Help! I am loosing my mind over the ugly layer issue. V-Minion.
Hopefully someone can help here.
I am one of the few here who has issues with the V-Minion putting out quite some ugly layers.
But in spite of many others here I somehow can not get it fixed.
Here is a picture of what print results I get.
From the beginning on ... The same issue.
26 Replies
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
At first I thought it was Z wobble because the lead screw was actually wobbling around a bit.
Any tries to set this up better failed .. So I took the time and switched over the belted Z axis. (great mod by the way)
By doing this I also discovered that the Z linear rail was not running as smooth as you would think.
It also had a little a play in it so I even bought a Hiwin rail as a replacement.
Result: No change.
The new Z axis runs very well now but I still have those ugly layers.
Then I started reading here and the first thing everyone seems to mention are the belts.
So I played around with those. Made them loose .. Made them tight ..
Even changed all the belts to the good ones with orange underside.
And even looked and changed the pulleys to ones that don't wobble on the motors shaft.
Result: No change.
OK it must be the slicer then ...
Nope ... Played around with that, too.
I made sure that my little test object above had no sudden flow changes and everything.
(printing it very slow, too) Still the same results.
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
My next thought was the extruder. The LGX lite that came with the printer kit.
I inspected it closely and thought that play in the gears could also be a fault.
So I ordered a replacement LGX lite and an Orbiter 2. (great little extruder by the way)
Tried them both .....
Result: No change.
OK what the heck ... Now I tried so much. Lets buy a new hotend and see if that makes a difference.
So I bought a Revo Voron and tried that ...
Result: No change.
If I had hair I would have lost it by now.
Lets see, what else have I tried?
I changed the stepper drivers, checked the power supply (stable as a rock), played around with motor/driver settings.
No change ... Always the same result.
What do I not see here?
The funny thing is those lets call them dimples in the layer lines are actually somewhat repeatable.
If I hold two of them next to one another they are very similar … but not quite on point the same.
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
It must be the Z axis, right? But it runs as smooth as one can think of.
I can not a grip an that.
Help wanted! Help needed! 🙂
- - - -
The printer by the way sits in it own housing and is intended to print ASA.
Also made the electronics housing wider with very good cooling.
It is not getting to hot or anything.
A few more samples:
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
And here is the gcode I am using for the little box.
It is basically just a 30x30x15mm cube with two 0.45mm walls.
I was just using it for flow calibration but somehow it became my quick print test object.
ratty-blush•2y ago
There js a YouTube guy trying to solve this... He found the extruder gear tolerance at fault and also the dryness or wetness of the filament at fault too
ratty-blush•2y ago
MirageC
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inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
By now I know almost every video about that topic. Thanks. 😄
At first I thought it was the extruder but I am not convinced of that. I tested 3 of them by now and no change.
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
So I tried Mihai Designs extrusion test. https://mihaidesigns.com/pages/inconsistent-extrusion-test
And the result is showing no signs of an extruder issue.
But according to his patterns on the bottom of the page he describes it as a possible PID tuning error with the bed.
See the picture of my result ... It is a bit warped because of ASA I guess. But no signs of a wood grain pattern.
MihaiDesigns
Inconsistent Extrusion Test — MihaiDesigns
Jump to study and conclusions . For a quick start, download and print the 3MF test model (first button a few paragraphs down). Intro If you’re unhappy with the printing quality and suspect extruder issues, this test can help understand what is going wrong. Inconsistent extrusion is known as
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
So yesterday I was fiddling around with the PID values but without success.
I tested the watermark controlling method which gave me this result.
The watermark method made it worse as expected.
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
I looked at the bed and remembered that I am still using the steel spacers underneath.
But the V-Minion kit also gives one a set of nylon spacers. So I switched to those.
In terms of bed heating itself that was actually a great success.
Because before with the steel spacers quite a lot of the heat was going into the carriage and the rail instead of the bed.
With those I never reached real 100 °C on top of the PIE sheet. It was always like 85°C ... Maybe 90°C...
But with the nylon spacers the carriage stays considerable cooler. And now I can actually measure above 100°C on the bed.
So great upgrade in it self ...
But ....
Of course no change with the ugly layer lines! They are still there.
It is still looking exactly like the PID example above.
I tried different PID values ... Always the same result ....
It is driving me crazy ...
stormy-gold•2y ago
Nice setup.
Looks inconsistent extrusion?
Perhaps it's one of these? I'm not an expert by any means, but these have been some of my findings from last years.
-Is the EVA secure to the rail carriage? No loose/partially-tightened screws? Also check the ones underneath the lgx lite, had 2 of those not tightened enough and it gave all kinds of artifacts.
-Screws which secure the x plate to the rail carriage, nice and tight?
-Is the lgx lite having backlash issues? Some reported it.
-Belt tension? Nothing rubbing?
-Pulleys nice and tight?
-No squeaking noices from the idlers?
-The hotened is nice and tight, no wobbling at the heatbreak?
-Other sources of vibrations/resonances?
- I tried one of these wasmachine dampener mats before it did not do much good, switched it to a concrete slab, which was better suited
-What material is this in? If cooling fan is enabled, try putting it low.
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
Thanks for the tips ..
But to wrap this up …
Because I am finally getting somewhere. (I think)
Remember when I wrote that I already tested 3 extruders?
The LGx Lite that came with the V-Minion kit plus another LGX Lite and an Orbiter V2 I bought to test things.
Well … It turns out the extruder is the fault here. And ALL of the above produce ugly layer lines!
And pretty comparable ones I might add.
Good luck finding a fault like that if 3 of 3 extruders produce the same faulty layers. 🙂
How did I manage to find it out still?
Well, the Orbiter actually had a slight clicking sound during printing which of course got me curious.
So I took it apart and found that one of the gearbox bearings was faulty.
I changed all the bearings and what do you know ….
Finally a different pattern! Progress! After literally months of fiddling around.
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
So yesterday it came to my mind that I bought a BMG extruder gear kit a while back.
So I printed a Vz Hextrudort to see if and what difference that makes.
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
And what do you know … Gone are the ugly layers! (almost)
I of course immediately ordered one of the new aluminum Vz Hextrudort extruders with the new helical gearing and so on.
Thanks to Vez3d and MirageC for that design… 🙂
I hope that finally resolves that issue for good. The chances are pretty good I think.
See the comparison of the LGX Lite, Orbiter V2 and Vz Hextrudort below.
fair-rose•2y ago
All of these still look like trash. Which one do you think looks good?
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
Well ... "Look like trash" is a bit hard I would say. The picture is of course with the worst light possible .. Directly from above.
But the one on the right (VZ Hextrudort) is clearly the best of the bunch.
And that is with a extruder that I quickly printed.
We will see what the result will look like with the CNC version.
To add a little bit of context:
Here is a comparison between what my Prusa Mk3+ can do and the printed Vz Hextrudort
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
And here are both prints turned into the light. 🙂
You should check your flow rate. I had similar issues la summer (40C ambient) and abs. Drove me nuts for days. Turns out the extrusion factor in SS/filament/ was on 100%. Back at classic 95% and... Ugly layers gone! The extra material adds up to a limit every X layers, comes back to tolerable, then reaches limit again... MirageC pointed me to this hypothesis.
correct-apricot•2y ago
I was in the same boots not long ago with a voron switchwire, struggling for 6 months changing, modifying, upgrading everything i could think of. Hate built up on that machine and it got disassembled and now selling its parts. Used several extruders, orbiter 2 included. Too bad i see your post too late i would try the new ridga (rigda?) bondtech gears.
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
I had some time today and played around with the new extruder.
(Which is quite a nice piece of kit I have to say … CNC parts are always so nice.)
It definitely improved the quality a bit further but it is still a bit away from flawless.
Maybe I am a bit picky, though.
I did a flow calibration after the first test print and settled for an extrusion factor of 0.94 for that filament.
Thanks for the advice by the way!
After that I did my test-print and what do you know … The pattern changed again.
Not sure if for the better .. 😂
See the following picture with the four recent samples.
The Prusa one as a reference as I considered that “good” in the past.
I only have that one for a comparison anyway.
I will now have to do some samples with different EM factors I guess. 😄
Nice extruder indeed! Do u have a link?
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
I bought it at meltbro.de but they are currently out of stock with this one.
But it is available at Mellow over at Aliexpress https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004574888848.html
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
And yesterday I printed the samples with the different extrusion multipliers.
It definitely makes a difference!
With higher EM’s the pattern gets kind of rougher but washes out at an EM of 1.
With lower EM’s the pattern gets finer and less noticeable.
At 0.92 it looks the best but somehow also 0.98 looks decent.
It looks to me as this is a resonance thing which will repeat at different multipliers.
I settled for 0.93 for that filament. (Fillamentum Extrafill ASA in Sky Blue)
I also quickly tested black Prusament ASA today and settled for 0.94 with that.
So somewhere in that region seems to be the sweet spot.
It is not as easy to photograph anymore so I stitched together the six Fillamentum samples.
flat-fuchsia•2y ago
this is for eva 2.4? you have a design¿
inland-turquoiseOP•2y ago
Yes ... I have made a flat LGXlite + Orbiter style top mount.
The inner holes are a 19mm spacing that allow for mounting any LGXlite style extruder's like the Vz.
And the outer holes are optional. You can put in inserts there which will give you the option of mounting an Orbiter.
I made this so I can quickly swap between the Orbiter, LGXlite and Vz for testing.