Trying to add text to the bottom of prints and the quality is inconsistent

Hoping someone has an idea on this!

I’ve been making little Disney trinkets for my wife to hand out when we go to Disneyland, and feedback has been positive enough that I thought I’d try a little Etsy store to make some filament money.

Initially I added it into my base template in TinkerCAD but it kept coming out real bad, so I’ve been trying adding the text within Creality Print, and usually it looks pretty good but it can be wildly inconsistent.
The top two are from a batch of five where I set one up and then duplicated it. The middle two are from a batch of eleven, all duplicated from the first five that looked nice, and then the bottom two are that same batch of five that I tried printing a second time and it turned out way worse.

Any idea on why it varies so much and what I could do to resolve it?

AnarchoSnowPlow,

I’m only adding this because I don’t already see someone mentioning it.

My first thought was bed leveling, because that’s always the first thing, especially with weird surface artifacts.

But looking at the bridging “above” the text and the gaps in the interface between the solid infill and your perimeters I suspect that you’ve got some under-extrusion going on.

Have you tuned your filament? If not I recommend giving that a shot and seeing if it doesn’t clear up those issues.

ETA: I’ve also found that with text printed on the base I have way better luck when I cut it about 1mm deep (for 0.2mm layer heights)

vladmech,

Do you have any recommendations for tuning filament? I’ve found a few videos I’m going to watch tonight, but one thing that’s interesting is I just switched from a CR-10 to a K1 Max, and at the same time from Simplify3D to Creality Print and checking my old S3D profile, my flow modifier was at 1.0, but on CPrint it’s at 0.95. That seems weird, but also it’s manufacturer software with their printer so I’d assume they know what they’re doing, but then it gives weird prints like this.

AnarchoSnowPlow,

I’m excited to introduce you to this if you haven’t seen it!

teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html

I use this as a general guide for every time I buy a new material, manufacturer, and/or color of filament. There’s YouTube videos explaining everything every step of the way.

For a new printer (or significant modifications) I’d go through the whole thing. For new filament, if I haven’t used it before, I do flow calibration, temperature tuning, retraction tuning, pressure/linear advance tuning, and max flow tuning, not necessarily in that order. I’ve found that as I’ve learned and experimented more I’ve branched out into more esoteric tools for some things.

My filament printer is a fairly heavily modified ender 3 pro (spider hotend, direct drive, dual z axis, spring steel bed, solid bed spacers, herome gen 7 cooler, cr touch, stepper driver diodes, and an adxl345 waiting for me to mount and wire it… I think that’s it). So I’m not saying this as a Creality hater, I love my ender, I hate their software and firmware. I had a terrible time with their Marlin firmware and ended up building it myself. I’ve since switched to klipper though and highly recommend it, it got me a reasonable quality benchy in around 30 minutes.

My point there is that I have had a hard time with the default profiles across the board, even before the mods. For filament printing I use Prusaslicer, though I do like Superslicer and Orcaslicer seems nice as well, I just have all my profiles built for Prusaslicer and it generally just works.

0xd34d,

Let’s hope the ones you’re trying to sell on Etsy don’t have this same issue 😜

vladmech,

Oh 100% yeah. Only doing this for the ones my wife is handing out and even then I’d prefer they look nicer as it reflects on me. The top side has the date on it and that thankfully consistently comes out fine!

neptune,

Off topic, but isn’t disney going to sue you to hell and back for profiting off their venm diagram mouse logo thing?

vladmech,

In theory no only because there are a ton of things like this on Etsy, but that’s something to think (worry) about haha

GrindingGears,

It’s also hella creepy. If someone handed this to my kid at Disney World, it would likely be straight into the garbage. This is step 1 on how people get malwared/defrauded, and/or abducted.

I recognize your intentions are likely pure, but it’s the world we live in. If you really want to hand stuff out, IMO you should skip the link.

vladmech,

Would it seem less weird to you if it was an Etsy link or just creepy regardless?

lud,

Absolutely!

Link shorteners should really be avoided if possible. Even many subs on Reddit had a complete ban on them.

I don’t know if it would be creepy though. I’m just speaking from a security and personal view, I have no kids.

GrindingGears,

I think I’d be a little less creeped out if it was an Etsy link. I’m not against promotion, but when it involves my kids, I’m super suspicious and protective. Also that link the way it is, isn’t one I’d let them visit.

Edit: or even less creepy, if you could share your store name and just say search for us on Etsy or something. Direct links from unvetted sources is a security no-no.

vladmech,

Yeah no you’re right and I appreciate you bringing it up. Talked about it with my wife and had an additional “is this even a nice ‘magic moment’ if it’s shilling a store?” Going to go back to blank backs and just have a little card to hand out if folks specifically ask!

GrindingGears,

Right on. Well look, I hope it’s a great trip for you guys. Travel safe and vacation hard!

vladmech,

Hmm that’s a good point I hadn’t thought about, I’ll have to think on this a bit more but also in general want to get it cleaned up for future projects.

Chaphasilor,

The issue is probably that the text is on the bottom, as others have also pointed out. Take a look at this video, it explains your options pretty well: youtu.be/TH82TSjI67I

vladmech,

Checking this out now, thank you!

Chaphasilor,

Also just found another one that has more concrete recommendations: youtu.be/iYCyU9paqdY

yokonzo,

Don’t forget about the possibility of bed warp, if your cover or bed is a little beat up it might be time for a few tests

charles,
@charles@lemmy.world avatar

Can you shrink the text size so it shows up in only the wall pattern on the bottom layer?

vladmech,

So it wouldn’t be indented really, just kind of there so drawn into the bottom layer? I’ll give that a try and see how that looks!

charles,
@charles@lemmy.world avatar

One file I downloaded had that and I’ve thought about it since.

j4k3,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

There are multiple ways I have solved this. You can add a small chamfer into your design for every edge of the lettering, although this is a pain, or you can adjust the first layer expansion compensation.

Go with the empirical method and measure how far off the first layer is expanded compared to what the measurement should be. Then dial this average figure into your first later expansion compensation.

I know how this works with prusa slicer but I do not know how this terminology translates to Cura if you are using it or something else.

nezbyte,

Your first layer seems inconsistent. What z sensor are you using? Were these printed in quick succession or did the printer have time to cool?

My thinking is this could be due to thermal drift in your homing sensor. First print will be solid, then subsequent prints will have a warmed up sensor resulting in a different z offset. Try minimizing variables by making your preheating consistent. Or just baby step the z-axis during the print start.

vladmech,

Back to back prints so that may play into it, good point! Haven’t used it for a day so I’m kicking off a calibration and then printing a five batch to see how that looks.

For consistent preheating are you meaning like preheat the bed and hot end and then run the calibration? I just moved to a K1 Max from a CR-10 that I paper leveled so I’m very new to auto leveling and tricks for that. Thank you for the feedback!

IMALlama,

I don’t think your issue is the text, it’s your first layer. A number of these prints have pretty significant gaps between the extrusions.

Do you have auto leveling?

Do different prints from “the same batch” look different from one another? If yes, your bed is likely not level.

Do different prints, from the same location, look different between print jobs? If yes, it’s likely that something is loose.

vladmech,

Yeah I just moved to a K1 Max and have auto leveling for the first time, and the five batches that varied were from the same bed location so I’ll go through and make sure everything is tightened up, thank you for the idea!

OmanMkII,

I’ve had the best experience flipping the print and printing text on top. If it has to be on the bottom though, slowing the print speed and using a slicer with bridging settings may work better.

vladmech,

Unfortunately I have the date on the top (which comes out great at least) but this thread has given me a lot of things to try!

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