PolyLite ASA (what am I doing wrong?) -- repost/link

[stone glacier]

Original in wrong section: https://discord.com/channels/953487099343032350/1093957366166343750

e3v2neo running Klipper with sprite pro, Polisi3d 0.6 hardened steel nozzle with 0.2mm layer height is struggling. I'm printing PolyLite ASA at 245 on this example, but 255 looks the same, with bed at 95. Volumetric flow during this was quite low (<5mm3/s) and the filament is in a sunlu dryer box set to 55 and I baked it for like 12 hours at 75 (according to my toaster oven). Ambient in the comgrow tent is 40-45C during printing (according to hygrometer sitting on the left 4040 just under the z axis 2040). PA is 0.025, firmware retraction was off (this is a stringing calibration).

I think that the holes here are from retraction, but they're wildly inconsistent. I'm re-doing a superslicer stringing calibration at 255/90 as I type this.

[crimson rivet]

White ASA is the less forgiving of the ASA colors in my experience, even with a well tuned slicer/printer, any tiny imperfection will be amplified.
Your settings looks good and if we assume it is not a hardware issue it could come down to the filament.
First step, lemme send you a new spool to rule out a bad batch.

[stone glacier]

I have 2 more spools here that I had delivered today

one's sitting in the dehumidifier as we speak

[crimson rivet]

Also white? or do you have another color to give it a try?

[stone glacier]

I have a half-roll of black here, my initial issues with it were because I live in a humid climate and it wasn't dry enough

which colors are generally more forgiving? I presume natural is the most forgiving of them?

[crimson rivet]

Yes ASA will be more affected by moisture because of the high printing temp

[crimson rivet]

Black is usually the one giving the best visual results

[stone glacier]

hm, alright, and are the voids typical of white asa?

specifically this

[rich reef]

From the other pics, kinda looks like you have some z-banding also

[stone glacier]

that would not at all be a surprise, the z axis on this is.... unique

[rich reef]

Have a gut feeling it might be something with PA also. Try another print without it?

[stone glacier]

I don't think PA's the issue, it's only 0.025 here

[rich reef]

0.025 on direct drive does have an effect

[stone glacier]

yeah, but it was 0.046 on PLA

[crimson rivet]

Not that I know, this would typically be either of:

• moisture
• retraction
• dirty drive gear
• low tension on the tensioner
  ...

[rich reef]

Do you have coasting etc enabled?

[stone glacier]

no coasting

[stone glacier]

well, if I can get it to print happily enough I'll print a hero me and throw this sprite in the dumpster.

[rich reef]

0.021 looks slightly better IMO

[stone glacier]

(figuratively, not literally)

[rich reef]

Since you also said your z is unique, might want to check it out also

[stone glacier]

I looked at the back side

1s, i'll take a snapshot

dual z, independent, it does gantry leveling, oldhams, pom anti-backlash, 8x2 400mm

oh, and whenever I get around to it, i'll be re-pinning some LDO-42STH40-1004ASR and putting in thrust washers... though, I'm not sure if that'll be truly useful here.

I was also looking into doing 8mm wobblex, but they're unobtanium at the moment

[crimson rivet]

haha, so you can try another spool/color to see if it comes from a bad spool, and it it does then problem solved, I will send you a new spools.
If you still have the same issue, then we will find someone with a similar printer to get an ASA profile.

[stone glacier]

also, TIL 10% is too much fan

[stone glacier]

similar isn't that necessary... if I can get to a point where I can print a hero me, then this thing's getting a hextrudort and my rapido with an 0.5 cht

[crimson rivet]

What is this bed surface?

[stone glacier]

fysetc carbon pei smooth

but this printer's also getting a new machined "ultra flat" 6.35mm bed this weekend

[crimson rivet]

Does it have to be white? (you mentioned you had a black spool to try)

[stone glacier]

😅 it doesn't have to be white, but... that's a preference for aesthetic reasons

[crimson rivet]

Got it, you can DM your email address account on our website, I will give you a special coupon to get another white ASA.
I would hate that the problem come from the spool, so I would like to insist to accept an replacement spool if thats ok

[stone glacier]

I think the bigger problem is that I'm just a noob and this is the cost of learning something, so please, don't think that I'm that guy that wants to be compensated for it when I (admittedly) don't know what I'm doing to a large degree

also the extrusion multiplier is making a pretty big difference

[crimson rivet]

New to 3d printing or not, our material should be designed to be easy to use 🙂
In any case my offer stands if we cannot solve the issue.

[crimson rivet]

Yes, ASA will usually extrude better with a lower EM

[stone glacier]

I appreciate the offer, and I might be on the waitlist for pa612-cf, but I'm comfortable paying my own way here

[crimson rivet]

Great way to find the right EM.

I usually print ASA at 260˚C with 20% fan (for esthetics) in a 50˚C+ chamber.
(I have never tried this bed surface though, you may want a good brim for it)

I also dont print too fast (50mm/s main print speed is good)

[rich reef]

Looks overextruded

[stone glacier]

I'm at 250 nozzle, 95 bed, and the chamber's hovering between 50-55

[rich reef]

Try reducing EM as we discussed previously

[crimson rivet]

yeah its good already, maybe just adjusting the EM should be good

[stone glacier]

yeah, that's what these tuning blocks are for

[rich reef]

You did esteps already right?

[stone glacier]

I'm going to do another set in 1% steps from 92 -> 87

I did it on PLA, but it's not esteps in klipper

[rich reef]

What's your current em?

[rich reef]

Rotation distance on klipper

[stone glacier]

[extruder]
step_pin: PD15
dir_pin: !PD14
enable_pin: !PC7
microsteps: 16
rotation_distance: 26.32192
gear_ratio: 42:12
nozzle_diameter: 0.600
filament_diameter: 1.750
heater_pin: PB3
sensor_type: EPCOS 100K B57560G104F
sensor_pin: PA2
pressure_advance: 0.025
#control: pid
#pid_Kp: 22.2
#pid_Ki: 1.08
#pid_Kd: 114
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 300

[stone glacier]

1.0

[rich reef]

1.0 rarely ever works off the bat XD

[stone glacier]

yup, figuring that out 🙂

[rich reef]

I'ld say 90-95 for asa maybe

[stone glacier]

90 didn't look bad, but I want to see where the limits actually are

[rich reef]

Do a cube test as you did but for the different suggested em

[rich reef]

I'ld try a coarse adjustment 1st then fine tuning

[rich reef]

One by one right?

[stone glacier]

of course

[rich reef]

Cool cool

Let's see what this gives

Turn it off completely

[stone glacier]

😬

[rich reef]

Decrease it

[rich reef]

What your min layer time?

[stone glacier]

I don't want a repeat of the one on the right

0

hence fans

[rich reef]

Ahhhh

Let's see what they yield

😁

[stone glacier]

I know that I'm going to need the fan eventually, so just turning it off and quadrupling the time that it takes to print something isn't the direction I want to go in

points in the general direction of the CPAP blower he has sitting in his bedroom for the VZ330

[rich reef]

Lol

As nick also suggested, try both colors you have.

I had some weird line (almost similar to yours) with white pla pro, but none with black

Or other colors for that matter

[stone glacier]

I also bought purple, but I haven't put it in the dehydrator yet

[rich reef]

Use what you already have on hand and ready to go

[stone glacier]

I wish that there was an easy way to test exactly how much water is in a spool

[rich reef]

@crimson rivet 😁

You could have an idea by measuring weight before and after drying

[stone glacier]

well, kinda too late for that 😅

[rich reef]

Drywise does have an inline dryer that apparently measure humidity acuurately enough

[stone glacier]

lol, only 1900 euro

compare with my $35 food dehydrator 🙃

[rich reef]

Lol

[stone glacier]

if I was to go completely without fan, what would a good layer time be?

[rich reef]

5-6seconds maybe

[crimson rivet]

There machines for that but yeah weighting the spool would be the easiest

[stone glacier]

is it normal to need PVA (hairspray) to keep ASA planted?

[crimson rivet]

usually that would be to make sure it doesn't stick too much for easy release.
Magigoo would be preferred.

[stone glacier]

hm, ok.

I took your advice to print slow... perhaps I printed too slow... but...

[crimson rivet]

From the picture it seems that the parts are warping.
It seems that some parts have brims, some do not?

[stone glacier]

not brim, support, so I don't really care

and the camera's got a bit of fisheye to it

I've put a straightedge on the x-axis linear rail and it's flat, even if it looks bent from this angle

and yeah, you're right, there are some adhesion issues up in the front

this thing's getting a new bed, new bed heater and a garolite print surface today though 😛

also it's clear that I need to adjust my print speeds by a lot

the asa really doesn't like to be in the nozzle for this long at 250C

and i'm going to rebuild the z-axis monday, which means I'm finally going to re-pin and install those LDO 1.8 degree steppers I've had sitting around.

[stone glacier]

it's gorgeous:

[crimson rivet]

looking forward to the quality after the mod

[stone glacier]

well, the reason I'm printing the hero me is so that I can swap my rapido over to this with an aluminum vz hextrudort

[rich reef]

Did you manage to try with your black asa yet?

[stone glacier]

I haven't, I was worried about other things and this spool's almost dead anyway, soooo

tomorrow when the store's open I need to get some coroplast and some sandpaper so I can wet-sand my g10 sheet

obviously still not having the best luck 😅

fan's completely off though

[stone glacier]

the new bed's installed w/ a 250W gulfcoast robotics heater and some random garolite sheet

and just in case, I also bought a couple spools of ABS, though for some reason the white ABS is completely gone from both polymaker's site and from amazon

[stone glacier]

200% size xyz calibration cube on garolite, 110C bed temp. I tried both lower (80,85, 90, 95) and hotter. 90 and below there's no adhesion and the print moves. 90 and above there's warping, but it sticks

[crimson rivet]

do you have buildtak like sheets, PEI or magigoo?

with the temperature you use and a brim it should stick but it doesn't so maybe your bed is not the best for ASA?

@rustic night @jovial mica
Have you ever printed ASA on Garolite?

[rustic night]

Nope

I like magnetic sheets

[stone glacier]

didn't use a brim, this is a skirt, I can try again... but this is garolite

[crimson rivet]

Garolite is great for short and long chain Nylon

[stone glacier]

this also didn't come with a very good texture on it, i plan on wet-sanding the other side later to see if that helps

[stone glacier]

I have a range of magnetic sheets, but the fysetc one with the carbon pattern on it was doing the same thing unless I coated it in pva (aqua net unscented)

I did see a bunch of people talking on reddit about how they had really good adhesion with abs on garolite

(and I also have a sheet from another manufacturer coming, as well as some polymaker abs)

coming tomorrow: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BX1Y92BN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and the one that's on there now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VX6KDGN?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

[rich reef]

Also great for PC from what I read.

[jovial mica]

From the pictures it looks like your print is too high or your extrusion multiplier are wrong. You are getting gaps between your layers.

[stone glacier]

this might also be a bit of a problem... if the bed heater temp sensor is WAYYY off from the temperature measured at the top of the bed

[stone glacier]

seems -0.030 is the best of these:

[rich reef]

Top right corner looks good!

[rich reef]

Did you run pid?

[stone glacier]

I ran it when installing the new bed + heater and then I re-ran it tonight after I got home (after the permatex had set) for the new sensor that's actually inside the top of the bed

I permatex'd the wires and put thermal grizzly kryonaut on an NTC in the gap here:

[stone glacier]

I'm printing some dark grey ABS with similar settings, the only difference is hotend at 255 instead of 250 and bed at 90

the black ASA came unstuck towards the end at 250/90 and had a little bit of warp along the bottom

[stone glacier]

hopefully discord doesn't think that these print photos are explicit this time

dark grey ABS calibration cube, fan was up to 50% during bridging (oops). trying with same filament in 200% scaling

[rich reef]

Seems about same issue as white asa

The 'layer shift' near the top

[stone glacier]

I mean the z-axis is still stupid/broken

nice

255/90 just warped and popped off

is it better with ASA/ABS to just go crazy with bed temp?

[rich reef]

Try cleaning you bed properly

And use a good quality glue

[rich reef]

Might want to fix that first

[stone glacier]

it's garolite, it's been cleaned repeatedly (between each print) with IPA, while both hot and cold

somehow going hotter reduces warping? weird.

[ashen spruce]

I have found that ASA is a little bit special about surface and temperature specially with smooth surfaces, a pretty clean surface, and a real surface temperature of around 100°C while printing at 260 and a slow first layer gets it to stick, but you will need to maintain a 50+°C chamber temp and avoid cold drafts what can be pretty hard on bed slinger printers

As a last resource or to get a print to stick 100% of the time even with sharp corners or complex geometries you can always use glue on your print surface, if you can get it I recommend using Kores glue stick (Prusa usually sends one with their printers and Pei sheets as a fun fact) that thing is magic with ASA

Just apply a thin layer, let it fully dry and then print over it

[stone glacier]

I tried both the rough and the smooth sides of my fysetc pei sheet, switched to garolite and ABS and it's sticking, but I also changed a couple other things: the thing that was the most eye opening is that the delta in temperature between the probe inside the heater mat and the temperature at the top of the bed is >10C during heating cycles and it's ~5C during steady state. I have some z-banding to fix, but this is with ABS. I'll be retrying ASA with my ABS profile soon:

(and yes, you can clearly see my z-axis screw threads here)

[stone glacier]

I also found that if I run my nevermore mid-print it causes warping. I've also completely removed/uninstalled the part cooling fan from the sprite in order to ensure that it doesn't randomly turn on mid print

[rich reef]

Sort this out before anything else

[stone glacier]

I feel like I should take some measurements and design some sort of tr8 alignment tool 😛

[stone glacier]

the z wobble problem can be worked in parallel with trying to make ASA print, thankfully. surface quality isn't something that I care about really when just trying to get some functional parts together that'll be hidden

[jovial mica]

this ended up being extrusion multiplier. for me had nothing to do with z, yours looks a little more consistent

went from a 1.0 to a 0.93

[stone glacier]

my em's currently 0.95 on ABS, but that's mostly because I want the first layer to be squished, it's probably overtuned a bit

[rustic night]

I would dial it back more (you can adjust your first layer extrusion multiplier by itself)

[ashen spruce]

Dial it back until the prints crumble? then dial it up? 😅

[jovial mica]

Any I update? Were you able to figure it out?

[jovial mica]

I go until i can see gaps in the lines then bump it a little up

[stone glacier]

this is the one that finished this morning when I woke up, waiting on the phone to upload the more recent ones I did with slightly better supports

but I'm still not 100% in love with it

0.92 EM, 255/100/60 (nozzle, bed, heated chamber), different spool of White ASA from the original one. 45mm/s, no fans.

[rustic night]

A small fan % is usually recommended for print quality

[stone glacier]

yeah, but it typically would cause shrinkage, no?

lol, it seems the qidi doesn't like printing abs/asa:

[jovial mica]

Not in a enclosure

Because your pushing hot air

Could you word that a little more age appropriate

We are trying to build a discord with young ones in mind we appreciate the extra effort in advance

Thanks. Also white material is one of those colors that really doesn’t hide any flaws

With abs i can run as high as 40% fan in a heated chamber

[stone glacier]

no clue what the original message was, so... maybe? maybe not?