Finally churning out good prints.

[lazerusrm]

Im going to post some things in here for those who are loosing hope that they will be able to print well with a rostock MAX....

mine has always pretty much sucked at printing stuff well. Main problems:

1.) filament binding in extruder
2.) Stringing / retraction.
3.) Filament breaking in extruder if a lot of retractions
4.) Print head overheating part, could only print well at lower temps and then layer separation. Adding fan helped, then hot end wouldn't stay hot, and bed would cool off.
5.) Printer breaking bowden tube fittings often, hard to find balance between enough tension and not too much to break fittings.
6.) Poor quality prints in general, slicing programs pissing me off / unable to calibrate.
7.) Prints lifting off bed, poor adhesion.

Finally i have all of these things sorted out. I'm going to list what i had to do to get things working well. Bottom line is:

1.) Throw all 1.75mm filament out and switch to 3mm filament. Solved problems 1,2,3,5.
2.) Adding fan on hotend. I printed a specific one made for the rostock, i will show which one. Solved problems 2(partial),4, 5.
3.) Replaced crappy bowden fittings with some high quality ALL BRASS fittings from ALKON. These fittings are amazing. worlds better. Solved problem 5.
4.) Insulated hot end. Solved cooling problems to an extent.
5.) PET Tape from lulzbot -- Amazing worth every penny.
6.) Slice with CURA 13.03 using my tuned settings. AMAZING PROGRAM. Way better than anything else, hands down, no question. I will post my print settings that work very VERY well.

Planned mods: Rebuild hot end with new thermistor (mine overheated and is off 15 degrees now, still works well.) Upgrade to 40W heater cartridge. --Have the parts, waiting for resistors to give up before getting in there.

Printing reliably at high speed and high quality. Printed a usable AR-Lower receiver, and can print very small parts with great accuracy. Great bridging.

If i had my say in the rostock MAX production kits it would be this:

Use 3MM filament in ALL KITS. 1.75mm is no good in a bowden setup.
Provide industrial bowden fittings, not the kind with the cheap "ring" that grabs the tube. i've snapped them way to much. All brass fittings = Heaven.
Reinforce extruder -- it bends considerably causing extra "slop" and requires extra retraction MM to take up.
Injection molded fan assembly for hot end.
40W heater cartridge as standard for hot end temperature stability and longevity.

Thread to be updated later with more information, i just had to write this out really quick.....

[foshon]

Going to get popcorn....

[cambo3d]

would be interesting to see your settings...

[lazerusrm]

Sorry guys. I have been busy with my printer. I switched from MARLIN to Repetier firmware, and it broke some things in the firmware that i used, i found workarounds though.

I also have been updating my hot end and other things.

Biggest things are:

I slice with CURA

I use a FAN

I switched to 3MM Filament.

I run dual Heaters in my hotend.

i'll work on this thread when i find the time / interest to do so. ill try to post some print pics at some point too.

[lazerusrm]

Here is a sample piece, i belive i printed this at 80mm/sec

[lazerusrm]

Another part at 100MM/sec 350MM/sec Travel