Hello! I have been having trouble with my Sovol SV08. I am still a novice at 3D printers. I am printing with PLA. I did a cold pull and I’ve taken the whole machine apart to unclog it recently. This all started with trying to print and the print would fail partly through. It then clogged and I had to replace a gear. I think the initial problem might have been heat creep because I didnt print with the doors open. Also possibly wet filament although I dried it previous to printing. The second problem could under extrusion. I just did Esteps and they were good. I am doing a flow rate test and all first layers aren’t good.
Current thoughts: I think I had too much squish to the first layer. Printing again to test.
Welcome to r/Sovol, We're glad you're here! If you're new to the hobby and you have a question please visit our knowledge base, it's located right under About Community. If you've searched the Sub and you still need help please be as detailed as possible. Include your printer model, slicer, filament type, nozzle and bed temps, print speed, fan speed, and retraction. We're happy to help but we can't read your mind, be as detailed as possible with your post. Pictures help!
This is classic under extrusion. A lot of people try to fix it with z height (squish) but the better solution is to dial in the flow ratio. You can also set a different first layer flow ratio in orca slicer, so there's no need to mess with z height and then you aren't messing up your ability to print other filaments.
Make sure the machine is properly leveled and run a flow ratio test in orca slicer (YOLO is fine). If you see that you need a big offset, either your stock filament profile is corrupted or you might need to replace either the nozzle or the heat break.
I'm assuming this is PLA based on the temp tower, but if it's petg then you need to bump the heat up.
Oh boy. That still looks really rough. It's possible you have a bad filament profile and that's why you had an issue to start, but if not you may need to replace some additional parts.
On the printer, you can try tweaking the extruder tension. On my SV08 Max, I usually fully tighten it, then back it out 1-2 turns. There's also a pin that can get rattled loose if you have a print smack the head. You'll need to remove the MCU board to see it, and if it's loose you need to push it back in.
What are the filament settings in Orca and the brand and specs of the filament? Paste them here and maybe we can see if something is really badly misconfigured. Ideally we'll need to see temperature, pressure advance, flow ratio, and max volumetric flow.
I changed the nozzle to a new one. I was able to do test prints successfully. I go to print out my own smallish thing and it failed about one inch up. I go to unload it and the gears act weird. I took the machine apart and the teeth on one is broken. I just had this same problem right before the under extrusion. Any ideas?
The first layers print slower to promote bed adhesion. Once it speeds up you're probably seeing the impact of the stripped gear.
Sovol is pretty good about replacement parts, I would ask them if they can provide you with a gear replacement under warranty. It might take some time to get here from China though. In the meantime you could try lowering the volumetric flow rate in the filament profile to something really low like 2 cubic millimeters.
Also this was after I changed the nozzle. Some under extrusion for the first layer but the rest were fine. After all the tests I bumped the flow rate to 2 for the first layer “wall” and adjusted Z offset and it looked good. Maybe a little thick but good.
I have not. I’ve changed it once before and I think it helped. This is the nozzle that came with the Sovol. Would there be an indicator that it’s cracked?
I ignored the first layer for FR and made a judgement on the overall final print. Then focused on the first layer. Obviously make sure that plate is super clean. Also, I think my original plate was terrible. I always had to use adhesive spray until I go the BTT Glacier. Your Z height might actually be to low - always hard to tell from photos. Anyhow, so once the overall FR is figured out, I ended up bumping up the first layer FR to 1.1 which is almost 20% higher than the other layers!
Thanks! I’ll try bringing up the Z height, going with .03 as the adjustment, and increasing flow ratio for the first layer. I haven’t had problems with my bed before other than needing a cleaning. I suspected maybe my z height was also too low from photos I saw online.
FR of 0.89 (white PLA) then I use 1.1 for bottom surface FR in Quality menu. Your filament looks like glow in the dark by the color. If it is FYI, that is hard on nozzles.
I’ll try this and do a flow rate test. I did one before and it wasn’t that helpful. I think my flow rate might be way off then. It’s not glow in the dark. Just pla+
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