Hello guys!

I just printed my first Marvin, but unfortunately my print was not good enough to be approved. I am fairly new to 3D printing, and until now my research has been limited to upgrading and getting the hardware to perform. Now that I am fairly satisfied with the hardware, I need to tweak the print settings.

This is where I need help, according to these pictures, what settings would you recommend to try to improve my print of Marvin? I am using Repetier Host and Slic3r for my printing.

Thanks in advance!

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Hey KJriisne,

What material are you printing with?

If you are printing with PLA I’d recommend lowering the temperature to about 190-200, and if you have a cooling fan directed on the hot-end try cranking it up to 100%. Try also to play around with the extrusion multiplier (try lowering it by 0.05 every try) until you get a perfect print.

If you are printing with ABS (witch I just saw you are not, but still saying a couple of things about it) I’d recommend an enclosure around your printer and try using a temperature of about 220-240, and remember to use a heated bed at around 120ºC. Also try playing around with the extrusion multiplier.

I wish you good luck!

I would second the lower the temperature. It looks like the material is not cooled before the next layer is put down.

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Hey and thanks for the tips. I print with PLA and this Marvin was printed at 195 degrees, I’ll try at 190 and 185 and see how it goes and I’ll also re-do my extrusion calibration to check that the steps per mm is correct before trying to lower the extrusion multiplier.

I am using the stock K8200 cooling fan, which is not really any good, I will try to mount a new one in the next few days to see if that helps print quality as well.

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1. Crank up your active cooling, or point a fan at your print.

2. Your extrusion multiplier looks correct.

3. Lower your layer height, at least for this print, to .2mm.

4. Use supports, set your support offset at .3mm.

5. And most importantly, crank up your cooling settings, that is, the minimum print time per layer. This can be done by the settings in slicer. It allows each layer to cool and crystalize (for PLA only) before the next layer is printed. Also, print 3 at a time, so more time is printed on each. You can get it, I promise!

When I printed my Marvin, I set cooling to 100%, speed rate to 50%, and the temperature was 185ºC. I used a non-premium, cheap PLA.

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Id agree with everything said here, lower temperatures, much slower print speeds, and use plenty of print cooling fan especially for the keyring loop at the top.

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I think you can’t realy improve print quality simply by changing settings un Slic3r. I also have a K8200 si I perfectly know the type of defects it has. If you realy want significative improvement, you have to replace so hardware : replace Z-axis screw by a trapézoïdal leadscrew, use GT2 belts for X and Y and you can also replace the hotend by a e3d. You can find this parts suite cheap on aliexpress.

Hello! I am aware of this and my printer has a 24V power supply for the heatbed, the Z-axis upgrade is installed and I have installed GT2 belts and pulleys on the x and y axis, so I think I should be able to get good prints by adjusting the settings at this point. Thanks for your help.

K8400 hates small prints… In order to workaround, try to print at least 2 Marvins at the same time.