ERIS Early adopter feedback

[Mac The Knife]

I'm not a fan of PLA either, I had mine delivered to where I work, and they were pretty impressed with it up and running by the time lunchtime was over. Currently it's at home until I finish the controller housing. But the main intention of my purchase was to have it at work,,, printing nondescript stuff. PLA is not as stinky.

[gkrangan]

Hello Experts,

I'm new to the SeeMeCNC forums. I have some decent experience with 3D printers. I have also built and setup a Kossel Mini myself.

I saw this new Eris at my local MicroCenter over the weekend, and picked one up.

Overall, the getting started to my first print was pretty good.

Few thoughts:
- Getting the filament through the EZ-Extruder was a bit of a challenge. I guess, it requires a bit of a knack, but I finally managed to get it through.
- The cable connector on the hot-end was loose, out of the box. I noticed that during my initial inspection, and re-seated it, but it was still not seated properly. Thus the calibration process would get stuck. Finally, I managed to get it seated properly. But beware, the plastic around the pins is not very strong, and front-facing side broke, but it's kinda still hanging in there. However, it is flimsy for sure. Once, the cable was seated properly, the calibration went fine.

- The biggest issue I'm having is with the bottom layer. Please check out the attached image. Are others getting the same results as well (better, or worse)? I was going through the default settings, and there does not see like there are a whole lot of parameters to adjust, other than the following:
bottom_solid_layers = 5

I also see a similar issue with the top-later, but it is slightly better than the bottom-layer.

top_infill_extrusion_width = 0.6
top_solid_infill_speed = 25
top_solid_layers = 5

- Finally, the retraction length appears to be currently set to 4.5. I guess that needs to be increased, because I see some stringing.
retract_before_travel = 2.5
retract_layer_change = 0
retract_length = 4.5
retract_length_tool_change = 10
retract_lift = 1
retract_restart_extra = 0
retract_restart_extra_toolchange = 0
retract_when_changing_islands = 1
retract_speed = 100

Can anyone recommend what changes can be made to get a better bottom-layer finish? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[garfi3ld]

did you run the auto level? It looks like the bottom layer is not close enough to the bed

[nebbian]

Did you ensure that there is no dag of plastic hanging off the nozzle when doing the auto calibration? If some plastic is still stuck to the nozzle then the nozzle height will be higher than it should be; which would cause the issues you're seeing.

[gkrangan]

Hello garfi3ld & nebbian:

Thank you for your responses.

Yes, I have run the auto-level, when the hot-end is cold.

So far I have run it prior to each print, since I sometimes need to remove the build-plate to remove the prints.

Also, to the best of my knowledge, I have not seen any plastic sticking to the nozzle when the auto-calibration was done. But, I will pay more close attention to this when I try my next print.

Besides, it not like there are issues with prints are not sticking to the bed. They are actually sticking pretty good. If the first-layer is too far away from the bed, wouldn't that cause the prints not to stick well to the bed?

Too me, it is almost like the raft is being used, when not. However, I'm using the default settings that came with the zip-file and have not made changes to them yet.

Any other suggestions?

Regards.

[TedMilker]

Too me, it is almost like the raft is being used, when not. However, I'm using the default settings that came with the zip-file and have not made changes to them yet.

There's no raft, that's the bottom layer and it's definitely not low enough. It should look something more like this:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/8Ck1WTN.jpg[/img]

and this is uncalibrated so it's still a little off(I forgot to re-calibrate after removing the plate trying to get the calibration cube off).

[gkrangan]

So I retried the print. This time, I made sure that there is no plastic sticking to the nozzle, and re-calibrated the printer.

Attached are the results. It's definitely better than before, but I guess it's not there yet.

For comparison, I have attached a picture of one printed (in green) on my PowerSpec Ultra, on a BuildTak surface.

Also, you will see that on the picture, where the print is still on the build-plate, there is quite a bit of stringing. I had bumped up the retraction-length to 4.75mm, prior to the print, and it seems like its no better than the default of 4.5mm. From a close observation, I feel this is happening during the Z-lift.

Can anyone please print the dust-filter on your unit, so we may compare? The link the design is here:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:190118

Other than the above 2 issues (bottom-layer and stringing), I think that out of the box, the calibration is quite good. The hinge on the dust-filter worked smoothly (without any effort) once I removed it from the build-plate.

Please let me know if there are any other ideas to fix the above two issues mentioned.

Thanks in advance.

[Mac The Knife]

When you printed the green one on another printer,,,, did you use Mattercontrol to generate the code?

[gkrangan]

No, that printer uses "slic3r" to generate the G-Code.

[JATMN]

Simplify3D fans I am currently tuning a test profile for the Eris at this very moment.. Started is before Maker Faire so I think is mostly done..
I will be posting on here later today so you can test it out..

[gkrangan]

Hello All,

I printed this other thing out, and the bottom-layer came out pretty nice. Please check out the pictures.

But, I'm still seeing quite a bit of stringing. Not sure if it is the Z-Lift, or inadequate retraction that is causing this. Other than that, the printer prints cool.

BTW, I pinged "Guanu" over the SeeMeCNC chat-room and here was his suggestion for the bottom-layer:

"typically the probe offset works for a good first layer, if you prefer the filament squishing more than it currently is, bring up the eeprom (in matter control click on options, and click configure next to eeprom settings when connected to the printer) and under Z Max Length, you can increase the number by .1 and that will bring the nozzle .1mm closer to the bed to give it more of a squish... if you want to have it .1 closer every time you run the calibration, instead of changing z max length, lower in the eeprom, you will see a setting for "Z Probe Height" and you can change it from -0.2 to -0.3 and that will make the results of the calibration closer to the bed".

I haven't tried the above yet. If anyone else is having issues with the bottom-layer, the suggestion above might be worth a try.

However, if any one has any ideas/suggestions to eliminate the stringing, please let me know.

Thanks.

[JATMN]

Hmm anyone notice issues leveling when the nozzle is too "cold" ?

Leveled earlier with the nozzle idle at 27C then about 2hrs later leveled with the nozzle at 32C and the results are different..

[gkrangan]

>>Leveled earlier with the nozzle idle at 27C then about 2hrs later leveled with the nozzle at 32C and the results are different..

Which one produced better results?

[JATMN]

32C it looks like.. the level plane was the most levelish.. 27C was crooked.

[TedMilker]

Simplify3D fans I am currently tuning a test profile for the Eris at this very moment.. Started is before Maker Faire so I think is mostly done..
I will be posting on here later today so you can test it out..

I will definitely test this out. Want to get out of MatterControl ASAP(can't really deal with 50MB STL files at all, S3D=no problems).

[JATMN]

Keep watching here (or FB). I took today off of work to recoup from Maker Faire. Glad I did cus I think im sorta sick too

Anyhow been working on the profile all day.. think I got it where I am happy enough to share it for more feedback.. Doing more tuning still prob be later this evening/tonight when I post it.. It will be missing a feature I wanted added to it still but seemecnc crew is all traveling or resting it looks like so ill have to release the first profile version without the feature.

[JATMN]

Eris Simplify3D (Beta) Machine Profile + Print Settings. (05-24-2016)

Sorry for the delay.. but shortly after I thought I had a good file..
Either I had issues with my laptop or my print head is jamming up.. Because now I am having very erratic extrusion issues..
But rather than make everyone wait to find out if it was my problem or a issue with the fff profile, I am posting it for testing.

Please rename the file to .fff after downloading and import it to Simplify3D

*****Note*****
- This is still a beta profile.
- If you find any issues or find better settings please let me know I will adjust them for the next version of the profile.
- Yes I am aware the build volume does not quite match the max volume of the Eris, while testing max volume I found that the limit in S3D was not matching the actual limits of the printer correctly and I was hitting the print bed clips.
- I recommend using a small desk fan pointed at the printer from the right side, this was how I was running all my test prints.

I will work on this profile more tomorrow after work but didn't want everyone to wait 18hrs+ to find out if it was usable.

Please let me know how this works out for everyone.

[AlanZ]

Jatmon,

I too have been having some very odd extrusion issues. Sometimes it's ok, then suddenly it starts printing like lace.

[AlanZ]

An example of when extrusions gets funky

3DBenchy gone bad...

Sometimes it goes bad then returns to normal.

Any ideas?

[JATMN]

So I had a failed print last night.. this was the Dum Dum from Thingiverse..
I was wondering if retractions were to blame..but.. this is really interesting..
If you look at your benchy and my dum dum print.. they both failed around the same height..

[IMBoring25]

Probably a coincidence. Yours is a shift probably due to skipped steps or slipping belts. The Benchy is a feeding issue either due to a partial clog or a problem at the filament drive.

[JATMN]

Probably a coincidence. Yours is a shift probably due to skipped steps or slipping belts. The Benchy is a feeding issue either due to a partial clog or a problem at the filament drive.

Mine is not a shift at all (just bad camera angle) that was several layer skips, the upper layers are correctly aligned.

And I had this issue for dozens of prints in almost the exact same spot. Else I would have posted the S3D profile like 4hrs before the time I did.. because I did a good print then every print after started doing this..

[AlanZ]

Mine also generally fail at about the same height... I have several examples, all failing within about 1/4" vertically of each other.

[Xenocrates]

Alan, In that case I almost suspect that the bowden tube is bending in a way which increases resistance at that point. Especially with the symptoms you're showing (Filament starvation). Would you see if you can alter the routing in a way where it will either bend less, or do so more gradually, and if that helps at all?

[gkrangan]

Folks,

I seem to have resolved the stringing problem that I had .

After messing with various settings, I believe I have narrowed it down to the Z-Lift.

I also lowered my temp down to 200 deg C, from the default of 210 deg C. I also restored the retraction-length back to 4.5mm, which was the default.

By default the Z-Lift was set to 1mm.

I slowly lowered the Z-Lift value to 0.5mm, then 0.3mm, and then finally 0.2mm. I was getting better and better results when I lowered it in steps.

I stopped at 0.2mm, since the stringing negligible or non-existent now.

Please check out the latest pictures and compare them to the ones from yesterday. The difference is night and day. They were taken immediately after removing them from the build-plate, as -is.

If anyone else is having stringing issues, see if lowering the Z-lift value helps.