layer walls is a good idea, I can try that. And I have been meaning to try the Prusa slicer, I hear from other people that it is better.
I still have it as direct drive. It did print for a few months smoothly.

The 5 layer walls didn't have any effect, so it's not my coring (and the ripples don't follow the cubic coring style that I'm using anyway). I also set the machine down on the hard linoleum floor to see if the desk wiggle was the issue, and that also had no effect.
I am currently trying different combinations of high (1500 mm/s2) medium (700 mm/s2) and low (400 mm/s2) acceleration along with high (15 mm/s) medium (8 mm/s) and low (4 mm/s) jerk settings.
I think I'll try the Prusa Slicer as well later.

Well the different accelerations and jerk settings made very little difference, they all had at least some ghosting. That was disappointing.
I am currently printing the calibration cube sliced with PrusaSlicer (default acceleration 500mm/s2 and jerk 8mm/s settings). We'll see if that does any better.

[Darth Geek]

WOW, Prusaslicer made all the difference in the world!

[MartyS (Gromit)]

 Nice to hear, yes, Prusa has really been working on making their slicer better than all the others.  And keeping it open so it can work for just about any printer.

Wait till you want to customize supports, they have all kinds of options for that, one I love is where you can paint on the model where you either want or don't want supports.

[k1]

I like reading this thread for two reasons: 3D printing is cool and I want one someday, but more importantly, this thread constantly provides perfect examples of how I do not have time to do all the tinkering and troubleshooting necessary to run a 3D printer.  Just don't have time at all. So thank you for illustrating that for me.

Ha ha yeah I hear that.  That's one reason that my printer is still "temporarily" at my parents house in the basement while we moved... which was back just before Covid happened...

[Darth Geek]

Nice to hear, yes, Prusa has really been working on making their slicer better than all the others.  And keeping it open so it can work for just about any printer.

Wait till you want to customize supports, they have all kinds of options for that, one I love is where you can paint on the model where you either want or don't want supports.

I've seen videos about that "painting" the supports. That will be interesting.

I notice that the X and Y axis still have a little shuddering. I'm not sure why I'm getting that, I have checked the bolts holding the frame together and the rollers are rolling as smooth as I can get.
In a few days I will get the linear rails and see if they help. But it's frustrating because I know not everyone is having the same problem as I am, so it seems like I should be able to get it to be good without having to go to such a change.

[Darth Geek]

Nice to hear, yes, Prusa has really been working on making their slicer better than all the others.  And keeping it open so it can work for just about any printer.

Wait till you want to customize supports, they have all kinds of options for that, one I love is where you can paint on the model where you either want or don't want supports.

I've seen videos about that "painting" the supports. That will be interesting.

I notice that the X and Y axis still have a little shuddering. I'm not sure why I'm getting that, I have checked the bolts holding the frame together and the rollers are rolling as smooth as I can get.
In a few days I will get the linear rails and see if they help. But it's frustrating because I know not everyone is having the same problem as I am, so it seems like I should be able to get it to be good without having to go to such a change.

Unfortunately that part also did a layer shift about two thirds of the way through.  Now I am having an Ender 5 at my work run it to see if that has the same errors.
I'm still in process of putting the linear rails on my machine. Hopefully I can get that done soon and try it. It's pretty much the last thing I know to do to improve the terrible ghosting and layer shift I have been seeing.