3D Printer Troubles, "sloppy" first layer?

[cakesmithinc]

I have a Printrbot Simple Metal 1403 and the Ubis hotend died, so I replaced it with an E3D V6 as per this guide and everything seemed to go well. (besides breaking my fan, darn) But now, my printer lays down the first layer super sloppily:

http://imgur.com/H3M7Bw6
Printing in PETG @ 245C

What does this mean? I'm having a difficult time troubleshooting this because I do not know what this effect is called. I have leveled my bed to as level as I can get it. (G29 shows values from .94 to 1.00)

Thanks
Vaughn B.

 

[Ralston18]

I have looked at your post a couple of times. However, was not sure about any "reasonable" response per se.

That said, are you sure that the hotend replacement is completely correct? Does not take much to throw such things off.

Or perhaps the E3D is faulty. Not easy to troubleshoot. Maybe try a second replacement.

 

[cakesmithinc]

I have looked at your post a couple of times. However, was not sure about any "reasonable" response per se.

That said, are you sure that the hotend replacement is completely correct? Does not take much to throw such things off.

Or perhaps the E3D is faulty. Not easy to troubleshoot. Maybe try a second replacement.

I really have no idea what to do to test this. I do not have the money available for another replacement.

Could it be that a firmware setting is wrong?

 

[Ralston18]

Firmware - perhaps.

Check the manufacturer's forums and FAQ beforehand to see if anyone else is commenting on or asking about a similar problem.

May or may not be overtly acknowledged by the manufacturer. They will just do a firmware "update" and perhaps list what the update is fixing or improving.

Problem with firmware is you can brick a device.

One thought I had was that you may try "forcing the error": Set the bed off level a bit and see if the "effect" get worse or otherwise changes.

Keep all other settings static and try bed adjustments. May bring something to light.

 

[cakesmithinc]

Thanks for your suggestion of forcing the error, but I have still not yet fixed this.

Here is what I did in order:
"Un-leveled" the print bed. (no effect)
Played with the z-offset. (somewhat of an effect)
Reflashed the firmware. This helped noticeably because I had incorrect firmware settings for my thermistor, but still did not completely remove the problem.
Tweaked the extrusion multiplier through Cura. (little to no effect)

I am going to try to reinstall the threaded rod for the z axis next and see if that helps.

 

[cakesmithinc]

If anyone stumbles upon this in the future, it seems my problem was the acceleration setting under M204. The one I had set was much too high, (1500, I believe) but now that I have set it to 500 (M204S500) things are working much better.

In hindsight, this makes a lot of sense. When I reflashed the firmware, the acceleration was set lower making it improve slightly, but it was still too high.

I did end up redoing the whole Z axis, which did happen to be a bit loose, and saw improvements there.

Thanks for your help,
Vaughn B.

 

[Ralston18]

Appreciate the update. Thanks.

Perhaps the Mods may create a new forum category for "3D Printers". Not sure how those decisions are made but VR has recently been added. Probably depends on the number of definitively identifiable posts.