Poor print quality with RRF3 - especially 3.2.2.
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Yeah putting another unicorn printer in close proximity might get you into a heap of trouble with piles of little unicorn printers popping up everywhere - not a pretty sight!
(Couldn't help myself)
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@deckingman, please try a print using 3.3beta1. After homing and before printing, run M122 on all 4 boards to clear the stats. Then start the print. If/when it's looking bad, pause the print, run M122 on all the boards again, and post the results here. What I am particularly looking for is whether you get send timeouts on the main board and/or nonzero 'oos' counts on any of the expansion boards.
Duet WiFi hardware designer and firmware engineer
Please do not ask me for Duet support via PM or email, use the forum
http://www.escher3d.com, https://miscsolutions.wordpress.com -
@JoergS5 said in Poor print quality with RRF3 - especially 3.2.2.:
@hackinistrator I second that: I hesitated to propose to check something simple, because @deckingman is such an experienced user.
But if you look at the forum, there are often cases where, after a long search for complicated reasons, it was something simple like
- dirty pulley or damaged belt
- off-center pulley
- old filament, being too wet
- bent shaft of a stepper
- damaged nozzle
The easiest would be to have a clone printer and compare the results. Unfortunately it's not so easy with a unicorn printer! But somehow it's necessary to find a decision between hardware and firmware problem.
Oh, please. A dirty pulley which magically cleans itself? (And the printer is in a dustproof booth). An off centre pulley which magically makes itself centred. The filament is a brand new reel but it's hard to imagine some metres of that reel could be wet, yet for the next print, it will be dry. A bent stepper shaft which straightens itself for one print and bends again for the next? A damaged nozzle which undamaged itself for the next print then damages itself again?
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@dc42 Thanks. Will do.
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One other thing that I hadn't mentioned, the printer doesn't have an RPi fitted - so this is all stand alone and anything to do with SBCs can be discounted. For what it's worth, I don't have a PanelDue either - just DWC on an aged laptop.
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@deckingman Can you take a picture of the hot end setup at the moment? I don't think I've seen a picture of how your machine is currently configured. Might give some insight into any potential physical (rather than firmware) issues.
I assume you're using one of the six extruders to feed the hot end, but the others are still mounted. Another test to rule out extruder issues would be to swap to using a different extruder (if you haven't done this already).
Recently I had the grub screw loosen, that holds the hobbed drivegear on the motor shaft on a BMG extruder, just enough for it to wiggle a bit on the flat but not completely rotate free, and took me a while to figure out what was causing extrusion problems that are not wildly different from yours ('random' over and under extrusion, particularly at the end of lines; basically retraction wasn't doing anything, so filament oozed on moves). This was caused by swapping extruders around, as I've recently got an Orbiter v1.5, and not fully tightening the grub screw on the shaft when assembling for the 100th time. Might also explain why pressure advance stopped working for you.
Just to be clear, this is in no way meant to be condescending, just an observation.
Ian
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@droftarts As it happens, I had considered using one of the other 5 extruders that are mounted but otherwise unused with this particular hot end. IMO, it seems to be more extrusion related than carriage motion related. Odd that the problems can appear to be present for the whole of one print and then completely absent for the whole of another print - but not beyond the realms of possibility. I'm planning on swapping to 3.3. beta as per Davids suggestion, but if I get a bad print and nothing shows up on the diagnostics, I'll try another extruder.
The best way to describe the current hot end arrangement is to point you to a recent video I've posted in another thread https://forum.duet3d.com/topic/21919/curious-audible-pitch-change-with-varying-move-length
That link will take you to a video showing it "in action" but if you want some pics, let me know.
Edit, 'er on doors has got car problems that I need to sort out, so I might not get much done today.
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@deckingman Thanks, I was just watching the video!
Ian
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@droftarts Curious isn't it?
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@JayJay said in Poor print quality with RRF3 - especially 3.2.2.:
Fan boy alert....
Why do you try to silence him?
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@deckingman
I read the whole thread before I dared to ask: Don't you think it's funny, that it is always the first print that fails?
How do you store the filament? Maybe it needs some more time between storage and first print? A good wine needs to breeze, too
Just trying to think out off the box
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@o_lampe said in Poor print quality with RRF3 - especially 3.2.2.:
@deckingman
I read the whole thread before I dared to ask: Don't you think it's funny, that it is always the first print that fails?Well, the sample size is small, so it may just be coincidental, but you aren't the first to point that out. Another coincidence is that I started another thread about my Z homing switch which sometimes erroneously gets reported as being triggered when it isn't. Cycling the power fixes it. To date, that has only ever happened first thing in the morning and never later in the day.
How do you store the filament? Maybe it needs some more time between storage and first print? A good wine needs to breeze, too
I store the filament in sealable bags, with silica gel desiccant inside each bag (the type that changes colour when it has absorbed moisture). The bagged reels of filament then go back inside their original boxes along with a slip of paper with the date when the filament was bought. The boxes are stored on a pull out rack which sits alongside the printer, and which is inside a dust proof "booth". Also inside this booth are two disposable type de-humidifiers of the type which use Calcium Chloride.
Any filament that is more than year old gets discarded (or I might use it in desperation but would be highly suspicious of any parts made with it).
Details of the storage rack are here https://somei3deas.wordpress.com/2019/12/13/pull-out-filament-storage-rack/
Details of the "booth" that houses the printer and rack are here https://somei3deas.wordpress.com/2019/11/27/new-home-for-my-printer/
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@deckingman said in Poor print quality with RRF3 - especially 3.2.2.:
Any filament that is more than year old gets discarded (or I might use it in desperation but would be highly suspicious of any parts made with it).
Does that include original vacuum sealed packages that were never opened ?
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@jens55 said in Poor print quality with RRF3 - especially 3.2.2.:
@deckingman said in Poor print quality with RRF3 - especially 3.2.2.:
Any filament that is more than year old gets discarded (or I might use it in desperation but would be highly suspicious of any parts made with it).
Does that include original vacuum sealed packages that were never opened ?
No. I date them when I open them (break the seal). IMO, anything else is pointless unless they have a manufacturing date on them, which I've rarely seen. No system is perfect as one could get a reel that's been in storage for months or (even years conceivably) before one made the purchase.
Even then, I've had bad reels but it tends to be kind of obvious. Since a very bad experience with the eSun PET-G, I've learned to be suspicious of the first print with a new reel - foil and vacuum packed or otherwise.
I have a feeling that reel of eSun PETG fell overboard somewhere in the South China sea, was fished out after a months immersion, and only then put into a vacuum packed foil bag. I don't see how else it could have got so wet. I passed it on to a friend who spent hours and hours drying it but he never had much luck with it. Never bought any eSun filament since (although others swear by it).
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Good ... you had me worried there for a bit because I have a fairly substantial stock pile. I buy a year's estimated supply at boxing day prices and have filament that is more than 2 years old but in the original sealed vacuum package.
I use mostly black and white but also have some coloured filament that is sealed but is rarely used. -
@jens55 Different filaments have different properties. I'm told that Nylon is a bugger for absorbing water (never used it myself) but PLA is reasonably forgiving. On the other had, it seems to go brittle if left on the machine too long but often, pulling out a couple of metres or so will sort it out. There is a school of thought that say UV light plays a part in that.
What you doing is probably fine. If you didn't buy a batch at a time and store it at home, it'd likely sit in Amazon's warehouse until you or someone else bought it. Just be on the lookout for print defects when you first fit a new reel, or again, if you know the filament has been opened and sitting around for a while.
Personally I prefer to buy it more sort of "as and when" I need it. There is less chance of getting a number of bad reels because they all come from the same (bad) batch. I stick with the same supplier - they've served me well over the years and I know they'd likely do a refund or send another reel if I came across a bad one.
