T-Glase Troubles

[grabredemeyer]

I see some of you have been having a bit of luck with the Taulman T-glase and had a few questions. I started playing with a roll of the 1.75mm t-glase about 2 days ago and have had minor success. My first trouble had to do with very inconsistent filament diameter, which taulman is making right by sending me a whole new spool (in some areas the filament couldn't even fit through my bowden tubing), however, I've found a few good stretches of filament in the spool and have been running through some prints, but I keep clogging/jamming my hotend and I can't figure out why. I'm running my hotend around 218-220 which seems to be extruding well. I set my retraction below my abs level of 4.5mm which worked great for abs, but I feared was too high with the lower melting temp of t-glase. I set my retract all the way down to 1-2mm range. I just can't seem to keep it from clogging. I'm running a .5mm nozzle by the way, and I've tried thicker layer height as recommended per Taulman. I am not running a PEEK fan, but was told by the guys at Taulman that they don't run one with their stock seeme hotend either and have no problems. Any chance you guys could share some of your settings with me and I could compare notes and see if I can figure out what I'm doing wrong? I also would be interested in seeing if you guys have any thoughts on what might be the problem as well based on what I've said. A couple of notes...I successfully made it through one whole print that was hollow with only one perimeter, everything else is throwing me troubles. I will note that the one successful print was beautiful...stronger than ABS, super smooth finish, no warping, and a really pretty look, especially in the light. Also, Taulman's support has been wicked awesome about getting back to me super quick, making anything wrong right again, and giving me some tips and pointers about the material. Let me know what you guys think.

[cope413]

Hard to compare settings because I've got the E3D hotend.

I had virtually no issues with T-glase - other than the price

Does it seem to clog after retracts? After a certain amount of time printing? What speeds are you printing at? What speed are you retracting?

I don't know if PETT is subject to creep the way PLA is, but if you are able to print small items with no issue, but larger ones clog, then throw a PEEK fan on and see if that fixes the issue.

I printed at 212-214, speeds at 30-40mm/s max, .375 layer height, heated bed to 60C, retraction 10mm @ 60mm/s.

I got results like this...

which I use every day as my water cup in the office.

It's cool stuff. If it was cheaper, I'd use it more often.

[grabredemeyer]

Yeah, the results I got on the part I have successfully printed were pretty sweet.

[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/564 ... 7%20PM.jpg[/img]

I just can't seem to figure out how to get it more consistent. The problem seems to occur about 1/4 of the way through the print. As I said, Single-walled prints are my only success at this point. Anything with infill or more than one perimeter is what's throwing me troubles. That makes me feel like my problem is related to retraction causing some sort of buildup over the period of the print. I'm running 30mm/s speeds. My heated bed is at 75, hotend is at 215-220, .375 layer height (have tried .45), I'm retracting 2-4mm and am not home right now to check my retraction speeds. If I don't find success in the next day I think I'll setup my PEEK fan to see if that's the issue. I didn't think I'd need to based on what the guys at Taulman told me about the material and that they print long print long prints without problems with no fan on the stock seeme. Hope the extra info helps.

[cope413]

Have you tried lowering the temp a bit?

I noticed that it printed much better at 212-214. When I increased it, it really started oozing and got sloppy.

I've printed a number of parts that weren't single walled - 55% infill - 3 perimeters

So I know it works...

[grabredemeyer]

Yeah, no, I'm sure it works. I just wish I could figure out what I'm doing wrong. I won't get back to the machine until tomorrow morning at this point, but when I do, I'll lower my temps, move my retraction settings a bit closer to yours and see what happens. If there's no success with that, I'm going ton install the peek fan and see what happens. Just out of curiosity, what % do people usually run peek fans at? I believe the speed is controlled with a % value anyhow. I have the fan sitting here anyway, I guess I should install it finally. Haha. I'm having a hard time getting my inside perimeters to slow down as well..I know that's a slic3r thing but can't seem to find it. Any thoughts on that?

[cope413]

I'd recommend you hardwire your PEEK fan to the power supply so it's always on. 100%
Remember to go through PID autotune again after installing the fan.

I wouldn't use my retraction settings. I'm using an all metal hot end and it's very different than the stock end.

As for perimeter speed. In Slic3r... Print settings -> Speed ->

Perimeters = internal perimeters - or in other words, the perimeters you can't see when the print is finished. Typically, these can be higher than the external perimeters without affecting print quality.
Small perimeters = perimeters with radius of <6mm. Probably should be around 20-30mm/s for good finish.
External perimeters = the perimeters you see - or the outermost perimeters. Should be slower than internal perimeters for a nice finish.

[lordbinky]

Unless the peek fan is blowing air on your print when you don't want it to, there are no adverse effects of the peek fan. So other than that, a peek fan will keep your melt zone as short as possible which is important for retracts.

Don't forget that the speed at which the retracts are done are as important as how far you are retracting. The retract speed is dependent on the extruder and the filament (small nozzle holes can give you trouble as well). My ezstruder would carve through ABS and PLA at the retract speeds I have it for nylon. I haven't printed with T-Glase yet, but I'm really interested in it.

[grabredemeyer]

Alright, I think I figured out what's wrong and it doesn't appear to be anything I'm doing. I paid much closer attention to a couple of print jobs in a row and found the same thing happening. It looks like I'll be waiting for the new spool of t-glase to arrive before I can do any t-glase printing. Even though I found consistent lengths of filament, part way through the print, it would feed through to a very wide section that would get stuck in the ezstruder tube. I confirmed this by detaching my bowden tube and just letting a long chunk manually extrude through the ezstruder..and every time at some length into extruding, the t-glase would get stuck in the ezstruder. I did go ahead and try manually pressing the filament through just to be sure I wasn't just eating the filament in the extruder and I couldn't even manually get it through. Looks like the spool is just a bit worse off than I expected. Not a big deal, errors inevitably happen in manufacturing. I'll wait for the new spool to arrive and let you guys know what my results are.

[grabredemeyer]

Alright guys, the new spool from Taulman fixed my troubles. I'm loving this T-glase now that I have a good spool of it. Thank you guys for all the help!

[Chipguy]

I bought a couple of spools and have been trying to use it for a couple of prints that are 100% infill. It prints beautifully for about half the print and then for some reason it winds up with a mass of plastic built up around the nozzle and starts dragging it through the print leaving globs and then will run into them and lose steps on the drive gradually shifting the print over. This happened pretty quickly - we monitor the prints about every 5-10min and it has happened within that time span.

I'm using the stock hotend and .35 nozzle. I have retracts enabled, running about 212 extruder and 50 bed. Sticks wonderfully to glass/aquanet with no warping or peeling up.

I have yet to go back and try it with the .5 nozzle or a less than 100% infill. Just wondering if anybody else had had this happen. I love the appearance and strength of the material and the lack of warping.

I haven't checked the diameter consistency yet but will do that as well.

[geneb]

Back off the infill to say 95 and see what happens.

g.

[grabredemeyer]

If you don't already have one, I highly recommend installing a PEEK fan. Adding a PEEK fan solved nearly every problem I was having with t-glase once I got a good spool of it. I ran into a very similar problem and the PEEK fan really fixed things up for me. If you already have one, another thing that seemed to be causing me odd problems like that ith t-glase was temp believe it or not. It seems to be quite finicky when it comes to temp. 213 seems about perfect for me. Anything above that my layers are too "wet" as they lay and tend to stick to hotend more, etc.

[geneb]

Agreed. A PEEK fan should be installed no matter what material you're printing.

g.

[Chipguy]

Thanks for the input!

I neglected to mention in the first post I do have a PEEK fan on it.
The part I'm trying to print is actually a new mount for dual E3D heads.

I checked the filament and the diameter is pretty consistent.
I haven't really played around with the temperature but I might try lowering it slightly. It might be too gooey.

I will also try again with the lower infill and see what happens.

[cope413]

Definitely lower the temp. I found that going as low as possible works best with the stuff. At 212 on my E3D end it worked great. 215 -220 and I got oozing.

The stuff is really, really strong. There is really no reason to go above 55% infill. 10-15% would be fine for the majority of prints.

[m4r1n5]

Tried different levels of temp's but its still not stcking to the bed. I can pull it off with ease. Ive also tried diff layer hieghts and running at 40mm/s spd. I know once it gets to a certain height, the nozzle will move the print right off the bed

[ahgu]

What peek fan are you talking about? I have the stock model of the Orion Delta. Do I need to replace the fan?

PETT is more viscous, or sticky, What is the best nozzle size and setting? I am using 0.35 and sometime it leaves tiny threads behind within the print. Annoying since I need to clean it out.
Does lowering the temp help? I was running at 220C.

[geneb]

The Orion comes pre-installed with the PEEK fan and it gets turned on automatically.

g.

[cyrus104]

I'm having some trouble with being able to pull apart each layer pretty easily once the print is done and cooled.

I'm printing very slow at around 14mm/s @ 218 (have tried as low as 212 and as high as 222). I have a .5 nozzle but have not tried putting it to a .6 nozzle in the software. I am currently printing at .5 layer height.

Thanks

[DavidF]

Try printing at .3 layer height...

[Glacian22]

Are you guys running a layer fan with this stuff, or does it not need one?

[cyrus104]

I'll try and upload some photos soon.

Latest print .3mm @ 222 and 10mm/s is the best I can do. I do have a fan on and the fan turns on to around 50-100 percent based on print time.

The .3mm is looking better and stronger bonds between layers. It does not look like I'm able to print any faster though.

[Eaglezsoar]

I would like to see the pictures. That stuff is impressive when you get it to print right.

[cyrus104]

Here are a couple of pictures of an object after it cooled and I played with it. I will take pictures of a fresh object. I did some of the pulling apart on these pictures but most of the splitting was done during the print. This one was printed at 7mm/s, any faster and it either won't print properly or the ezstruder gear skips. I've made sure to clean the gear and as soon as I switch to ABS it prints perfect.

This was printed at 218C or 220C.

[DavidF]

The pictures, that was at a .5 layer height right? On a .5 mm nozzle.... No squish with that combo.