Hello and thank you in advanced for your help.
I am some what of a novice at this so I appreciate your patients and help. I have printed many items mostly with success, however, the last few items I have printed, have been frustrating. Of the last three items, two of the rafts have become detached and all three have had issues with supports not coming off and the object not coming off the raft.
The only thing that has changed recently, was switching colors of filament from green to red. Both spools are labled, ZABS.
Hi, @dbradbury. It sound like two problems are combined - warping and probably overheating.
When was the last time you performed platform maintenance and cleaned the nozzle? How many hours have you printed with this M200?
Have you noticed quality deterioration apart from supports and raft being hard to remove?
Well, I am a school teacher and I came to this school last year and the printer was already here. I have never done any maintenance on it and I don’t know how but I will follow the links you provided. I believe i have close to 700 hours of printing. I cant really answer about deterioration because I don’t know what it was before. Ill do some maintenance and get back with you.
Thanks for your quick answers and help
D
Hey there!
In that case, you might want to check out our maintenance guide. The rest of instructions can be found in Support Center.
Let me know whether nozzle cleaning and platform maintenance improves the prints’ quality.
Regarding the fan shroud, you can download it here and print it with Z-ABS.
I’m new here, but I used to be able to modify the raft manually to add extra grip to the bed on models that would lift at the ends. Maybe I missing something but with the latest software that feature seems to be gone, or perhaps it’s been gone for some time. I still keep an old version around so I’ll look into that.
Hi. Are you referring to the platform-raft gap and first layer gap (a gap between the raft and the first layer of a model) options? They are still available in the advanced settings. However, please let us know once you look into the older software version.
No, I mean being able to add area to the raft where it contacts the platform as indicated by the badly drawn image below. Unfortunately I can’t open the old Z-Suite after the last windows update to show an example but it did solve the problem of the raft lifting as the part was grown.
Thank you for the explanation. As far as I am concerned, such an option has never been available in Z-SUITE. Still, you can try to the platform-raft gap so the raft will adhere better to the platform.
Hello Marta, I’m still experiencing issues with the printing. The object printed is still sticking to the raft and the supports are not separating as they have in the past. I have tried both Z-ABS and Z-PLA as well as several other brands and nothing helps.
Once a project its finished printing, it takes quite a bit of force to remove a printed project. I see all these videos where the project just pops off and the raft and supports come of cleanly.
Did you replace consumable parts recently? Apart from difficulties with detaching the model from the raft and support structures, did you notice stringing or decrease in print quality? Please note that one of the consumable parts (heater&thermoocuple, hotend, extruder cable) might need replacement.
How about the calibration results? Can you provide them?
When it comes to the raft - you can try to slightly increase the first layer gap (distance between the raft and first layer of the model) and gap XY for support structures (a gap between the block of support and the model in the XY plane; this will make it easier for you to remove supports from the model once the printing process is finished).
Thank you for the quick response. The quality did decrease but I did some maintenance on the printer and it seems to have helped with the quality.
Is the attached photo the calibration results?
As for the raft gap, I haven’t changed anything in the setting except the kind of material. I understand that some adjustments may be needed but I honestly don’t know what to change and how much to change it. How much is a slight increase in gap distance? Going from .23 to .25? or do I need to go more?
Hi, thank you for additional information. When it comes to the first layer gap - you can start by increasing it by a layer thickness you chose - so if it is 0.14, add +0.14 to the gap. Once you do a test print - you can tweak this setting.
You attached the screenshot of settings, not calibration results. The results are shown on the printer’s display after running autocalibration process. Just to make sure - do you print Z-ABS on the external ABS profile? Did you change the extrusion temperature oe some other setting?
Also, take a look at our maintenance guide. The heater&thermocouple or hotend might need replacement.
