3D Printing Filaments

Here are some observations on 3D printing filaments I've used. All the prints were done on the Anycubic Mega S inside an enclosure.

Mech Solutions

White PLA

Settings:

Setting	Value
Layer Height	0.15
Print Temperature	200
Printing Temperature Initial Layer	210
Final Printing Temperature	185
Build Plate Temperature	70
Flow	98%
Initial Layer Flow	125%
Print Speed	50 mm/s
Outer Wall Speed	30 mm/s
Top/Bottom Speed	20 mm/s
Support Speed	30 mm/s
Travel Speed
Initial Layer Speed	15 mm/s
Skirt/Brim Speed	15 mm/s
Retraction Distance	6 mm/s
Retraction Speed	40 mm/s
Fan Speed	100 %
Initial Fan Speed	20 %
Regular Fan Speed at Height	0.5 mm / 4 layer

Lung Dragon

Dragon head printed with a raft lifted part way through the print and detached from the bed. Raft was 5mm. Bed was 70C. Tried again with the above profile but with the brim speed set to 15mm/s (it was 40mm/s, possibly causing weak brims?). This sort of worked, but the horns still shifted. This might have been rectified if additional supports were added to join all the parts together since each horn was separate until they're joined a couple millimeters higher. The shifting resulted in some horns being misaligned. The brim appeared to have adhered strongly, but the part still shifted somehow.

Printing dragon segments without support or raft is OK but the initial lip lifts up causing poor print quality on what is to be the underside of the dragon. Printing with custom support holding up the underside of the dragon segment seemed to help; doesn't seem to be such an issue with the larger segments.

The round joint segments don't appear to be completely round.

Printing the dragon claw segments is problematic since the small pieces are stuck to the included supports and are printed warped causing the clips to not snap properly. The round joints also turn out to be more of an oval shape and overhangs appear stringy. I tried printing at 30mm/s and it's still looking like crap.

Yellow PLA (Mech Solutions)

I had to crank up the flow rate to 210% in order to not get under extrusion. This was after checking the filament size is correct and that the extrusion is calibrated. Using a normal 100% flow rate lead to extreme under extrusion which was not observed with the white PLA. It doesn't appear to be an issue with a plugged nozzle, a skipping extruder, or too low of a temperature. I raised the temperature to 210C with the same result.

A test print with this PLA a couple weeks later had no issues printing at 100% flow rate at 200C / 65C. Definitely not sure what the issue I had was originally, but it could be an issue with Cura or that the act of changing the filament fixed something else.

Settings: 100% flow rate. 200C / 65C

Grey PLA (Mech Solutions)

Prints similar to the white PLA.

Settings: 100% flow rate. 215C / 65C.

Hollow Case (for ozone generator)

I printed a hollow case with the Grey PLA (Mech Solutions) that is 2mm thick with 0.2mm layer height, 205C/65C, 95% flow rate, 120% initial layer flow rate, 50mm/s, 40mm/s outer wall, 55mm/s inner wall, 50mm/s support, 100mm/s travel speed, 6mm retraction, 40mm/s retraction speed, 100% cooling, 45% initial cooling. Without a brim, the hollow case corners lifted from the build plate. One of the corner support disconnected from the base and fell over. There was a lot of stringing occurring between the four corners.

Small Container Boxes

I printed many 80x80x80mm boxes at 0.2mm layer height with a 0.4mm nozzle. Wall thickness was 3 walls deep at 1.2mm. I eventually started printing these boxes at 60mm/s, 70mm/s for walls, 50mm/s top/bottom layers, 30mm/s and 75% fan speed for the initial layer. Combing mode is 'Not in Skin' and 'Minimum Wall Flow' at 30% to reduce travel while printing. Prints all exhibited a weird issue where about half way up, a single layer appears to be under extruded. This occurred at the same layer across many prints, at different locations on the bed, and using different PLAs. The fix was to rotate the print 45 degrees while ensuring the seam is still at one of the corners.

Red PLA (Mech Solutions)

This prints without issue, similar to the white and grey PLA.

Settings: 100% flow rate. 215C / 65C.

Green PLA (Mech Solutions)

This prints without issue, similar to the white, grey, and green PLA.

Settings: 100% flow rate. 215C / 65C.

Ironing required bumping up flow rate to about 16% before it looked OK

Black PLA (Mech Solutions)

Printing at higher temperatures resulted in a rough or uneven outer walls. Additional testing with the temperature tower test model shows that the best print quality was observed with lower temperatures at around 180C. Previous prints at 195C was good with a simple container model, but a model that is slightly more complex resulted in lots of blobs on the outer wall.

Optimal Settings: 100% flow rate. 185C / 65C.