New printer makes messy prints.. help? Suggestions?

Please let me know if I should be posting this elsewhere. I would really appreciate any insight everyone might have on what's wrong with my settings or printer.

I have a new printer from mbot 3D, which is an open source copy of the Replicator. Out of the box, it is printing slightly odd shaped objects. Some of the issues seem to look like they could be caused by overheating, but I'm also finding that many horizontal surfaces aren't aligned properly. In a few of the examples especially, it looks like the border and fill aren't the same.

These are all printed in ABS, between the temperatures of 220 and 240 (sometimes 220 didn't work because it didn't stick to the non-heated platform), usually around 230. They have an infill of 10%, and both feedrates were 40mm/s. The layer height is .27, and the number of shells is 1. All were printed with a raft. This is using ReplicatorG with settings for mbot, and 5.2 firmware.

Here are the links to the models I used:

[www.thingiverse.com] (Cat Laying Around) - the tail and front legs have holes in them, and right behind the head there's an empty space

[www.thingiverse.com] (Trilego) - the inside seems to be the right shape, but the outline is jagged and not attached well. The pips on top are oval shaped and messy.

[www.thingiverse.com] (Meeple - scaled using ReplicatorG 2x) - both the outline and the fill are fairly messy. Vertical lines are better than horizontal.

[www.thingiverse.com] (Barrel Monkey Cookie Cutter) - the vertical lines (cutting part) are almost perfect. The flat bottom is very messy, again with the borders and fill not connecting well at all.

[www.thingiverse.com] (Lucy the cat) -- this was printed with no infill - almost perfect on the back, but the chest area is wispy and has a hole in it. the top of the tail also has a small hole.

(Also a 4cmx4cmx1cm box that I don't have a link for) - Oddly, this one worked very well. The sides are fairly smooth, with one corner slightly jagged. The top is smooth except for one bump, and the bottom is fairly smooth but very wavy. Looks like maybe it shrank a lot on the first layer?

You can see pictures of all these prints here: [plus.google.com]

Teya,
You have the right place to post.
I'm not the most experienced, and I am not familiar with that printer, but I'm assuming the printer itself is not malfunctioning here since the prints are not too bad for first prints. Here is my 2 cents worth of opinions:

Generally, DIY printers use print settings customized to the particular printer and the part to print depending upon its' features.
laying cat- looks like you need more infill to support the highly curved overhang top layers. maybe 90-100%.
trilego- strange, perimeter joggle issue-unknown, top studs may need to be slower or cooler to come out correct?
monkey- seems to have trouble with print bed adherence. maybe slow the first layer.
sitting cat- looks like perimeter failure in an overhang (sloped) side, although not the most sloped of the sides. Try more perimeter layers, and/or it may need more infill for this print. Since the rest of it looks good, that may fix it.
Note: Most people I have seen recommend 2-3 perimeter layers in general unless they are doing something unusual.
Hope it helps,

Thank you for input! I will test your suggestions tonight.

Hi Teya, have you had any further progress with prints?

Ross