Extrusion Quality - Mystery issue resolved !

[@nunosantiago6720]

We at Bondtech are really proud to be working with MirageC on perfecting filament 3D printing. No matter how small the required quality increments may be, at Bondtech we always strive to improve. Actions have been taken and more experimenting will be done. The reverse integrated drive gear is just the beginning. Changes in the moulds that make our plastic main gears were performed. Additional quality controls are in place to minimize the runouts. We are sketching new designs for the gripping teeth. The (r)evolution takes time but doesn't stop here. Thank you MirageC. Great job🙂

[@eduncan911]

How would LGX Lite gears play into this?

[@seha2306]

Is the normal BMG Extruder also effected by the Problems shown in the video?

[@nunosantiago6720]

What MirageC unveiled is important. Bondtech is addressing it. However... it is a sub-prime aesthetic performance of legacy Dual Drive Technology on a direct extruder application. Always tradeoffs. Plenty advantages. This disadvantage. Now... remember the BB era, Before Bondtech. Filament feeders were very unreliable. Look at your feeders now. None is perfect but they are mostly much better. Open them up and look inside. More than 90% of you - not using LGX - will see a different flavour of Bondtech legacy Dual Drive Gear Technology. Why? Because it was state of the Art until LGX. Can we build them better? Yes! No doubt. Nothing is perfect. We are working on it. Remember we are a small company of 17 strong, always, always working with our community to improve our Dual Drive technologies, legacy and LGX. From my side, I'm looking forward to see what we all together will achieve next.

[@seha2306]

​ @Nuno Santiago I have a reality complex 3 Point Z axes like the HevORT and rebuild my printer 4 times because of the artifact shown in the video but never got rid of it. I would have never thought that my extruder may be the fault. I hope bondtech will come up with an upgrade for existing BMG Extruders.

[@MirageC]

It is such a pleasure to work with you guys. This investigation has now led us to the definition of the next FDM (r)evolution as you said. I would like to emphasis on one point though: BondTech has made their internal components available to hobbyists just like me for integrating them into all sorts of extruders. - Direct Drive - Shorter Path (gears to nozzle) - Different motors - FDM Printed self designed housing and tension levers. - etc... Sometimes these installations have been more demanding and may have not meet the initial design intentions. We have discovered some shortfalls because we are looking closer with a more demanding angle. I am so happy that we can now all take these lessons learned and move together to the next level! @Nuno Santiago: That new shaft is AMAZING!!!! I am getting print quality now that I have never seen before! Thank you Bondtech!

[@mateussousa3639]

Bro wrote and validated an entire PhD thesis and thought we wouldn't notice. What an incredible work. Subscribed.

[@Gepstra]

an incredible work

[@niksoley]

Ok, that is by far the best 3D printing video that I’ve seen.

[@androiduberalles]

RIght? 3D printing nerd would be like "hey guys, look at this other person's model I am using and printing at 400%!"

[@niksoley]

@@androiduberalles true. His is more into broad public, but I am more into hardcore maker and engineering. And this video, is engineering at its best.

[@larryfroot]

Same.

[@mwdh9100]

I agree

[@Vez3D]

Man!!! You made me laugh so hard when i saw that LSD acronym 😄 🤣 😂 Thanks for all research you have made. Incredible amount of work and frustration has gone into this. I was really happy to stand next to you in the process ...just holding your beer was an honor. 3D printing gets better because of guys like you that are passionate and refuse to abandon on your ideals. Im proud of you brother!!! You deserve a huge beer now!!! Love you!! Now rest a bit and regain your sleep that was left on the table in the garage. THANKS!!!!!

[@MirageC]

Yeah.... passion and sleep don't mix well.. but you know that already! Thanks again for all of your "moral" support! 😜

[@Brise215]

@vez3d same goes for you!

[@tobit6890]

Have you seen Proper Printings belted extruder? What do you think about that?

[@jdeg2000]

I lol'ed out loud at your 3d printing love. If you guys loop in Stephan from CNC kitchen, you'll have a super high quality 3d printing thruple.

[@Vez3D]

@@tobit6890 yeah i saw it.. and MirageC and I even had that same idea and dissscussed about it before we saw proper printing do it. What an awesome guy. Im a big fan of his work. The extruder is nice. The idea is nice. Just wondering how long belts will.last at high speed with abrasive material.

[@DaveDDD]

This is such a great breakdown of the entire subject. I can’t imagine how much time and effort went into making all of the amazing visuals for this video, but it was definitely worth it for this level of quality - thank you so much!!

[@MirageC]

Thank you 😊

[@retromodernart4426]

@@MirageC Great thorough analysis! Liked and subscribed!

[@peplegal8253]

The animations of this channel are jaw-dropping ! So much effort and talent put to ilustrate the subject...Everything done with such professionalism ! I'm truly impressed !

[@MirageC]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@persimonsen8792]

@@MirageC Every micron count's. And you are def on the right track. Enjoyed your, looking at my stock Ender 3.

[@singulartier4298]

I've heard it was the backlash from the idler -- but this makes SO much more sense. Thanks for this!

[@MirageC]

Yes, backlash, gear mesh, filament walking in the hobb, hobb eccentricity, they are all contributors. Thank you

[@Nobody-Nowhere]

Didn't MihaiDesigns point this issue out 1 year ago? That its an issue in dual extruder designs. And in the end, dual extruders are kinda pointless design... as you don't need more force to push filament through, you need more melting power so you don't need more force.

[@dzitiatri]

@@Nobody-Nowhere and also better hotend cooling for retraction.

[@JoshMurrah]

After watching this video - I ran straight to patreon and signed up for the $7 tier - I loved the deep dive, attention to detail, possible solutions, and everything I saw. Thank you for your hard work!!

[@MirageC]

Oh wow! Thank you for your support man! :)

[@H34...]

MihaiDesigns has done a couple of videos troubleshooting these sorts of patterns. If you print a tapering object, the horizontal bands create a wavey moire pattern that he uses to work out how often (i.e. how many degrees turned of motor/hobbed gear) the variation occurs. Like you he found that the geared idler caused problems, but also the hobbing itself creates a very fine pattern due to ever so slightly varying diameter from the highs and lows of the hobbing.

[@MirageC]

Yes! so many aspects are impacting our prints! - Gear eccentricity - Spur gear meshing - hobb teeth - filament walk in the hobb and I am sure we will discover more as we regain control on the items of this list.

[@Yavorh55]

I really hope this can be modded into the latest stealthburner too, and overall becomes a new extruder standard

[@Nobody-Nowhere]

Should test different types of extruders, like the OMG extruder. But when everyone always uses the same and keeps claiming its the "standard" or the "best", no better options will be found.

[@247printing]

Mindblowing video, thank you very much 🤩🙏 As always, you manage to make a great balance between theory and practical show casing. A perfect balance for me personally 👍👍👍

[@MirageC]

Thank you very much! Thanks for the feedback Albert! Cheers!

[@MirageC]

@UCg1_CKT8bGmaqTpPbL8EDJg Mihai pointed at the gear meshing. If you look at 6:37 I have ruled out that phenomenon from my analysis.

[@jakobwest4811]

I cannot belive you are just putting this info out for free. What an incredible deep dive into a problem nobody knew existed. I can't even fathom the time and work that went into this. From the experiments to the CAD model sims this is just downright amazing.

[@darkracer1252]

i cannot believe someone would NOT put this info out for free. (unless they have millions and are planning to build a company based on this idea and basicly be a greedy piece of human filth)

[@hayden9944]

I’m and Engineer out of the U.K. and this is really good concise work. Nice engineering! Hope to see improvement in the market after your work! 👍🏻

[@johnwalshe3]

A nice engineering breakdown, well done. I don't have a background in 3D printing, but I work in the steel industry where we have very similar issues in cold rolling steel. Very small eccentricities in the rolls and thickness variation in the incoming strip translate into out-of-tolerance thickness variation in the rolled sheet steel (and wobbly car doors...). You can't engineer all of it out, so you have to have a dynamic control system to allow for it. Thinking about an analogy here, you would need to have a force or displacement transducer on the idler gear, to measure the effective filament thickness, and an independent measurement of filament speed, say a pulse encoder on another idler wheel. This would enable you to measure actual mass flow through the extruder - what you really want to keep constant. You would then need a controller to apply a correction to the stepper motor drive. This would effectively have two components, a cyclic one to correct for eccentricity and a slower feedback control to allow for fulfillment thickness variation. Sounds complicated, but several million tonnes of steel a year says this sort of system works. Hope this helps!

[@darkracer1252]

or just get a fillament diameter sensor. no need to make the extruder extremely expensive just to put a force measuring sensor in the idler wheel. and yes extremely expensive because this thing needs to be able to do it's job without introducing more play into the idler.

[@hurzelgnurk]

I started with 3d printing in february and have been hunting the same problem ever since. Thank you, I'm not crazy or too picky!

[@MirageC]

This issue has prevented me from going all out with my printer design. Now know where to focus.

[@SkydivingKiwi]

I've designed a few 3D printers over the years.... And built other people's designs. This is the one part I could never get perfect - because of the time it would take to diagnose it! You did it, mate! This is without a doubt the best that happened to FDM 3D printing since Klipper. Epic video. Great work!

[@eclsnowman]

Glad to hear you are working with Martin and the team at Bondtech. He is a great guy, and always working towards continuous improvement. Between the two of you I am sure you will get an excellent solution figured out.

[@marsgizmo]

excellent work on analyzing this! 👏😎

[@MirageC]

Thanks man!

[@wrxsubaru02]

Yeah, seriously! I would never have thought about the extruder gears being an issue. He really opened my eyes to something that never crossed my mind.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

I recently tested the Microswiss NG. Haven't made a video on it yet, but first prints are looking very smooth. They have a weird thing about machining everything out of billet material, but considering the difference that even a small amount of runout can cause, I think it makes sense to be so meticulous.

[@MirageC]

Yes. I am curious to try microswiss item as well.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

@@MirageC The extruder is 2 pieces that are bolted together - the carriage plate and the extruder/heatsink. So there is probably a clean way to mount it to your printer. The other thing I noticed is that my v-groove wheels run much smoother on the Microswiss carriage plate. It re-uses the wheels that come with the Ender 3, but I think on the typical Ender 3 carriage plate, the 3 wheels are not perfectly in-plane with each-other, which adds a notable amount of friction, reduced stiffness, and wear.

[@larrybowers]

@@MirageC I put a Micro Swiss NG on an Ender 3 Pro and have been seeing similar issues. I all most resigned myself to not having beautiful prints that was made via the Bowden arrangement on the Ender 3. I emailed MS tech support and they mentioned the Bowden arrangement did do some 'buffering' and offered a refund. I didn't take them up on the offer and have tried to tune out the artifact the best I can. But this is amazing and does make sense. I've only been printing about 2 years so I'm by far no where near experienced as others. I would also be interested if you were to test a MS NG and see if you find a similar situation. Thanks and you have a new subscriber

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

@@greatestevar I am working on a presentation about ball-bearing induced wobbles. Basically, the cheap sloppy bearings used on most v-Grove wheel machines changes the effective diameter depending on if the bearing is on-ball or off-ball. It's a simple matter of geometry.

[@mattsmoto6422]

I’m using a microswiss NG direct drive also on my ender 5 plus with linear rails, the inconsistencies still appear. The NG is geared but the actual filament gears use the same dual gear design as the normal MS DD. It’s hard to see but if you take it apart or look deep in there it’s the same gear mech that pushes filament as the normal one

[@JustTryGambling]

been waiting for someone to finally put in the effort to narrow down exactly what in the extruder causes this issue. You've done a great service, and if we can improve tolerances, this is the next big upgrade in 3d printing. Maybe an easy way to fix the tolerances in bondtech style dual gears is to machine the gears with the 5mm shaft as part of the gear instead of a separate pin that gets inserted and set screwed in. if you're using a lathe to machine the majority of these gears (like you should), this will ensure it is fully concentric and honestly this wouldn't be hard to do at all. the only tolerances you'd be worried about at that point is how the shaft fits into the micro bearings and the 3d printed housing. lol just got into the part of the video where you talk to bondtech and came up with the same solution.

[@htw007]

I can't imagine how many hours it took you to make all these (tests-experiments-emails-reading-sketching-video editing and a lot more). Sometimes there are videos like yours that are mind-blowing. Honestly, thank you for your effort, i hope soon this will become available for ordering. Thank you !!!

[@groggynod]

Brilliant determination and use of the scientific method to discover something overlooked by many, myself included.

[@RuiPisco736]

This is one of the best videos I've seen, technically well explained. You have given me the answer to one of my constant problems, I have a printer built by me, all well tuned, 3 times, and it always presents these artifacts, of course it is direct drive, I had never stopped to think that those tolerances in the extruder could be the cause. You are a genius, thanks for that research, there should be more content like this and not so many empty and unprofessional videos like the ones that abound on youtube. Thanks man..!!!

[@matthewpierce7717]

Thank you for explaining this so well! A few months ago I tried explaining a similar theory to people on a Facebook group and they were too narrow minded to believe this was possible. When dealing with melted plastic you’re also dealing with fluid dynamics. There’s a good bit of pressure built up inside the nozzle and any variances in pressure can most certainly cause inconsistent layers. The long Bowden tube is almost like a surge tank on large hydraulic systems.

[@wolffox008]

C’est un travail de fou que tu as fait sur ce vidéo! WoW je crois que les compagnies qui conçoivent des extrudeurs ont beaucoup à apprendre de tes recherches. Merci j’ai été captivé!

[@MirageC]

Merci! Oui en effet! Beaucoup de travail... ou d'entêtement... je ne sais plus où tracer la ligne...

[@RyoninShonin]

This solved a big part of me constantly failing first layer prints. Gaps at intervals was thinking it had to be the fillament and down the rabbit hole i went. A year later i am excited to dust off the printer and re-approach my trouble shooting. Thank you Miragec and Bondtech for continuing to help us learn and improve!

[@agepbiz]

This is very interesting! I appreciate the research you have done

[@FilamentFriday]

Well done. You might also look into how the filament is mounted. I don’t believe bowden tube is the only factor in its improvement. I’ve found a side spool mount improved consistency in the flow. Side mount puts the filament closer and directly in line with the bowden extruder. While direct drive has the spool well above the extruder and can cause lags or jumpsx in resistance pulling the filament. I’ve even found side spool holders with bearings improved flow consistency further. I did a video on that as well.

[@MirageC]

Thank you for the advice Chep. I'll have a look at your video. For my testing I used a bearing spool holder and made sure the filament output from the spool was as aligned as possible with the extruder input in order to limit interference with what I was trying to isolate.

[@yeroca]

Nice video! There's a video on CNC kitchen where he discovered a similar problem after a long search. I think it was about 8 months ago.

[@NIGHTDREADED]

Easily the best 3D printing video ive ever seen with a very deep analysis and testable elimination to find the root cause, you earned my sub.

[@TIBL]

Hah! I had exactly this problem with my Wade-based designs years ago. (Indeed, with a sufficiently open extruder design, you can see the runout error by eye.) It turns out that a tight fit is critical for both extruder drivegears and also axis pulleys. This exact same effect occurs with XY drive pulleys. Cheap pulleys have a much wider bore than genuine pulleys, which is the entire secret to genuine Gates being better. (And I have done extensive experiments with 2GT pulleys driving a very high resolution encoder to quantify the error...) I have also been working on an even better solution for this for extrusion, too :)

[@abuthook]

Amazing video!!! The difference between bowden and direct drive became apparent to me rather recently. I am glad someone else noticed the same issue! I have always liked Bondtech extruders, but I think there are still some issues that they need to work through. I have used the BMG on many direct drive setups and have also tried the LGX light extruder, and see the same artifacts that you referred to in this video with both extruders, even though the geometry between the two are drastically different. I have recently switched to the Orbiter 2.0 manufactured by LDO and the difference is surface quality is amazing!! Not perfect, but there is a drastic improvement when compared to both the BMG and the LGX.

[@NicksStuff]

Bondtech, Mitutoyo, Wera, what a feast for the discerning viewer!

[@nickolasc4167]

I listened to all the hype and tried to fix what wasn't broken with my modified ender 3, I thought direct drive was the perfect way to go but now I hate my printer more than I ever did before. Your explanation is precise and makes a ton of sense. I never had an issue with print quality before using Capricorn tubing, I am going back to a Bowden tube. I like printing and making, not constantly chasing the problems created,it's counter intuitive to my process. I am very appreciative of your time and efforts in making this video, you sir are a great man. Thank you

[@joeking433]

LOL!

[@oJacksonXavier]

Here in Brazil we aprecciate your work, brother. Thank you so much for this research, it will help us a lot. Keep it going! All 3D print makers in the world have to thank you.

[@LordDarthNihilus]

Thank you, I am glad you are in conversation with manufacturers. I have heard so many bad things about direct drive extruders, like the diameter change when the two tooth wheels distance changes due to the pressure applied by the spring... I am glad I have a bowden which works just fine. I am very excited on what their solution will be, because only then I might consider changing to a direct drive. One toothwheel with an idler pulley is perfect, two "semi synchronized" are just another factor increasing issues.

[@nirecue]

Yeah this deserves at least $3 a month. Such a great in-depth explanation/breakdown of the problem that didn't go over my head. I also appreciate that I didn't have to wait months for a solutions/testing follow up video.

[@speedracer9132]

Great video! I just put together a Prusa mk3s and have been endlessly trying to fix calibration issues and I think you just solved it for me

[@Luke-Barrett]

This was amazing! I wish more videos online would have this high of a quality research and info .

[@chceszbyc]

Respect man! Big work! I noticed the same when my bowden gears were worn out a bit + I used 0.05 filament. I replaced the gears, switched to 0.02 filament and the quality is back!

[@TheRavikin]

You did very good job on that research! Narrowed it down to just one element at a time and found a problem. Hats off! What comes to my mind is that @MihaiDesigns found out that idler gear makes difference in patterns and created more angled idler door ofr prusa i3. Could be found in this vid -> "What I've learned about your 3D printers (and mine)". And it was a year ago.

[@Bigjoe0101]

I have had this issue for years. I will inspect my extruder's gears and bearings. Thank you so much for the troubleshooting!!!

[@spencerhanson7808]

This was amazing! Your results really show how important it is to spend the time to isolate variables in research.

[@prongATO]

Additionally, it’s hard work like yours that make the profession and hobby better for all of us. Your determination in solving your issue will make the lives of all of us much easier as a result, thank you.

[@gbstingley4673]

Wow, awesome vid. This is exactly the issue I was having with an OMG extruder. This video would have saved me days of chasing down the issue with mine. Even after finding my issue, I didn't fully understand what was going on until all of your hard work. Well done sir, well done.

[@MirageC]

This issue almost had me to put an axe in the printer a few times. Glad I found the source. Now I need to work on the solution.

[@WaynesForge]

I bought an OMG extruder too, for my Ender2 Pro. I had already replaced the stock with a SeeMeCNC EZStruder, and was getting good results. I thought I would do even better with a OMG....but it was worse.

[@AsherLimaPapa]

Absolutely SPECTACULAR work! The level of research and fault isolation is nothing short of professional. Thank you deeply for this!

[@gabriell4031]

everything explained in this video is great. I'm not wondering why my LGX Lite seems to have this issue also. could it be drive gear and idle hears having lots runout? since there is no grub screw there is only one thing that can cause this. I hope by working with you they improve their own product standards as well. Maybe I can test the runout on these gear and see how much they might have. GREAT WORK! All of us are behind you cheering you on! Thanks for all the great work your doing for our community of plastic pushing gear heads!

[@OneIdeaTooMany]

Wow I was just hanging on your every word! I didn't even think the print quality was bad enough I needed to care but after upgrading to an e3d hemera and seeing your video... I'm honestly blown away... You should keep doing these deep dives...

[@94Discovery]

I am glad that i became a Patreon thank you for all what you bring to the 3d printing community❤

[@MirageC]

Thank you for your support! It means a lot to me.

[@medyk3D]

Thanks for pushing the 3D Printing limits even further. Great dedication, this is the content I'm rooting for.

[@MirageC]

Glad you like it!

[@xXKisskerXx]

This is an eye opening for me. When I moved from the single gear system to a better extruder, I began to notice these "vertical artifacts" on my prints so much worse. I have been trying to solve them and everyone I chatted with said "they are normal, everyone gets them" but didn't know "why" - but considering the were less pronounced with a single gear extruder, seemed to point to the problem.. yet no one seemed to be working on solutions. Just an "accepted result" of 3D printing. I hope we can all finally pull together now and get more accurate extruders, precise and reliable.

[@dano7448]

Awesome information! I love it! Awesome work! Love those belt clips as well! Appreciate all that you do!

[@jarodhohl861]

Amazing Vid! Once I get my xy-motion system figured out, this will be a great guide on diagnosing a poor extruder.

[@iammeobviously6815]

Ender 3 v2s can never be properly tuned. It is fvcked up and the z bar is always slanted

[@infiniteoffset]

My old reprap printer had extruder with bearings and it was printing flawlessly. At one point I fully rebuild the printer with new stuff and that included upgrade to (fake) bontech gears. And yeah, the upgraded printer printed way worse. I suspected it was due to z-wobble (because leadscrews also changed), but the pattern was not repetitive, so z-wobble didn't make sense. It's nice that you have confirmed that the small gears can be the issue. Looks that I will try out the bearing extruder again.

[@yuripolak]

So, what about the proper printing proper extruder, which uses belts to push the filament? That would eliminate this kind of variation

[@gabiold]

Exactly what I was thinking. I already wanted to try a belt based feeder as that is common in other applications, like wire confectioning and such.

[@arthurgiannakis2156]

This video is brilliant and great food for the engineering mind. Thank you. Was really enjoyable to watch. It also brings out one basic premise. A lot of people spend a lot of time and effort to make their cheap Ender 3 Pro (or insert similar) printer try to print absolutely perfect prints. They forget that everything in such a cheap printer is, must be, a compromise. All the systems have large tolerances and there no closed loop feedback in any of the systems. Everything is unidirectional open loop. The drives push filament. The unit has no way of knowing what is being extruded. It also has no way of knowing if the drive gear is off centre. It is just trusted at setup that you got the extrusion rate correct and only for that type of filament and removed any drive eccentricties. The x, y, z drivers have no way of knowing the exact co-ordinate of the nozzle. It's only ever a relative estimate from home position. It is just trusted you know how to calibrate the co-ordinates at setup. There is no compensation system. The bed levelling has no feedback. If the springs sag the printer will just keep printing. If the bowden tubes becomes loose, the printer marches on. You bed level with a sheet of paper (whatever that is!) then expect perfect prints? C'mon. If there is z wobble there is no auto compensation, the printer just keeps going. If the frame is not precisely square the printer cannot compensate. We get what we pay for then are disappointed with the results and then spend the next year spending more money and time on upgrades to manage our expectations for printers that were never designed to be high accuracy, tight tolerance closed feedback systems to begin with. Yet we dream of absolutely flawless and pristine prints, forever, without post processing..... for the little money we paid. Asinine expectation. Your video just highlights this even further.

[@phillifighter1337]

I was troubleshooting this issue for quite some time. I tried all sorts of things with the gears (among others) including gluing them to the shaft instead of screwing them down as i had a hunch it may be runout but nothing helped. This video finaly gave me the definitive answer. Thank you so much for that. Looking forward to the updated bondtech gears!

[@Nigfis]

My goodness. What an adventure that was. Congratulations on your style, your methods, and your willingness to share this deep dive into things only previously whispered about in the dark recesses of 3D R&D labs. I can now understand far more about what has disappointed me about my new Sprite Extruder Pro Kit. It produces what looks like the very same artefacts. Thank you.

[@MirageC]

Thank you :)

[@kiskrisztian9915]

Man I'm so glad for your video and reserch!!!! I have this problem over a year now since I upgraded my printer from bowden to direct drive I calibrated over and over everything... I have a BMG clone and I have the same ripple all of my prints. Thanks man! :D

[@dano5143]

Thank You thats genius. I designed based on your HEVORT a new compact machine and i use a BMG WIND all metal Extruder from Aliexpress. For my surprise my prints a very good and maybe the redesign of HEVORT helped a little. Thank you for the great work and great machine and sharing the CAD Files.

[@Argumentiveableish]

This is so great, I can't believe someone finally found out why those stupid lines on every single 3-D print is actually happening. Everyone always just assumes it's one thing or another, but I never would have expected that it was actually just that gear at an angle and not very precise gear teeth.

[@BuAradaBoraBen]

You can't imagine how relieved i am to see this video. I use Ender 3 v2 and i have more extreme problem because of this situation. My extruder gear presses so hard and inconsistent that it usually breaks the filament. I changed my gear with something else and now it is better now. However it is not solved. Just while i was watching this video, my printer have done it once more. So the eccentricity in the gear and shaft is a bigger problem of mine. I hope you will find a good solution to this with bondtech because i am about to turn myself away from 3d printing if i can't solve this problem. I can't even print a single part without leaving the printer one moment. Video is very good. Subscribed and liked. Can't wait to see update on this situation.

[@CentaXBerlin2]

Thank you very much for the extensive information shown in the video! 4 days ago i printed a test cube and had awful layer variation in it. Really didn't know why, in hindsight after watching your video probably i messed something up working on my sherpa micro extruder some time ago. Watching your video just now is really more than just perfect timing.

[@Win5Weekly]

People like you are the ones who build the future one small piece at a time, whenever you get discouraged just remember you are making a positive difference. Keep up the excellent work and you will get everything you deserve.

[@yakirarbel477]

This is the first video of you that I saw, and I'm must tell you that I impressed by the quality of your research and the video editing. and the thing I like the most is the logical order that you explained so good. Thank you for your video 🙏🏼

[@ScottLahteine]

One element of surface quality that is often forgotten is PID tuning of the heated bed. A well-tuned heated bed PID is important to ensure the bed is not expanding and contracting periodically as the temperature oscillates, which can lead to irregular layers. This symptom is most obvious when "bang-bang" bed heating (more suitable for a bed with a lot of thermal mass) is used instead of PID.

[@justjake5454]

I really admire your dedication. I’ve been 3D printing for only about a year now and have run into several of my own struggles. The way you approach problem solving is truly inspiring.

[@reyalPRON]

Im running a heavy modded cr10 dual z with dualgear all metal on a hero me with an e3dv6. The dualgear kit from bigtreetech came with two rollerbearings inside the two geared pushers. I dont have this fancy measurement tools, BUT i got a deacent two decimal caliper. I measure the difference of my two gears to within the tolerance of the tool. I get sometimes a pattern that goes at 45% angle from base. Found that i had variation in diameter of the filament from 1.71 to 1.74. I bought better filament and now its printing like a boss. Also disable powerloss thing to get faster smoother prints :) Good luck have fun! Remember a 3dprinter in the price class you want to spend is and always will be a hobby item . U need to constantly check and calibrate and fiddle and upgrade :)

[@bonjipoo]

When I built my clockwork extruder for my first Voron I discovered that the gears were slightly too far apart and that caused backlash and big extrusion inconsistency. By moving the gears to mesh tightly this helped hugely. But having the gears too tightly together also caused issues. Now I use lgx extruders which are pretty good out of the box. Over extrusion was the main issue for me. And getting it spot on helps achieve perfect layers. I calculate extrusion factor by watching for gaps between walls. Lowering it as far as possible until gaps appear between walls. Lowering it way lower than I ever thought you could. Like 0.84 for PLA. No measuring wall thicknesses with callipers anymore. I just haven’t looked back.

[@boxsterpontus]

A few years ago I chased the same issues you had. It took many weeks of research to realize that it was the extruder that had a periodic error. Since then I always print a cone in vase mode to check for periodic extruder issues, it gives a very distinct spiral pattern if it's the extruder messing up. It's probably quite a common problem. In my case it was a Zesty extruder that was very sensitive to how hard you torqued the bolts holding it together,

[@mr_voron]

This was a fantastic breakdown. As someone who’s been down this rabbit hole before, my hat’s off to you for finding the actual cause of these defects.

[@macan724]

MirageC , Your breakdown and animations should be used in university classes; intuitive and entertaining. Thank you for allowing me as a hobbyist, to understand printing at the engineering level.

[@WarScribe82]

I know I'm late to the party on this one, but thank you for all your work on this and also thank you to Bondtech for the IDGA/RIDGA sets. I didn't realise this is where they stemmed from I just thought it was a cool innovation, but I really love them for my extruders, since changing my gears sets to genuine Bondtech parts my prints are so much better, no more knock off copies for me!

[@flixmyswitch]

You Sir are a master at what you do. As a video creator I can fully understand the time and massive effort you put in to making this video, you have my subscription. I look forward to viewing more of your videos. I have done a good handful of vids on my 5 plus and still working on a few more. I also enjoy coding the ESP8266 and Arduino chip, I have so much to learn. Many thanks for this video

[@KevinAkaSam]

Very nice visualization and explanation of the problem! And honestly I’m so happy (but also sorry) to see someone with the same problem like I had. I got prints with very bad „z wobble“ and tested a lot, different extruders and Bowden/dde setups. Eg CW1, Sherpa Mini, Voron M4 all gave me the same problem. In the end I was so frustrated I just assembled my bmg TL Clone and installed it in a Bowden configuration, and the problem was gone! Which I didn’t understand because the M4 was also Bowden but still had this problem - like you described less visible but still there. My conclusion was that printed extruders just lack of the precision we need for the extruder parts and manufactured clone could offer this precision. Very interesting to see a possible explanation for my experience, thanks!

[@Peter-898]

what a great video! So far the most dramatic fix to my once-cheap 3D printer has been a couple of mods to the Z-gantry since it originally wasn't very stiff and had poor alignment

[@Kalvinjj]

"once cheap". I know that feeling very well. I've got enough parts as spares to make another one (which I can't deny that I might).

[@Samaihr]

CNC Kitchen did make a Video about the same problem a year ago. Its calles "(HOW) I fixed the Ugly Layers on my 3D Printer" But i liked yours more ^^

[@IvanJoel]

Your video made me realize that these small variations in extrusion are dampened in a bowden setup since there is a tiny bit of slack in the bowden tube. Although, you don't really hear people say that bowden printers produce better quality prints.

[@sector13studios]

This is the very best and most indepth research into an on going issue for all of us in 3d printing. I learned a lot. Thank you for all your hard work.

[@DeathCoreGuitar]

Oh man, that was mega helpful I bought Neptune 4 Max recently and i noticed that extruder was skipping from time to time. I tried to rotate plastic gear on top with my finger and saw that gear actually gets stuck partially and its very hard to move it at a certain part of rotation. I opened it and saw that part holding bearing for this gear is not aligned and for everything to close it must be squeezed into place which makes gear crooked. I wrote about this defect to Elegoo and they shipped me the replacement right away (still waiting) I lubricated everything before closing and it runs a bit better. But after watching your video now i know that this artifact i got for sure is because of this defect

[@melvin5312]

Very great deep dive into Extruder Tech! I was always wondering why my BMG clone gave me more ripples then the Orbiter Extruder. It involves more machined parts and SLS printed housing parts, so there shouldbe less tolerances involved.

[@larryfroot]

Epic. Everything is perfect. The graphics. The demonstrations. The explanations. And last but not least, Bondtech's response. I'm just tuning in a DDX3 / Mosquito combination and would purchase an updated / upgraded replacement extruder that was created to correct the problems heroically isolated by this incredibly patient and methodical engineer.

[@ChrisRiley]

Hey, nice work on this. I have tried to explain a lot of this so many times in videos over the years. This is the best representation of extruder effect I have ever seen. Well done!

[@MirageC]

Thank you Chris! I was stunt to realize how much is going on between those very few components.

[@agravainandbeyond]

This video is amazing! The level of detail and profound insight is simply unparalleled. In the terms of Bondtech and their gears, after modifying a few of the machines I have, including a Voron 2.4, Switchwire, and V0.1, with just bearing as shown in the videos, I can state some conclusions. The problem with the idler is not just the machining or tolerances, the "wobble" is related to the DIRECTION in which the gear is being driven. I printed a custom mirror of a Sherpa Mini with Bondtech gears to see if the direction had any effect, which indeed it does in a reverse way. The inducted "wobble" of the idler gear is produced by the moment applied by the distance between the gear movement, and the machined filament groove. The harder the gear is driven, the more plastic it will extrude. In order for the extrusion and the moments to be balanced, the idler gear would have to be balanced by another set of teeth at the same distance as the original Bondtech gear. I tried the design using just 3d printed gears (with nylon), and the results are as good as using a bearing for the idler (which in my case I simply used properly sized rod). I hope Bondtech and other manufacturers will correct this problem. Thank you so much MirageC, not just for an open source amazing printer, but for the amazing, and so rare, quality content.

[@MirageC]

Oh wow! You are absolutely right! the moment between the resistance force from the idler spur gear and the resistance from the hobb pushing the filament may (will) vary. Thank you for making me realise this. I'll take this in our next meeting with Bondtech. I'll let them know that some dude told me about that ;)

[@B0M0A0K]

Amazing analytical work in this video. It's a joy to watch a professional it work.

[@MirageC]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@fivelights907]

Thank you so much. I just ordered my first printer, watching KZbin while waiting on shipment 😊 this was very informative.

[@MirageC]

Glad it was helpful!

[@TheExtremeElementz]

This was a fun video to watch, I love how you took us for a ride the entire time showing us your thought process and theory’s. Amazing job!

[@MirageC]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@icesystem7]

Dude! This is a documentary and free consultation for the whole industry! Thanks for this!

[@MirageC]

Glad it was helpful!

[@alainthire]

I myself found little support from Bondtech when I installed their extruded on my UM2, with the exact same problem of the gears getting of centre, causing a horrible skipping. They just didn’t care to listen. Very good to know they were interested this time.

[@sethgandy1337]

I've been chasing this demon for years! YEARS! I think you've got it dialed in to exactly what I've been trying to attack! Incredible work! You've singlehandedly advanced 3D printing as a whole!

[@artemnikitin2806]

brother, thanks for the explanation of what I've been observing while assembling my first CW2 SB, just last night !

[@REN92106]

This opened my eyes to a very similar problem I have with my CR-10s!! Amazing experimentation and really smart thinking. Subbed. Thanks man!

[@viesturssilins858]

How is this channel not bigger!? This content is top of the line! Amaizing prezention, huge amount of work and details put in. Thank you for sharing this@

[@MirageC]

Wow, thank you!

[@RainbowCircus]

such a well done video. I always wondered why my modded Ender 3 pro has such a way better surface finish then any of my other printers (direct drive Ender 3, CR-10, Prusa Mk3s+, Voron 2.4). This makes a lot of sense and I am looking forward to see if this will revolutionize the direct drive extruders as we know them. Nice work!

[@TheYear2525]

Wow, thanks for checking that out. I knew about flow variations causing ugly surface finish but I hadn't imagined there could be up to 0.1 mm runout there. Also all the other culprits you mentioned. Good info, I might get into this at some point.

[@prongATO]

The most informative 3DP video I’ve ever seen, hands-down. Being an engineer, it’s like a warm fuzzy blanket of numbers :)

[@suivzmoi]

i have vertical repeating artifacts on my bedslinger only on the Y side moves. i think you just helped me narrow it down to the y belt idler either being eccentric or off parallel. spent way to much money on the big items already. sometimes it is the small cheap things that get incorrectly overlooked.

[@MrHeHim]

I'm still amazed how nice and clean my old Replicator Dual printed, although suffered from buffer/speed issues printing off flash cards, which I didn't realize because I switched from Simplify3D direct control to newer better slicers and didn't put the puzzle pieces together. Now Klipper is nearly required for fast quality prints

[@eroxrodriguez8185]

Hi there. Im new to 3D printing. Im happy that i have smooth running my anycubic vyper. Not perfect, but good enough at this time for me. To see very important informations like this for the future is very nice. Very impressive video, you´ve done very good job. My respect. 👍