I dried it for 8 hours @ 40C. But I can’t even print a temperature tower correctly, the layers start to not stick to the other layers, once it gets to a certain height. Now testing by printing retraction towers, it’s a fast print in OrcaSlicer. Just override the retraction length, and it’ll use it for all of them.
I tried 220C and 230C so far. Now trying 215C, and 50% fan, didn’t change fan speed yet. Perhaps being in an enclosure is messing it up.
If all fails, I’ll probably just use Cura. I did try to tune the flow rate, but they all kind of sucked. Rather do that once the temp and fan speed is right.
I’ve printed stuff with wood filament, that was fine with Cura. But I’m not printing a paper towel holder, until it can print this retraction tower, without being able to break it in half super easily. Well, the first four or so layers, might be good, since the fan isn’t on, so maybe 50% min and max fan will do the trick. Perhaps I should have done 0% min, and 50% max. That will be the next test maybe.
Pretty sure with Cura, I used 100% fan after the first four layers though. Or after it was 0.6mm high.
There’s only two reviews for this filament on Amazon, one from me, and one from somebody else, no settings on the other review.
You can tell where you can break it off with PLA wood, not sure about other filament. This may be the hardest filament to print. Extruding looks uneven. I’d go to the manufacture’s site, to see what it says for fan speed, but it’s broken in Firefox now. I’d have to use a different browser and hope it works. Might just need to keep bed temp @ 65C and not lower to 60C. That’s 5C over the recommended bed temp. Nope, their site is broken in Vivaldi too.
Ok found the page, and review says 70C bed temp. And turn fan speed down to 127, and what is that in %? Hmm, and is that for wood filament? Cause it looks like they just bundled all the damn reviews into one page.
Well, 255 is full speed. LOL, 50% is about 127. So keep that the same then. And increase bed temp now. Maybe turn retraction length off, so I can get the right value, thought 7 was good, but at a different temperature. I could always give it more wall loops eh.
Hmm might not break as easy. But not sure I used the right settings for the retraction tower. Not seeing 10 spots. Haha, started at 3, there’s my problem.
Well, the retraction is still 7 or 8.
Flow rate now, then the big print.
For ataraxiaart wood PLA, at least the walnut one, use 70C bed temp, and 50% fan speed, and it might work better. I use 215C for the nozzle temp, just like it was in Cura. That’s on G10 or G11 build plate. I forgot what it is. From HoldenEnterprises on etsy. For the retraction length, 7 or 8mm might work, with a bowden tube setup. Just print a retraction tower and find the value yourself.
Update
Woke up to this, looks like 215C isn’t hot enough.
Printed a temp tower from 240C-220C, but I should have put the fan back at 100% probably. Now printing another one with the fan @ 100%. Don’t want to do the big print without the right temperature. 220C might work, if the problem is the fan speed. Except, I suppose it might need to be decreased as well, I’ll find out.
And looks like I should have went down on the fan speed. Damn, got to print another temp tower. 30% fan this time, since 50% wasn’t low enough apparently, and 100% too high. Lots of temperature spikes on the nozzle too, so doing a MPC tuning. Also, changed the retraction speed. Going to lookup what the retraction speed should be for PLA Wood. Good idea, go down to 35 for the speed. It makes a lot of noise.
No fan calibration in OrcaSlicer. Got to manually do it. Looks like a big temp drop to under 50C for the nozzle. After it’s done, I’ll change the damn USB cable. Rebooting printer might fix it too.
If it’s not the cable, could be the USB power blocker thing. Ahh, I don’t want to go back to unplugging and plugging USB back in. Worth a try though, as the cable is brand new basically, was in a pack. My resend is 1 so far in OctoPrint.
Apparently you can print a power blocker, but can it be printed in wood PLA? LOL. Only one spike so far, think I’ll just reboot printer after it’s done, since it only happens after the second or so print.
Somebody said tuning won’t fix that problem, mostly fixed it for me, only one spike so far since doing the MPC tuning. Possibly because I had to open tent to remove crap from nozzle.
So far, looks like 30% fan fixed it. Probably want to use the lowest temp that works, as the max recommended is 220C. PETG needs more fan for bridges, apparently wood PLA likes less fan.
I picked 230C, and changed the flow rate back to the default, or what I remember the default being. Probably too much flow. Too lazy to print a flow calibration again, and too lazy to print another temp tower. Off to the big print, might fail though, since I didn’t get the best flow rate, or check temp tower again.
No supports this time either, too lazy to remove it, it’s a pain even with wood PLA. Only the bottom would have support, and they claim no support needed.
Should have used 220C, even though it might not be hot enough. But there’s stringing at 230C. Already at 8mm retraction I think.
Damn forgot to change infill pattern again.