Good day All,
Just completed my first print earlier today - the tugboat I downloaded from the Thingiverse came out ok, but far from stellar. Trying to get some advise on what to work on further to improve - any pointed advise is more than welcome, hopefully I can circumvent a lot of trial/error with that!
Snapmaker A350
Using Luban to generate the G-code
Blue PLA filament from Snapmaker
Print temp - 205C, Bed temp - 70C
Hi,
I’m far away of being a 3D printing expert, but from my tests and previous prints I found that a temperature of 190 and bed 50 is good for the most “simple” PLA. I had also multi-color PLAs but they are a nightmare to print and need a lot of experiments, but the “normal” PLAs from my tests best prints with lower temperature and also the “precise” settings from Luban (which was my very first print with Snapmaker black PLA and precise setting). This is mainly 0.08 layer height. Also having slow first layer print is very good in success.
Later on I switched to OrcaSlicer which gives a lot more control over the settings than Luban and prints a lot more faster than Luban does.
It’s also important to choose the right surface depending on the model. I usually use Rectilinear which gives a nice surface. And if the width is not much thicker than the nozzles opening it also prints better. 0.42 is a good setting.
OrcaSlicer needs a bit more time to find out all the massive number of settings but also has a good preset which you can use. Only thing is that it cannot directly print to Snapmaker, but simply generate the GCode file and save it on USB stick to print.
Nevertheless: You need to experiment, no way around. The results can be different for each new type of filament you use. There are a lot test models out there which you can download for free and which gives you a good measuring for your settings.
I personally had very good results with the PLA from Sunlu. I bought a pack with several colors in 500g spools and they all gave very good results and no printing problems. On the other hand, two-color and three-color filaments from Amolen were really bad.
But everyone makes different experiences and 3D pros surely have a lot more experience to help you.
Not to forget: Make sure to always pack your spools back into a vacuum bag using a vacuum pump to keep it dry. You can use any cheap household machine for that purpose.
Have fun!
Are you sure it is PLA?
I think snapmaker send just black with the snapmaker 2.0 and just sell black and white PLA on webshop.
But they sell blue PETG.
The stringing tells me your temperature is too high. It can also explain the sagging.
I see some stringing and blobs.
Your surface of the benchy and brim is very nice.
I would suggest to print a temperature tower, hopefully this is the only improvement you need.
For a ready to print code have a look at the test section, 4: 3d-print-guide-walk-through
The first thing I thought about was wet filament, this often causes blobs, so I generally would suggest to use a filament dryer regularly or store it in a dry dehydrated place.
I am new to it, so happy to be corrected, but apparently, they did make some blue PLA, at least according to the label.
Thanks to everyone responding. That’s exactly what I was hoping for - people pointing to obvious issues based on their experience using the machine. After printing the temp tower, I can clearly see I was printing waaaaaay too hot originally.
First ‘floor’ at 190C came out quite decent, so clearly that’s the go-forward temperature. Still, there are a couple of issues with the first floor:
(1) there was some weird leftover filament connected to one of the legs, and
(2) the ‘roof’ of the first floor shows a bunch of sagging strings (which may be already 195C print, but not sure…)
Again, suggestions are most welcome!
P.S. I just got a spool of eSUN filament (I think I saw it well-recommended) to experiment with another filament provider and ordered a filament dryer…
Also, many thanks for the comprehensive " 3d Print Guide_Walk Through" post! One thought I had - given my (in)experience level - would be great to have a few pictures of test prints explaining what issues you can identify in those prints. I am sure from experience you can immediately spot problems, but for novices it might be a good guide…
There are a few guides linked and many around in the www, you will find them if you search 
.
The temp tower was not optimized for being beauty, it was just for printing different temperatures.
I printed this filament with 190°C and it came out perfect. If it’s a older batch it would help to dry it.
Next step would be to print the benchy again (with the same gcode) and see if its coming out better.
Which print head do you have? If it is the “standard” single extruder, print cooling is not the best with that one. There’s an “old” version and a “new” version, the new being distinguishable by two air intake slits at the front. The new is better, but according to some reports still not really good. For long bridges (i.e. filament printed without support beneath) not to sag, good cooling is required, and even then it will never be perfect. In case you encounter sagging bridges in a print where it counts, your options are:
Finally, I like this page to help with typical print issues: Print Quality Guide | Simplify3D Software
I am getting my dryer delivered later this week, will try to dry the filament and reprint the tower to see if it helps!
Great advise, and thanks for that Simplify3D link - looks awesome and very motivating to get good enough to not needing to reference it often 
