That’s right! I finally tweaked the settings to the point where I got rid of many (if not all) of the surface blemishes I was experiencing before! Here’s the before picture:
As you can see, there are quite a few bumps and inconsistencies, as well as some overextrusion! In order to fix that, I realized there were several features I didn’t have turned on or adjusted correctly:
- Within Simplify3d, you can specify retraction GCODE that is run whenever a retract is triggered, which I didn’t realize! Hyrel printers use 2 special GCODE commands (M721 and M722 for anyone who’s curious) to retract and prime again, so I inserted 3 unprime instructions, and 1 prime instruction!
- Overextrusion? That means I have to decrease the flow rate! Upon decreasing the flow rate to around .8, it turned out much better!
Now without, further adieu, the after picture!
While it’s still not perfect (you can see some amount of vibration in the surface finish), it is remarkably freer of surface bumps, blips, or overextrusion. For reference, here’s the two in a side-by-side comparison shot (before adjustment is on the left):
Now, there are two things left to work on with Simplify3d before it is completely perfect:
- smoothing out the surface finish
- support – I realized the surface wasn’t looking as good underneath the support because the support was too far away from the print. fixing that should make the surface look better.
Until next time! It’s been a long saga, but Simplify is almost there!!
John (aka The Mad Printer)
The Mad Printer 