Slic3r barely extuding at all...

Hey there... So I've been 3D printing for a couple of years now. And mostly used Cura, which is fine for many prints, but there are also many prints, where the more specific options some of the other Slicers have to offer, would really come in handy.
From the Slicers I've seen I think I like Slic3r the best. Unfortunately when I try to use Slic3r, I get barely any extrusion at all. It does extrude a very little bit, but so little that nothing is printed except a few strings and little "droplets" of plastic. Under extrusion would be an understatement.
Just to be clear, my problem is related to Slic3r, I don't have a clogged nozzle, my firmware is set up correctly and my printer prints flawlessly using the same settings in Cura for example. My nozzle is primed correctly, I've tried a longer than necessary skirt and even fed the filament manually while printing the skirt, which produced a solid line until I let the extruder feed the filament by itself again).
I've double checked all settings many times.
The settings I'm using (which I would consider most relevant to extrusion problems) are:
Nozzle diameter: 0.4 mm
Filament diameter: 1.75 mm
Extruder Temperature: 230 °C (I've only tried Slic3r with PLA so far)
Extrusion multiplier: 1.07 (1 should also work fine, but I prefer stronger parts over dimension accuracy)
Infill/perimeter overlap: 15 %
Infill widths: mostly 110 % (some of them a little higher)
I've set it to use absolute E distances and no firmware retraction and no volumetric E.
Pressure advance and vibration limit: 0
The printer I'm using is a Prusa i3 clone with a single direct drive and non geared extruder. I'm running the 64 bit version of Slic3R found here [dl.slic3r.org] on Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. I have also tried the 32 bit version and got the same results.
Any ideas as to what might be causing this behavior are welcome.

Thank you in advance!

Kind regards
Delphiño

Hello

I had a problem like this it turn out that I had set the filament size in the slicer to 3mm, causing the under-extrusion.
Corrected my mistake and the filament was flowing correctly for the prints.

I however did get a swiss cheese print shown below. (Should be solid)


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2018 05:16PM by Roberts_Clif.

Hey, thanks for the quick reply... Unfortunately my filament size is set up correctly. Also I get a lot less extrusion than that. In my case you really can't recognize the object.

All your settings seem to be right. Did you check them twice by looking into a gcode file? All the settings are listed there again.
I'd also take a look at the start code of slicer. Might find something wrong there. Especially M92 E#### commands or mixing ratios of multinozzle extruders.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2018 04:33PM by o_lampe.

Thanks for the tip... I have actually looked into the gcode and everything seemed mostly normal as far as I could tell, the Extruder is often zeroed out with M92, but after that movements also go from E0 on, so I don't really see a problem there. The settings listed at the end of the gcode seem to be the same as I have set in Slic3r.
I did noticed this at the beginning of the gcode, which I considered rather odd:
; external perimeters extrusion width = 0.22mm
; perimeters extrusion width = 0.24mm
; infill extrusion width = 0.22mm
; solid infill extrusion width = 0.22mm
; top infill extrusion width = 0.22mm
I assumed that is probably taking the overlap settings etc. into consideration. And while it seems rather thin, honestly I think my printer is extruding less than that, it's probably extruding like a fifth or so of what it should.
I added a G29 to the start gcode (to enable auto bed leveling) and I added a M109 S[first_layer_temperature] at the beginning of the start gcode, so the extruder heats up before homing, since slic3r usually homes (and auto bed levels) while heating the extruder and only then waits for it to heat up. Which I'm guessing is supposed to save time. It can cause the nozzle to hit the print bed though if there is a drop of solidified plastic on it. Ideally there shouldn't be a drop of plastic of course, but I guess one shouldn't just assume that is the case.
Anyway, hope that helps. If you have any clue on what might be 'causing the under extrusion, I would love to hear it. :-)

EDIT: I tried it with normal start gcode btw. and it didn't make a difference. So I guess we can rule that out anyway.

Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2018 07:57PM by d-999.

The extrusion width is definitely wrong. For a 0.4mm nozzle it should be equal or above 0.4mm.
Check your settings in print settings / advanced or nozzle size in printer settings

In slic3r I usually set extrusion width in mm because percentages are referred to the first layer heigth.

@_lampe: Yeah, you're right... I didn't really think about it, but it doesn't make much sense to try and extrude thinner than your nozzle diameter.

@eavo: Wow, that totally fixed the problem... Thank you so much! I thought the extruder width in percentage would be relative to the set nozzle diameter, not the layer height. But ok, I guess now I know. I really thought even those mysterious 0.22/0.24 mm widths were more than my extruder was actually extruding, since as I said, it barely extruded anything at all. Anyway, I tried setting everything to 0.4 mm for a start (rather than X %) just to see if it makes a difference and now it extrudes normally. Thanks!

And thank you to everybody else for your time and effort. :-)

Quote
d-999
I did noticed this at the beginning of the gcode, which I considered rather odd:
; external perimeters extrusion width = 0.22mm
; perimeters extrusion width = 0.24mm
; infill extrusion width = 0.22mm
; solid infill extrusion width = 0.22mm
; top infill extrusion width = 0.22mm

After reading your post, I want to remember this as it has in it's own respect a similar relationship to a wrong size filament setting.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2018 10:24AM by Roberts_Clif.