ABS layers not sticking.

Hello all!
I want to say sorry in advance if this has been discussed but I’m really at a loss and looking for help.

I’m printing on Solidoodle3 200c extruded 60mm/minute extruding 10mm retracting 3mm, bed at 95c. And the bottom layer sticks to the bed just fine (I use ABS+acetone solution), however all other layers seem to not stick together and the print feels flimsy like a slinky. I’m not sure what the issue is and any help will be greatly appreciated. I am attaching pictures of my prints.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2014 03:29AM by Scribble.

Try increasing your nozzle temperature. I print ABS at 225 C.

The max temp for SD3 is technically 200, but we printed at 215 and a 225 and it did not seem to make any difference at all...

I'd say your temps are too low, and you are not extruding enough material.

Have you run any calibration prints?

If you are slicing with Slic3r, under Print Settings>Advanced>Default extrusion width, set that value to the same size as your nozzle, you will get much better solid infill.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2014 05:19PM by Dirty Steve.

It looks like it prints the first layers solid and then it moves down too low and the top layers stop sticking.

Here are some videos of it

[youtu.be]
[youtu.be]

Also I have tried configuring the extruder (how much filament it pulls) and it’s pulling 131.37 instead of 100 but then I’m not sure where to go from that because when I click the EEPROM window on my RH it’s empty and when I tried to fix it by adjusting the extruder multiplayer using the formula in the tutorial (i.e. if it’s pulling 30% more offset it to 0.7) it only adjusted to 127.52 and using 0.68 got me to 122.44 instead of 100... But at this point I still don’t think that calibrating the extruder will help my issue with layers not sticking... I’m sorry if this is confusing, I’m very new to this and trying to figure it all out and so far I am failing miserably.

Also to calibrate the bed do I calibrate it from “home” setting? Because when I do it seems fine but when it goes to print it actually lowers the bed to a slightly lower level so then the bed is way off... The only way I can calibrate the bed is when I kill the job straight away and calibrate to the position the extruder was in. What am I doing wrong?

Are you sure that the temperature of your hot end is actually reaching 215/225? It looks like the ABS is cooling too soon, which would explain why you're getting stringy prints.

I mean it feel pretty hot to me lol how would one check that?

Meat thermometer if you want to be cheap about it.
Most use an inferred thermometer though. Well worth the money, I use mine on all sorts of stuff.

Ok so that is to see if the internal thermometer is actually showing the right temperature?

I’ve contacted tech support from SD and they seem to think it’s the Z axis offset which what I secretly think as well but I’m having troubles leveling the bed correctly because my “home” position from which I try to calibrate is different from the actual print position and that’s why it’s way off all the time, the home position is actually closer to the bed but when it goes to print it drops a bit...

Yes. I've got a temperature probe on my multimeter, but an IR thermometer is probably more accurate.

A thermocouple all the way down into the hotend is the most acurate way to check your temperature, IR thermometers is affected by the thermal emissivity of what you are measuring. I have tried calibrating with both a IR thermometer and a IR camera, ended up being 5-10 degrees off.

If the problem is in the Z axis, prints would come out in a different height than expected.

My money is also on that you are extruding too little plastic, maybe at a too low temperature.