Better Settings

This was the last print I've done so far, using up the last of my couple metres of testing filament, and just in time too; the settings are just about right now.


The parts I needed to change, for others' reference, was to have the 'Feed Rate' and 'Flow Rate' equal in the 'Speed' tab of SkeinForge 40.

With all defaults there isn't enough plastic. After calibrating the firmware for the extruder stepper motor, too much plastic is extruded. After evening out those settings in speed, it should be about right, as it was here.
This was running at 20mm/s.

Decent sides, and squiggly lightweight in-fill.

The top layer of the handle just finishing.

After it topped off the handle, things took a turn for the silly, as the default cooling code from skeinforge kicked in since I hadn't altered those settings, and the nozzle moved around the thinner part of the model in a square orbit.

This was the result:

The finished part, with box generated by orbiting to cool.

Reverse view.

After a little cleaning up, the part looked like this:

A lot more key-shaped than last time, but still not quite right.

Clearly the movement of the nozzle away from the area being printed caused some of the filament being deposited to be pulled out of the layer, creating that messy face.

I've just been getting a new spool of filament set up tonight, so that should be live and kicking tomorrow. I'm considering switching the block for cooling steps off completely, but I'll test it with a smaller minimum orbital radius first.
It seems the key design will require some modification anyway, since the triangular hole printed slightly too small, and there isn't much material left around it to stand up to the torque if I cut the hole bigger.