Help with diagnosis

[Motopreserve]

Hey folks. I've been humming along printing on my Mac V2, and loving every minute of it. I hadn't used it a couple weeks, and my first print turned out horrible. It seemed as if the infill was not printing at all.

I then took the nozzle off, cleaned it and put it back on. I have checked the extrusion and it seems to be hitting 100mm when told to do so, and have checked to make sure there are no snags in the filament travel. The bed calibration was done again after cleaning and a test 20mm x 20mm test cube print came out pretty perfect (including infill and top layer).

I'd appreciate any thoughts that you might have as to what would be causing this. Thanks in advance!

[img]http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee427/nortstudio/3D%20Printing/CC89654E-8BCE-42BA-967B-648B3A2EEE9D_zpsoqamsnyh.jpg[/img]

[mhackney]

Classic filament starving. There are many factors that cause this. Some mechanical, some software/slicer and some electrical.

Is this a part you had printed successfully before from the SAME gcode file? If yes, then we go down one path, if no, then you should try to print something that you have a gcode file that printed successfully.

Also, we need details - what filament is this (ABS? PLA? ??) and what slicer and slicing parameters including temps.

[Earthbound]

If another object (test cube) prints ok, problem is likely in the model (STL file) or an issue in slicer settings. Post your STL and gcode files if possible. Picture looks like first layer(s) went down alright and maybe just an infill problem. What kind of filament?

[Motopreserve]

Thanks so much guys. I assumed the filament was starving - which is why I'd hoped that the cleaning would do the trick.

I'm wondering if it is in fact a bad gcode/slice issue. Sorry I didn't provide more detail to begin with.

I am using 1.75 ABS, the stock V2 nozzle (.5), mattercontrol interface using matterslice as the slicer. The hot end temp is at 235, which has always worked well. I have never tried to print this part before - and the test cube printed fine.

The first layer seemed to lay down fine - good adhesion and it looked pretty decent when I pulled up this mess

STL file attached.

[Earthbound]

I don't see anything tricky about the STL. It's been a long time since I used MatterControl (since mhackney turned me on to KISSlicer). Does MatterSlice have an adjustment for infill extrusion width? Something is haywire with the infill. What is the print speed you are using for sparse infill? Layer fan is disabled, correct?

[Motopreserve]

The layer fan is definitely not running.

The infill is at:

Density - .2
Triangles
Infill speed - 75mm/s
Perimeter speed - 50
Outside perimeter speed - 35
Bridges speed - 60
First layer speed - 12

Do you think I'm moving too quick for the infill? Is it possible that this would effect a larger print in a much different way that a smaller one? I had no issues with these exact settings on the test print (or many others for that matter).

Thanks for the responses folks!

[lightninjay]

Give lowering your infill speed a shot! It usually never hurts to run all of your settings at the same speed (certain exceptions being made for things like bridging), it will only slow your overall print time down. Try bumping your infill speed down to either 50, to match your outside perimeter speed, or possibly even both your perimeter AND infill down to 35 to match your outside perimeter speed. If the first layer is the only thing going down solid, then clearly slower speeds (12 mm/s apparently) seem to work at the time being, but if this is the fastest you can print reliably with this filament, it seems to be hinting at some other mechanical issue, such as filament slippage at the hobbed gear.

[Motopreserve]

I'll
Give it a shot slowing it down.

I've been concerned with the Hobbed gear in the past. Granted, this hasn't effected the test/other prints. But they were all smaller. So maybe when it's trying to do larger travel at speed, it's slipping?

I really don't understand the best way to set the tightness/grip of the gear and system up top. It is certainly showing signs of teeth on the filament before heading into the hot end.