Good! Mine sometimes forms pits/holes over skimpy infill. 20% still shows a few depressions with only 2 surface layers, and for what i'm doing with it, that's not good enough. (Bridging is a whole other issue.)I seem to have a decent 2-layer surface, on 20% infill, by speeding up the bridge.
The direction of bridging makes a big difference in the quality, with bridging along the x axis (from left to right) being best, and bridging along the y axis (front to back) being worst. Angled bridging falls in between.
I would guess its because the motor along the X axis travels faster (less weight for the X axis motor to pull along). Takes a bit more "oomph" to move that whole spider and plate business along the Y.How can this be?
Bed: Zebra Plate
Yep! Try it, you'll like it! (So wonderful to finally ditch the hairspray!) PEI is even better if you absolutely need a flat surface, and it works great with PETG.Currenly using glass, so I can't see how flat a flexible plate could be. Can you really just lay the plate down and have it as flat as glass? And is it as smooth?
Jim is dead-on with the tension issue and the filament squashing. I found that using less retraction was causing a lot of oozing/stringing issues (and zits) all over the print, which were tedious to cut off afterwards. But if you've got something that works, do not mess with it. I don't have all the answers, just what worked for me.I just started using retraction minimally and more slowly, and only when the travel distance is more than 50 mm. This is because more/faster retraction was causing the drive gear to dig into and squash the filament, which caused it to get stuck in the extruder.
Jim nailed this one too - it's providing structure and support for the saggy filament. Printing every third layer is going to cut way down on the print time, but the part is going to crush/break/delaminate much more easily. But again, it depends on what you are using it for - if it's just a display object, you probably don't need super strength, so do whatever works.use one of the infill patterns that prints every layer....
Would this be because each layer would have less volume needing to be melted? I am currently infilling every 3rd layer, so I guess that means 3 times the volume.
And thanks for putting in your experience with it! It's good to know that the printing range for the filament is a lot more flexible than i thought, and the more expert users put in their knowledge, the easier it is for the newbies to pick it up and run with it.