Dodecahedrons Galore!

So between now and my last post I have probably attempted about 20 different prints on the machine constantly stopping builds midway and changing settings trying to get the best results possible.  The most important change that I made was tweaking the filament extrusion speed vs. the print head XY translation speed.  Getting this just right helped greatly with reducing the size of the extruded filament which leads to more accurate models.  Right now I am running the extruder at a extrusion speed of 700 mm/min.  The XY movement is set at a maximum of 3000 mm/min but is scaled down to about half that for most of the movements.  This makes it run about 10x faster than it was previously.  It also has much smoother motion vs. the constant jerking that it had earlier.  Additionally, I set up different speeds for pretty much every different type of printing that the machine does; outlines, fine infills, coarse infills, foundation layers, etc.  Tweaking these has helped speed up the print times but not reduce the overall quality.  

The dodecahedron is a test stl created by nophead that has some key components to help test the machine.  For starters it has what looks like a 30˚ overhang at the base of the part.  This is especially difficult for these types of FDM machines and anything near 45˚ usually fails as the filament on the layer above doesn't lay on top of the layer below and slips off the edge.  The second big hurdle is the fact that the dodecahedron is hollow.  This means that the last 4 layers or so are extruded over a void at the top of the part.  The machine temperature, speed, and cooling needs to be tweaked to allow for these voids to be spanned successfully, but I have a feeling this trick will come in very useful for future parts.  The thing that really helped make these work was maintaining a high speed and lowering the heater temperature.  I also turned on my extruder fan for these layers to basically try to solidify the filament seconds after it exited the nozzle.  It is doesn't solidify quickly it would have a tendency to droop down into the void.  After a couple tries and tweaking settings each time, I got a successful print.  I'm also attaching the settings that I used.  If you notice anything that you think I might want to change, feel free to shout out!