Whats the widest print width?

[mrbi11]

The slicr just defaults to 0's for the default, but that seems
to just set everything at about the same width as nozzle diameter.

I read this is actually set by the fluid flow rate, so it can be above or below the diameter, and layer height is recommended lower.

So with layer height of 0.2mm, with 0.5mm tip, what is the maximum extrusion width for a "clean" print?
By clean I mean the perimeter and/or solid infill both appear flat and without gap.

Default (Slic3r) appears to be 0.5mm perimeters, 0.53 solid infill.

[cope413]

Ok so here's the deal, because there's been an influx of questions like this recently...

There isn't a book or glossary of terms and settings that is authoritative with 3D printing.

There's no way anyone can answer your question correctly - we can only point you in different directions that you will need to test yourself.

All of the information needed for you to correctly calibrate your machine has pretty much been covered in this forum...

Your nozzle, printer, filament, ambient temperatures, hardware settings, and parts are unique to you. So there is no definitive answer to your question.

So in order for you to get an answer, you'll need to try different things, measure, and try again...

The first thing I would suggest is to calibrate your extruder. Polygonhell has an excellent post on exactly how to do that.

Once that's done, I would recommend you extrude filament into the air through RepHost, and measure the width.

Then use that width for your slicer extrusion width settings. Try to print something. Does it look right? If yes, great, you're calibrated with that filament/part/nozzle. If no, measure and re-adjust.

If you want a general rule - 110% of your nozzle diameter is close to what you should expect for extrusion width. So a .5mm nozzle is gonna be somewhere in the neighborhood of .55mm. Your results could vary, but that's a starting point.

Just remember, as of right now, printing is more art than science.

[mrbi11]

Thats way more definitive than anything i have found. Thanks!

Not sure about what you mean by callibration.
I have
a) verified my filament is 1.75
b) corrected the steper constant for extruder, so that a command to extrude 200mm of filament
extrudes 200mm +/- 0.5% (1mm)

So from my painfully small volume of knowledge, slic3r's computation of the volume of melty stuff will be correct.
Is there more to calibrating the extruder than that?

One (of many) bits I find confusing, the default slic3r setting for "first layer" width is 200%,
and the default perimeter is 0.5, so I beleive that means 1.0 mm first layer,
which is way more than other "maximum" rules of thumb i can find.

So can it really do 200%, but it looks like hell, or does this just mean do as much as you can push through so it sticks to something?

Thanks again. I will do some tests around that range.

[geneb]

b) corrected the steper constant for extruder, so that a command to extrude 200mm of filament
extrudes 200mm +/- 0.5% (1mm)

You're gonna be mad, but I don't think that's good enough.

A +/- 1mm difference is HUGE when you're putting down fractions of that distance.

Work with a smaller length of material - 100mm is fine and try marking the filament with a razor knife in order to make measuring more accurate.

g.

[Polygonhell]

Filament is rarely actually 1.75mm, and most of it has significant variation over any significant length. IMO the best way to calibrate is to print thin wall test piece, measure it with a micrometer, then validate that with a 100% infill piece.

[mrbi11]

Not even slightly miffed!
I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions.

I was proud because before mine was like 5% off.
My prints had noticeable gaps between rows!