I guess I had a different thought: I usually troubleshoot by starting with the settings that are tied to physical things, the artifacts I was seeing are indicative of issues with that.
Once the machine is physically doing what it’s commanded to, then one can move up to the next layer of abstraction and begin turning other knobs in the software.
The fundamentals are extruder steps/mm and flow multiplier.
If there are any issues with those, sometimes even endless tweaking will not eliminate issues.
It should be one of the first things you try. There’s one in the toolbox that came with the machine. It’s free and takes about 2 minutes to do.
If having replacement Snapmaker hotends on hand is cost prohibitive, having just spare nozzles on hand is fine too, and they cost in the ballpark of 25 cents each. Changing one takes just a few minutes.
I thought that was what I was doing. I updated the firmware to fix the extraction error, modified the steps/mm, and tried various temperature settings, as many folks have suggested. I’m pretty sure that I’ve now eliminated Retraction as an issue, as I no longer get thick spikes and strands, only the webbing.
So the question is, where to go from now. You mentioned flow multiplier, and I can see a Flow Percentage in the Material settings (which is currently set at 100%). Tell me more about that.
I totally forgot about the spare, until the moment you mentioned it here. So that I can do. And it looks like I can get the hot end replacement kit from Amazon, so that’s doable (we are restricted to specific vendors when we purchase, which is why I had to wait to for the SM2.0 to arrive on Amazon before I could purchase it, costing me several hundred extra dollars).
Are those MK.8 nozzles compatible with SM2.0? And how do you replace just the end of the piece?
I don’t know that you aren’t - just suggesting that the seemingly unrelated issue of pocks and artifacts on your other prints may not be unrelated at all. All of these settings are intertwined, with some surprising connections.
If E-steps is the 2D calibration (length of filament) then Flow is the 3D volume. Once steps per mm is correct so that the machine is extruding the correct commanded length then the slicer needs to know how to convert between linear filament and volumetric filament. The flow multiplier is the software ‘knob’ that can be turned to compensate for any deviation between an ‘ideal’ and ‘real world’ conversion that results in under or over extrusion.
The classic way to set it is to print a hollow box with single extrusion thickness walls. Typically 3D printers print an extrusion width of 100% to 120% of the nozzle width - for a 0.4mm nozzle good prints happen around 0.48mm width. This is because of the ideal extrusion shape of obround with enough flat area on top and bottom to adhere to the adjacent layers.
This test I would consider “done” when your measured wall thickness is within +/-0.03mm or so. It will be impossible to dial in 100% accurately at this time, as there are likely other issues that have not yet been calibrated, for instance, linear advance which can put a small blob at the start of segments affecting the width.
Flow is tied to the type of filament, PLA will likely have a different flow multiplier than ABS, TPU, etc.
I’m going to go implement what you’ve told me as soon as I can. Unfortunately, state testing is upon us in the public schools once again, and I have to divert my attention to that for the next week and a half, but as soon as that’s over, it’s back to The Machine.
I’ll be back to let you know how it turns out, but until then, I appreciate your kindness and patience in helping not only me, but the kids who will benefit from this tech.
