Good Morning,
I have had this printer for 2 months now and it has been an awesome experience, as long as I print only PLA or PETG. Anytime I try to print with high temp filaments such as ABS, ASA, or Nylon I have troubles.
I have been patient and have worked through these issues one by one to try and solve them. This is not my first 3d printer so I am well aware this is how it goes at times. Unfortunately, Creality has not been any help at all, with them apparently ignoring my support emails at this point.
Like I mentioned earlier, low temp filaments print beautifully on this machine, with the CFS working perfect for color changes and everything. the problems all show up when I crank the heat up. Also, I want to mention I already have logged over 300 hrs of print time on this machine.
Here is a list of my problems and the troubleshooting steps:
-First apparent issues was z banding.
This was a Polymaker ASA filament printed at 100mms (max volumetric flow of 10mms) with .4 nozzle at .20 layer height. Temps were 260 at the hotend, 90 on the bed and 50 chamber. First pair on left was using variable layer height, second pair on right was using fixed layer height. I have posted about this before, and thought at first I was printing at faster speeds for these prints, but later realized that the volumetric flow was limiting it to around 100 mms, which was good.
What I checked for this issue was all the mechanical components first.
- Belt tension
- checked for binding in motion for all the axis
- manually leveled the bed to help with auto leveling
- tightened all the bolts on every component
- greased all the motion components
- checked once again all the calibrations for the filaments I was using (Polymaker ASA)
- ensured a clean build plate and bed
- removed the caps from the top of the z axis lead screws to let them move freely if needed
- used only fixed layer heights
- slowed the prints to 80mms for all settings
After all of this the prints improved quite a bit, but I still had similar issues with banding. But when I would switch filaments to PLA for the exact same print file the prints came out almost perfect. Even after doubling the speed the prints would look so much better with PLA. So the issues seem to be cause by the extra heat.
Second problem I noticed was the first layer being too close. It got to the point that some prints failed because the extruder was so close it couldn’t print. Once again only an issue with high temp filaments.
Troubleshooting steps for this were:
- perform full calibrations again
- preheat the bed and chamber for 30 minutes before printing
- check all bolts once again
- verify actual clearance between the hotend and build plate at actual print temperature with metal feeler gauges (this is where it got interesting)
Turns out on my printer when the hot end heats up to print temp of 260 it apparently is expanding between .075 to .1mm and causes the first layer to be too close. I verified this multiple times with repeated test, and even swapped out the nozzle for a clean new one to make sure that oozing filament wasn’t causing this result. Still the same thing became obvious that the clearance between the nozzle and the bed would be perfect .2mm (where I set it in the fluidd console) with the nozzle at the 140 degrees, but when it is heated to 260 degrees the clearance would reduce by the amounts mentioned above. The only way I could fix this was to set a positive z offset of .08mm in my slicer profile for my high temp filaments. After doing this the first layers would go down the way they should. This was not an issue for PLA, only for the higher temp filaments.
So, I worked my way around these issues, and I managed a few successful prints out of the machine. But there is still one problem that keeps showing up randomly on high temp prints. And that is layer shifting. Here a some pics of a particular part that is giving me troubles.
I have tried printing this part 5 times and each time it fails. Each time it is from a layer shift occurring, This is Polymaker ASA with a tuned profile. I have tried a .4 nozzle at .2 and .28 layer height, and a .6 nozzle at .24 and .30 layer heights. Print temp is 260, bed 90 chamber 50. It is a functional part with 100% infill.
Troubleshooting steps so far have been:
- checking all printer motion for smoothness and proper lubrication
- belt tensions
- bed adhesion is perfect and bed is clean
- chamber and bed are preheated and full calibrations run at start of print
- chamber and bed preheated with only auto leveling run at start of print (using filament profile)
- I have slowed print speeds down as far as 80mms for all settings including travel
- I have resliced the model each time and have verified the layers in the preview before sending to printer
Now keep in mind that this part will print perfect using PLA, either polymaker or creality filaments. I used both to print quick prototypes of the part as I was designing it. But now that I want the functional part printed from ASA it is giving me trouble. The main differences are the temps involved with the ASA filament printing, and the 100% infill.
Today to continue troubleshooting:
- I first have to unclog the print head because it clogged during that last print attempt pictured above with the spaghetti.
- Then I plan to run all the filament calibrations again for the Polymaker ASA using Orca this time as a slicer versus Creality Print 6.
- Also I will try using Orca to slice and print this particular model since it doesn’t require any color changes. (But I definitely need CP6 to work because most of the parts I need have color changes, so I have to figure out what is really going on here.)
- Try slowing accelerations down from default (although I don’t think this is the issue)
- I have a thought that over extrusion may be causing this since it is 100% solid part, but I have run the calibrations for that both manually and automatically. And have tried each separately. But if it is over extruding the filament could be piling up and causing a collision, but when watching the print is doesn’t look like it is doing that. I haven’t actually been watching when the layer shifts occur so I am not sure if it is a collision causing it.
I am doing my best to try and figure this out, because printing these high temp filaments is why I bought the printer. I already have another printer that prints PLA perfectly. The issues all seem to arise when the heat gets cranked up. I’m starting to consider that cooling of the electrical components such as the stepper motors and the control boards may need to be addressed. Most of my prints are a minimum of 6 hours with the longest being 28 hours. Maybe heat buildup is causing the missed steps. At this point I honestly don’t know
The battle continues LOL!