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She asked "What is that crap?"
Looks like the extruder didn't stop extruding on the edges. But then, maybe its not supposed to stop, I dunno. I have no experience here.Regardless, I think you shouldn't be quite so hard on yourself Carl.
Thanks Don and Bill. And I'm also glad everyone who's home made it safely and I hope the others are still enjoying their trip.Bill...these printers can't really do different plastics in a sitting. At least I haven't seen it yet. These printers use PLA or ABS plastic. I'm using PLA. Learning little things like not leaving the plastic in the extruder or it can crystalize.For those who don't know...The bed (on which the print is made) is just a plate of glass sitting on top of a large PCB that is a heater. The heat is needed to keep the plastic soft for a while since it tends to shrink as it cools and will pull up otherwise.But plastic doesn't stick to glass very well so people usually cover it with something. I'm using painter's bue masking tape.The plastic is a filament that is fed into an extruder. That's nothing more than a heater and stepper motor. The stepper motor feeds the filament through a hobbed bolt that has an idler wheel pressed against it.Made progress on the last attempt. I wiped down the tape with isopropyl alcohol. Print stuck to the tape and was building up well before things went awry.At first I thought my Z axis wasn't making enough steps per layer. That would cause the extruder to eventually collide with the print and miss steps in X or Z.I checked my Z calibration and saw I was a little over. Not much so I thought I'd be good. Didn't figure that over time a layer would get too much above the previously laid layer. Printing in air produces globs. It fooled me because the extruder would hit the glob, miss steps, and it would looked like I hadn't gone high enough.Getting close! My buddy said I was a lot further along than he was when he started. So that gives me some confidence.This thread properly belongs on another forum. But I like being here. ("I love you guys."...and gal.)If it truly bothers someone (someone I care about ) let me know by PM.
I had the best luck (with PLA) running the print head at 230 degrees centigrade,