this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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Hey can someone help with print quality this looks really stingy and sloppy (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 weeks ago by EvolvedTurtle to c/3dprinting
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm using an ender 3 with a 0.4mm nozzle

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[–] fluxx 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (6 children)

As others have mentioned:

  • Dry your filament. ~~Stick it in the oven for 2+ hours on minimal settings. If you have a fan in the oven, even better.~~ edit: use the printer bed, see comments below
  • Tune your printer. Do a temperature tower with your dried filament. Lower temperatures might improve quality at the expense of lower layer adhesion. Do a flow calibration routine. Overextrusion can also have effects like this.
  • Slow down the printing. Increase minimal layer time, which might have an effect. If it's original E3, it has relatively poor part cooling, which can be compensated by slowing things down.

Nothing wrong with Ender 3, if you thinker enough, you can get results as good as any other printer. But it may require tinkering. The model that you're printing is difficult with FDM printers of any kind. It has thin, delicate parts with steep overhangs. It can look better, but it's gonna be hard to achieve. Resin printers are definitely a better choice for this, but you use what you have.

[–] FuglyDuck 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Gotta be careful with ovens.

First they have a huge gradient and it may not be 60c in there even if the oven says it is. If you must use an oven, the best is to set it to bread “proof”- this setting is used to let dough rise and usually isn’t all that hot. (Though…. It could be. It’s inconsistent sometime,)

Remember, glass transition is usually about half the melting temp, and you want to be about 2/3s that at the highest. If you go past it, you might get sintering- the filament sticks to itself.

Personally, a cheap food dehydrator is going to do the trick. Alternatively, a tub with moisture absorbing beads bulked up in the bottom and few days or a week or two should do the trick gently. (You can buy big ass jugs of the beads at big box hardware stores or Amazon. Hell you can get 55 gallon drums of them if you really wanted to…)

[–] fluxx 2 points 3 weeks ago

True, I've seen many molten rolls of filament because of overly warm ovens. Make sure it doesn't go over 60C and you're good. Mine is good, has a little overshoot when heating up, but if you let it warm up first and then put the filament, it generally stays very close to 60C. I havent had problems. Other ovens - be careful. Food dehydrator is better, but if you don't have it, you may as well buy an actual filament dryer. Desicant beads didn't work for me. They do the trick of maintaining the dryness, but if you have ANY built up moisture in your filament, the beads won't do much.

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