3D Printing Forum

Hi all,

I would like to experiment more with new filaments in the future and was wondering how you dial in your printer settings for new filaments. Do you have special routines to figure out optimal print and bed temperature and other settings like flow rate or print speed? Do you use specific STLs that help you to find these settings? How would you tackle this?

Best regards,
Reiner

Great question!

I've been struggling to get some consistent settings for Cura for things like the ColorFabb carbon fiber material. It seems everyone has a unique way of dialing in settings that work

As I figured out I'm not changing speed that much the overhang test by Ultiarjan is a very good starting point for me.

https://www.youmagine.com/designs/quick ... ament-test

LePaul wrote:It seems everyone has a unique way of dialing in settings that work

I don't think there is a magic answer. I see the same in RC car racing: everybody want the setup of the fast drivers, but if you don't have the same driving style it does not help.

For 3D printing it is about the same: for a given filament it depends on what you print, on your printer and it's equipment (fans, ...) -- my 2 UMO's are printing differently, I suspect the accuracy of the temperature sensor is playing a role.

So I start with what the manufacturer is recommending, and I go from there.
Under-extrusion? maybe I am printing too fast or too cold
Bad layer bonding? I need to try warmer
... and so on.

I tend to make adjustments while printing and see how it goes, and use that as base for the next print.

I agree with the guys above, the first thing I try is to remove the Bowden tube from the print head then set the temperature 20' below the manufacturers minimum temperature, then I manually push a length of filament through to the hot end and see how it feels, apply a gentle pressure to see if it extrudes, then increase the temperature in 5' steps testing it each time through the temperature range to the max temperature, then cool the print head to 95'c and do an atomic pull and see what it looks lime.
Then I print one of utliarjan's temperature test as above, also a volume flow test cylinder, next I test print with the UM robot, and the tree frog to see how the results compaired. Then see about altering the temperature if needed, a few hours well spent

I always consider myself a noob, although lately I've been starting to get the results I expected 2 years ago. So my answer is simple:
I don't. I just print
Perhaps that's the problem

Titus wrote:I don't. I just print
Perhaps that's the problem

LOL Yes, that was my approach up to now too, but since I tend to print bigger things that take longer and are waste more time and material if they fail, I thought it might be worth to establish a more "scientific" approach.

Yes I just print. When the printer it's going to start I prime 15mm on the start gcode. If I see too little filament going I raise 5C if too much I lower it. Then I make annote on my profile and so on. Basic temp + anything the filament/color asks.

Do you modify the start gcode manually? Or is this a setting in Cura?

I have it on the gcode profile of s3d. On cura it's also the same (but you need to use RepRap Flavour). afaik

Would a bigger number of skirt lines have the same effect? That would be easy to add to the Cura settings without changing to RepRap code.

Titus wrote: I don't. I just print

To be honest, it is what I am doing most of the time. The majority of what i print are 'functional parts' and to some extents I am not too concerned if it does not look perfect...

reibuehl wrote:Would a bigger number of skirt lines have the same effect?

Not really. Priming more allows you to build pressure in the bowden so that it starts well immediately.
A bigger skirt will do the same, BUT you might have adhesion problems at the start and then the head will drag part of the skirt with it eventually generating a big mess...

I normally test new filaments with the settings recommended by the manufacturer and print an Ultimaker Robot as a test piece
That is the model I have printed most copies of by far, so I know fairly well how it is supposed to print by now. It has bridging, ugly overhangs and other challenges, and it is a quick print, so I like to use it for testing. Ultiarjans test surely looks nice though!

If the robot does not print properly I change the settings while printing until it looks okay.
I normally don't do more testing that that, any fine tuning is done while printing what I was supposed to print with the new filament.

Depending on what I am going to print, I sometimes print the robot with 100% infill to dial in the extrusion rate properly, like right now when I am testing the GMASS Tungsten filament.

Unknown filament or new versions of already known are verified on calibrated parameters, and if necessary, parameters are adjusted. And then i just print.