Help with tuning???

Hi Folks,

I have been less than happy with my prints lately but for the most part it never seemed to worry my too much...

Recently, I decided to start a huge project.... The Saturn V rocket on thingiverse... I think most of us has seen it!

I started with the Command Module, NOT a great print!.... a lot of the detail got lost in banding on the X-Y plane...

One thing on my printer (Sunhocky Prusa i3, e3d V6 Hot End, PCB heat bed with a glass plate and Buildtak) was leveling....

I have now fitted auto leveling and that works great but now I need to "fine tune" the printer!

I printed out a calibration piece 20 x 20 x 10 open box with a .4 wall (same as my nozzle)

The quality of this part is awesome and the leveling gave me a perfect skirt of .3! Very happy with that!!!

The problem is that the box is a little over size and the walls are measuring at .8....

I am thinking I need to adjust my e steps? but... By how much????

Can anyone help me out with this final tuning???

[reprap.org]

Pay attention to the E-steps calibration and fine tuning.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Do I still go back and run out say 100mm of filament, tune the e steps from that or is there a better way?
When you say "fine tuning"... Can you give me more on that please?

I just found Triffid Hunter's Calibration Guide....


I'll work through it later....

.8 when you wanted .4 is a big error, so yes, I'd start with measuring the 100mm. You can set the extrusion based on the extrusion width itself, but you have to get to the point where you can reliably get well aligned single wall prints 20 layers or higher, and be confident about measuring the top layer width to a few hundredths of a millimetre. Ultimately, the best test of extrusion is large areas of solid infill, but it takes a bit of practice to be able to eyeball a correct layer, and you have to be far enough away from the first layer for any effects of the initial layer height to have evened out.

Thank you James.

I'm using a .4 nozzle and printing at .2 layers.

I also had a slightly thicker 1st few layers???
1st run using my auto bed leveling. Printing a calibration part

Sorry about the quality of this but it's just to show it working....




I'm actually quite happy with this but not so for the sizing...
I'll try to tune my e-steps tomorrow....

That looks great. Once you figure out the over-extrusion you'll be sorted

Cross fingers!