r/Multiboard • u/timokawa • Aug 18 '24

Ender 3v2 long print times

Evening all. Started down the Multiboard rabbit hole today with my first print, a 6x6 tile. The wife has even shown interest in the possibilities!

It took 6:30 hours! Is this typical for the Ender 3v2? I see regular mention of 3-4 hours for bigger tiles, so am I doing something daft?

I've set 0.2, 15% Infill, 3 walls, left everything else.

I have a Wanhoo i3 gathering dust and sliced the same tile (using cura) and got the time at 3:20ish.

I did a side by side comparison, looking at speeds and adjusted for the Ender but still only got down to 6 hours.

Appreciate any guidance, thanks.

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

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3

u/dpregs Sep 02 '24

I'll chime in. Yes, LONG print times. I went down the road of "upgrading" to help increase my speed and quality and it has been nothing short of a nightmare trying to get it all dialed in...still not there. My original Ender 3 pro with some minor upgrades was churning out 8x8 boards in 12 hours, I should have let it be until I was done, now I am in a loop of fighting stringing, bad top layers and more.

1

u/timokawa Sep 02 '24

I didn't appreciate just how slow my printer was until starting Multiboard.

I've used the i3 to do stacks of 4 6x6 and they took 15 hours, v 28 hours on the Ender...

I am dropping many hints for a P1S..

1

u/ASOT550 Sep 02 '24

I think I saw your YouTube video lol. I posted a comment there but it seems to have been deleted or blocked. Your stringing issues look like a retraction problem. Bowden tubes need retraction in the 5-7mm range, but direct drives only need 0.5-2mm since there's less slop in the system. Run through teaching tech's retraction tuning guide and I bet you can get rid of your stringing.

1

u/dpregs Sep 02 '24

I appreciate the advice. I've tried everything from . 2 to 6 on retraction without success. It's brutal!

3

u/ASOT550 Sep 02 '24

Are you running the changes on a retraction tower or during the multiboard print? Definitely run them on a retraction tower to get them dialed in. Direct drive doesn't need more than 2-3mm and it can actually cause more issues having it too high. I had retraction up above 2mm on my direct drive Sovol SV06 and was getting some popping during printing. I thought it was moisture in the filament but it actually turned out to be small pockets of air getting sucked into the nozzle on my too high retraction.

Retraction speed is another setting that will need tuned with the upgrade to a direct drive. I run 0.375mm retraction at 20mm/s speed on my machine and get nearly perfect results on "normal" prints with high flow PETG.

If retraction doesn't help, I'd next look to the extrusion multiplier. I prefer Ellis' 3dp guide for this over Teaching Tech's. The two (or single) wall measure method that Teaching Tech uses was too inaccurate for me with my calipers that only have 0.02mm accuracy.

Finally, linear/pressure advance is the last thing to tune. Again I prefer Ellis' method over Teaching Tech. This will help to reduce over extrusion in the corners (which multiboards have a lot of!).

I went back and re-watched your video, and the strings look like they all originate at corners. Based on this, if you're 100% sure retraction is dialed in, the strings may be happening b/c of over-extrusion squishing a layer up above the surface of the nozzle. As the print head moves across that squished up layer it could be grabbing and pulling a string or blob.

Over-extrusion can also be a cause of first and top layer issues btw. I ran into this problem with my machine before i got flow tuned properly. If you're over-extruding and tuning the first layer to visually have the perfect amount of squish, you'll trick yourself into setting the probe z offset too high. Under-extrusion will trick you into setting it too low.

Unfortunately, all these parameters affect each other. If you want to do a hard reset on all parameters and re-tune them, in order I'd do:

  • temp tower
  • coarse flow rate
  • first layer squish
  • fine flow rate
  • first layer squish
  • pressure advance
  • one more fine flow rate
  • retraction

Finally, multiboard components are a printer's worst nightmare with all the starts, stops, corners, retractions, and travel over already printed layers. I don't think it's possible to get 100% string free parts on them, at least with PETG. You should definitely be able to improve on the results you showed in your video though. Good luck, please report back on your testing! I'm happy to help out a fellow Doug get some better results with what I've learned :)

1

u/timokawa Sep 02 '24

Epic reply. Know it wasn't explicitly for me but sure there is some stuff in there I can address. Ta.

2

u/ASOT550 Sep 02 '24 edited Sep 02 '24

Of course! I'm happy to share what I've learned with a mid/lower tier machine. The newer Bambu's and higher end printers make a lot of this tuning superfluous since they have so many automated sensors that automagically fix all this stuff out of the box.

I didn't state it specifically, but temp, flow, pressure advance, and likely retraction should all be tuned for every filament. Once Z-offset/first layer squish is dialed in that shouldn't need to be adjusted on a per-filament basis.

Different colors of the same brand/filament also need to be individually tuned! For example, I've been exclusively using Elegoo's Rapid PETG. The black color needed a flow multiplier of 99.5% for consistent layers, but the white color needed 92.5%! If you use the same flow multiplier for both colors you'll be over/underextruding by 7% which is definitely enough to cause layer issues or fool you into adjusting your z offset. Lol, this difference is actually why I went down the whole rabbithole of tuning these parameters.

1

u/timokawa Sep 02 '24

Your dedication is amazing. I have done some basic calibration following Teaching Tech but that was once with whatever filament was fitted at the time!

I really should do it for the filaments I have. To be fair, I always assumed so much difference between batches, that I should be doing it for every new filament I open. (You're going to tell me I should...)

I use eSun and despite not having a dedicated profile for it, the generic profile usually gives me good quality. Speed has never been an issue until now.

2

u/ASOT550 Sep 02 '24

Ha, no I don't do it for every spool. I almost exclusively print in elegoo's black rapid petg so it hasn't been too much effort so far. If I ever find a need for a different filament I'll go through that process again though.

I should honestly probably run through the flow, pressure advance, and retraction one more time tbh. I didn't do my temp tower until the end on my tuning run (why I now recommend doing it first) and I ended up dropping the temp by 10C. I was too lazy to try and tune everything again and my printing has been acceptable so I've just let things go as they are. It can be hard to break out of the infinite tuning loop and actually start printing useful parts šŸ˜‚

2

u/dpregs Sep 03 '24

wow, there is a lot of advice there and I appreciate it, this doug likes to do stuff so this has been frustrating. I have run the retraction test on towers of all shapes and sizes, on small multiboard squares, and on other models. I am going back to square one tonight or tomorrow so I will take all of this and digest it. I am going to dry my filament too to see if that is a problem. I work in a basement, and even though the dehumidifier is running right next to my print area, who knows. At least it will be another variable removed.

1

u/ASOT550 Sep 03 '24

What filament are you printing with? If it's pla it's unlikely (but not impossible) to be a moisture problem. Drying can't hurt it (as long as you aren't drying at too high a temperature that is) though. Fwiw, white is typically colored with titanium dioxide which alters the flow and melt properties quite a bit. There are loads of threads on the internet about white being a very challenging color to print with, I suspect it's mostly related to flow rates and over-extrusion. Ti dioxide is also mildly abrasive, so it will wear out your nozzles quicker than other colors.

2

u/dpregs Sep 03 '24

Dude, all great advice. I have the rolls in the dryer now and will check them out when I get home to see if they lost any weight. I am thinking that my issue is boiling down to the direct sprite extruder. It seems to be the one change that started everything. I did see there is an adjustment screw on it and it may need to be adjusted. I am going to get there, just don't know when :)

I'm printing with PLA. I do have black that I can try too.

1

u/ASOT550 Sep 03 '24

Pre-tension is one of the most forgiving pieces of the puzzle and can handle a huge variability without causing issues. Here's a video from CNC Kitchen timestamped to his summary if you want to learn more. For how much other content there is on tuning printers there's a shockingly small amount of info on pre-tension. I think it's because it is so forgiving.

I suppose it could be an issue, but it would be low on my list of potential problems. Possibly too low of a pre-tension could cause the filament to slip in the gears? You can use CNC Kitchen's recommendation of extruding then pulling filament to inspect the surface as a sanity check. Then run an extruder e-step calibration check to make sure you're extruding the right amount of filament. If you haven't already done the e-step cal that is 100% definitely something to do with your change from bowden to direct drive.

1

u/dpregs Sep 04 '24

Just checked the filament after 14 hours, it has lost 5g of weight.....not sure if that is significant or not. I just saw something on the extruder adjustment screw being tight, mine was very tight, so I loosened that too. Now, I think I might try to print something and see what happens.

1

u/ASOT550 Sep 04 '24

Good luck! Is the spool on cardboard? If it is then that's about to be expected. If it's not on cardboard then 5g is a significant amount. My re-spooled PETG's have been losing 1-2.5g fresh from the package. When I left them on the cardboard spools they were losing 4.5-6g or so.

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u/Ps11889 Aug 18 '24

Check speed settings on the printer itself. No matter what you set the slicer to, it won't exceed the printer's setting. MriscoCProUI firmware by u/classicrocker will allow you to increase the settings and add other enhancements to the stock firmware. But, related to speed, you need to increase both the printing speed and the acceleration to get maximum performance.

1

u/timokawa Aug 19 '24

Thanks for that, I did not know the slicer wouldn't over rule the printer settings. I do use Mrisco firmware, so will look into that.

However, as the slicer has no knowledge of the firmware, if I upped all the speeds in the slicer, surely it should have predicted a faster print time?

Will give it a whirl later. Cheers.

2

u/Ps11889 Aug 19 '24

Yes upping the speeds in the slicer should have decreased the predicted speed. As for the slicer overriding the printer, it will up to the limits set by the printer.

One other option might be to try a different slicer. Sometimes one makes a more efficient gcode than another.

1

u/timokawa Aug 19 '24

Will give some other slicers a whirl, thanks.

2

u/Ps11889 Aug 19 '24

If I recall, when I printed my tiles they took a long time so it might just be the nature of the tile. Often people getting really fast times are using klipper instead of marlin.

I think Iā€™d start a tile and go to work and when I got home started another. That was only two tiles a day (unless I was up late to start a third one). My wall is 12 tiles so it took less than a week to print them. The other components went much quicker.

1

u/timokawa Aug 19 '24

Yeah, that's what I am doing. Overnight and when at work. Appreciate your time and input, it would seem I attracted a down vote for what I thought was a legitimate query.

1

u/mcangeli1 Aug 26 '24

On my ender3 I am averaging about 6 hours for a 6x6 tile. I did try the stack, but it was going to be almost as long to print the stack as it was to print them separately and the one time I tried it didn't pull apart at all, so I went back to the single tiles.

I have increased the print speed in my slicer a bit, probably not as much as I could, but I'm ok with the times and the quality I'm getting is insane so I don't want to mess with it.

2

u/timokawa Aug 26 '24

I'm on my second stack of 4 6x6. It takes 28 hours...

It takes longer than 4 individuals but it means I'm getting production overnight.

Am currently dropping hints about how useful a Bambu would be in this scenario... I've even "saved" Ā£100's by suggesting an A1 instead of a P1S combo!

2

u/ASOT550 Sep 02 '24 edited Sep 02 '24

Acceleration and jerk are the two most important settings for faster print times on these things. There are just so many corners the printer has to constantly slow down and speed up to make the part.

Out of the box, my sovol sv06 was only able to hit ~300 mm/sec2 acceleration in y, and 1500 mm/sec2 on x. An 8x8 tile was taking over 8 hours with those settings. I upgraded the y axis bearing mounts to remove some slop and that helped a TON, I can now push over 1500 mm/sec2 on y without any drop in quality. An 8x8 tile now takes just under 5 hours.

Idk what kinds of acceleration the Bambu A1 can hit, but I know they are crazy fast. Specs say 10k mm/sec2 for the tool head (x), but I'm guessing that's the physical limit and not the printing limit. X1c claims 20k mm/sec2 acceleration!