I have trouble fixing the terrible seams I’m getting. I’ve followed Elli’s print tuning guide and calibrated extruder, tuned PA (it’s now 0.035) and extrusion multiplier.

I’ve tried adjusting both retraction length and speed, but it doesn’t seem to have much impact. I’m not using “wipe on retract” or “retract on layer change”, I only retract if travel distance is longer than 3mm. Retract is 0.3mm @35mm/s.

I’ve tried reducing PA smooth time too, but this also doesn’t seem to have a noticable impact.

I’ve tried reducing seam gap from the default 10% in Orca all the way down to 0%, but the bad seams persist.

I’ve tried with “wipe on loops” both disabled and enabled with no difference.

I’ve tried with both arachne and classic wall generator, no difference.

I’ve tried different wall orders, inner/outer, inner/outer/inner and outer/inner, all with the same bad seams.

Filament in the picture is matte PLA, it is without doubt dry and generally prints well aside from the seams. It’s stored vacuum sealed with silica, and I use a filament dryer to dry if I suspect wet filament.

I’m running out of ideas for where to tweak to get a decent result.

  • Betch@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    That’s a really weird looking z-seam, something is going on there that I’m not quite sure the cause of.

    However, in this case I think you could try randomizing z-seam position. It’s not gonna fix the issue completely but it might help you with this particular part.

    • DreadPotatoOPEnglish
      31·
      9 months ago

      Yeah I’ve tried that, but it’s still really bad, almost worse, with these scattered all over the surface.

      • Betch@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        Yeah I thought that might happen too. I’ve never seen seams like that before. What temp are you printing at?

        • DreadPotatoOPEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          It’s printing at 200C with fan at 100%, using a 0.4mm hardened steel nozzle.

            • DreadPotatoOPEnglish
              2·
              9 months ago

              Yes, I recently switched the hotend from a proprietary one to a regular volcano hotend and did PID tuning.

              • Betch@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                9 months ago

                Did you notice this kind of thing happening before you switched your hot end? I’m assuming you’ve tested printing at a higher temp already but I have to ask anyway. 200C is kinda low for some PLAs.

                • DreadPotatoOPEnglish
                  2·
                  9 months ago

                  Yeah I’ve tried 190-220C, which is the range specified by the manufacturer of the filament.

                  I don’t remember seeing this issue before the change, but I’m still new to the hobby and may just have overlooked or accepted it earlier.