Under extruding on start of new layers?

[Jason]

Hi @JudahCo

the main part of troubleshooting an issue like this is to divide and conquer. Now what I mean by that is to test and eliminate until the initial issue goes away. I put temp towers more into the category of tuning. What I mean by that is once we know 100% hardware is good, we can use it to tune the slicer settings until you get it dialled in.

The first step is to define the problem, now your problem as I evaluate it is as follows.

Appears to be random under extrusion however need to verify if the Random is actually part of the question. (see last comment from me) There are other issues going on here but this appears to be the core of the issue.

First things first, We need to confirm that the problem is reproducible so we know any changes we make can go back and retest. As long as you have a small print you can get under extrusion in we can call this our test print. I will not come out perfect but if it gets changed, Better or worse we are on the right track.

OK, Back to basics. Test for loose V-wheels and alignment on all the axis, X Y and don’t forget Z. Common problems are 2 of the V-wheels are tight but one spins freely. This means the whole set needs adjustment. Grab the bed and give it a little shake from side to side, front to back. It should hold fairly solid in its position. If loose will usually show on the wheels or the bed springs have insufficient tension. I know this is not directly related however, it gets you to look over the entire printer (including under the bed) and see things you would not ordinarily see. adjust and clean as necessary.

Ok now comes the elimination process. First elimination, Basic Settings on the printer. (firmware settings that do not change on a per-print basis. Complete the following tests to do a quick elimination. 100mm Extrusion test, Tests esteps on extruder. Print a 20mm calibration cube, This will test the steps per mm on X, Y and Z axis. Adjust any as necessary.

Past that hard settings are good. Next are some of the softer settings, PID tune both your hot end and Bed to ensure temps are accurate. In other words, we want to verify that when you are calling for 220 deg it is 220 deg and not actually 190 because the PID tables are off by 10 or 15%.

Once completed the steps above please let us know what you have found. reprint the test print mentioned above and let us see the results. This will complete the basic Printer elimination next steps will be to move onto the slicer. Please complete the previous steps first before changing things in the slicer or we will not make progress.

[JudahCo]

thanks Jason, once we get that done, ill post pics

[JudahCo]

wow, finally got around to getting some pics on here,
hardware wise, checked everything over, took the whole end apart to make sure everything is tight and no gaps, trying to eliminate possible heat creep.
everything looks good as far as I can tell, esteps are good, used pronterface and did a temp test run, looked pretty good but ran the PID auto tune anyway and saved it,
I’m trying to get things dialed in with the small roll of PLA from ender before moving on to the performance PLA.
ran a mostly stock tune on Cura for a ender 5 plus with .2mm layers, very difficult to get detailed pics with the stuff as its semi transparent, there is some gapping/under extrusion right after where the layers start, but not as bad as with the performance PLA on this cube,
also did a retraction tower, by far the best we have seen so far, this tells me the performance PLA and Petg is the issue and needs different settings, as this stuff printed better…
(problematic test prints to follow)

[JudahCo]

the dark grey is the performance pla, where the layers start to the right of the holes it gets pretty messy,
the same issue repeats with the ender pla, but to a lesser extent, there 2 prints have the same slicer setting except the temperature is hotter with the Matter3d performance PLA

also with the ender you can see some weird stringing happening on the back support, but it all came off easy with my fingers, no tools.

The focus would be on the first 2 pics, it happens on a fair bit of prints, just needs to be the right sequence or something, but always at a starting point (new layer or after a retraction)

sorry for taking so long, life gets busy

hope fully this info is helpful and I didn’t miss anything

[kitedemon]

I see a few things.

The infill can be see though the side. infix before side settings will help. Also more parameters will too.

Check the tension on the belts. The rough lines could be caused by loose belts.

Did you change the nozzle? I would do that, the under extrusion and rough sides can be a damaged, clogged nozzle. (or really poor quality one)

There is some warping as well. Is the printer near a draft or AC/Fan?

It looks like in some pics there is a feed issue at what I can assume a few mm from the bottom. There is serious gaps, This is either really bad extruder gears or something inhibiting the filament feeding. check the path. That is the simplest.

I would try adding to your extrusion multiplier ( flow) try adding 10% see if that helps.

[JudahCo]

thanks Kitedemon,

those pictures are deceiving, I don’t think your seeing any infill, the middle part where you see that pattern is only one row thick… no infill, some sort of pattern reflection… i see it on quite a few prints, not sure why. even on single walls that are under .4mm thick
belt tension is fine, the rough lines cannot be seen by the eye and look way worse in the pic then in real, its just the lighting… either way my concern is still the holes/gapping to the right of the holes in the first two pics in the last post.

yes new nozzle, the print actually is quite good aside from that one spot,
there is no warping that i can see… camera angle, no drafts or fans in that room
no gapping near the bottom, that’s a support that had not been removed yet… you can see it post removal on the bottom picture.

I could just crank up the multiplier, but I don’t see how that is going to address the post retraction/new layer issue

side note: the test print from the OP is similar then the test print I just did, only difference is I didn’t want a 4 hr test print, so I just cut out a section, unfortunately the slicer puts the starts/stops at different places so the gaps are in a different spot, still getting reproduceable gaps/ under extrusion at one point, using multiple filaments, so I think its a good test regardless

[Matthew]

Hi there,

Do you have any sort of pressure advance set up? I am unsure of what firmware you are running but I know newer marlins have it as well now. Sometimes if this value is set wrong it can lead to some similar looking extrusion artifacts.

Do you have your printer set up in a cool place or a place with any drafts? Sometimes this can also affect the print in similar ways to what you show now.

Thanks,
Matthew

[JudahCo]

Thanks Mathew,
Have not messed with nor know how to use pressure advance, using pretty much Enders stock suggestions through Cura, and with whatever Marlin firmware came with the Ender 5 plus,
Jason suggested I run some tests in an earlier post before messing with things otherwise its hard to pin point the issue,
hope fully he’ll chime in and make some suggestions,
is the pressure advance something I would have to adjust using pronterface? or…?

[Jason]

generally, I do not add more options like pressure advance until I get the basics worked out.

Is the profile you are using in Cura, Is it one you created or did you get it from Chep or a similar source?

I am curious to throw a big curve ball at you. Would you consider slicing the same cube using PRUSA slicer and see if the results are the same?

sounds like you have worked out the hardware kinks. I am wondering if the software is kicking you on this one?

[Matthew]

Pressure advance would be something that you would have to enable in the firmware first, if you are using the stock ender 5 plus firmware there is no way that it has pressure advance built in so you won’t have to worry about that.

My next step was going to be the same as @Jason haha, I wad going to recommend you to use another slicer. I remember when I bought an ender 3 max a while back I was having all sorts of problems with it, they were weird and inconsistent problems that I really had no explanation for. Finally I switched to another slicer and boom, gone! It is possible that something similar is happening with your printer.

If you are looking for suggestions my favorite slicer currently is SuperSlicer, it is very similar to PrusaSlicer as they are both based on the Slic3r, but SuperSlicer comes with some added bonuses. It has some built in calibration settings which helps with tuning all your settings.

Thanks,
Matthew

[JudahCo]

Thanks!, will give that a go

originally we were using a profile a friend helped set up, but to eliminate any settings, we added a new printer in Cura and am using the ‘stock’ suggested profile for the ender 5 plus…a few minor temp changes and retraction settings for the MicroSwiss DD, otherwise all stock.

will try to learn a new slicer in the next day or two, either Prusa or Superslicer,
its fun learning all this stuff, but can be very time consuming haha

thanks again, ill post back when I have something…

[Matthew]

Sounds like a good plan!

I believe there are a couple of good tutorials on YouTube from teaching tech about how to use it and all the different settings and whatnot, could be worth a look!

Matthew

[JudahCo]

Hey hey,
Trying to figure out how to get the prusaslicer working with the ender5 +,
even with slowing down the non print moves z travel, it still moves the bed faster then it should, (sounds really bad) this is even before it even starts printing
So after multiple attempts and stopping the print before it even starts, i thought id ask if there is a setting I’m missing, cant find a lot of easy to find info with prusaslicer with an ender 5+

[Jason]

Hi There

If you have a look in your start Gode the lines that start with G1 or G0 are your move commands. You can slow them down by adding the F switch to them. Bear in mind the F switch is mm/min not mm/sec as you are used to.

G1 X100 Y100 Z100 F5000

It is essentially moving to the correct location at the rate of 83.3 mm/sec

[JudahCo]

Thanks Jason

I ended up giving Superslicer a try, it took a little learning, but seems like a nice little upgrade from Cura,
so far it appears promising, did a XYZ test cube, and it looked better IMO,
then tried the test similar to the OP and its definitely an improvement from the underextruding issue
also tried a thin wall box test with a gap in the corner (like one i did earlier) a big improvement there as well, with only one obvious issue with gapping, but not consistently throughout like previous.
Ill try to get some pics on here tomorrow, Either way, weather this is a 100% fix, im not sure yet, but I believe it is better… still want to try Prusaslicer

[JudahCo]

Thanks for the G-code advice.
does the F command affect all three axis?

i believe this line would be the culprit

G0 X{(min(print_bed_max[0], first_layer_print_min[0] + 32) - 32)} Y{(max(0, first_layer_print_min[1]) - 4)} Z{40} F10000

if I understand this correctly, its telling all the movements to be at 167mm/sec, including moving the ender 5 plus bed up/down at the same speed 167mm/sec

looking at the Superslicer start G-code, they seperate the xy from the z

G1 Z50 F240
G1 X2 Y10 F3000

with the prusa slicer could I replace that line with the below code? more or less trying to allow x and y to stay at that speed, but slow down the Z, (this would make the Z move after as well, not at the same time)

G0 X{(min(print_bed_max[0], first_layer_print_min[0] + 32) - 32)} Y{(max(0, first_layer_print_min[1]) - 4)} F10000
GO Z{40} F300

thanks again, i very much appreciate it, would be a little much without all the wisdom of others

[Jason]

That looks correct, Bear in mind if the Limit in the firmware is F250 for the Z axis you could make it F5000 and it will only go the 250.

It’s one of the reasons I wrote my firmware from scratch for the 5 Plus. I have it functioning but not polished enough to release. A major disadvantage to working on your own stuff, once it works, Just use it.

[JudahCo]

Thanks Jason,
I’ll try that out.
Here are some tests from superslicer, before i removed supports

after

supports didnt come off very nice, and there was some retraction issues with some stringy gross stuff in the middle, but… no holes or gaps with this test

[JudahCo]

cura print, holes everywhere after the retraction

supercslicer, one spot, but there rest looks nice

the light makes it look worse then it is, have to do a re test to see if thats a one off

[Matthew]

Glad you have been able to make some progress with this, it is certainly looking a lot better.

Have you tried out some of the flow calibration tests inside of superslicer?

Thanks,
Matthew