Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

So I'm about a month and a half into printing on my Rostock V2( E3D v6 hotend .4mm nozzle, TrickLaser CF arms), and I've had great results with ABS so far. I started using PLA this week, and as I did with ABS, used the Hollow Pyramid to get a feel for it. After about 4 or 5 unsuccessful attempts( which I attribute greatly to the Shaxon PLA that I impulse bought at Frys-its seriously 1.67-8 dia. on average and the first 5m was kinked and speckled with black, the first go looks like a geometric Dalmation) I landed with the one on the left:
So obviously the filament isn't THAT bad, but I do have some seemecnc silver on the way to test. The pyramid fragment on the right has the exact same settings as the other one, except the layer height is changed from .3 to .2mm. My problem is that I'm not sure what settings I should also be tweaking when I decrease my layer height. I'd really like to get some finer prints going, but I don't know what knobs to turn, basically.


So, anybody have some pointers on the super wonky .2mm layers? And/or a more efficient way to test if my layers are going to do this at a lower height? Thanks so much for any tips, this forum has already been super helpful just lurking!

I should add that I'm using Slic3r and Repetier Host,

Speeds all at 30 mm/s except infill at 40, and 15 first layer
Thicknesses all at .45 except first at .6
Temps 210 and 60
Retraction 5mm
Retraction z-lift .3mm
R-Speed 55mm/s
Extra length on Restart .1 mm
Retract on layer change enabled


*note: I stopped the print and broke one partial leg myself, the print would have finished fine.

Do you have a layer fan? If not, I would definitely say that is problem. Also 210C may be too hot one way or another.

I would put my money on the filament though honestly.

In my opinion that looks quite excellent, the layer alignment is superb. PLA really should have a cooling fan involved (If you don't have one).

I have my "Z-hop" (Cura term) set to 1mm, and a few have it set to 3 I think. You can increase the Z-lift (I'm assuming you're using slic3r?) a bit.

Thanks for the input guys, I definitely have a layer fan, I wouldn't PLA without it. I'll try upping the Z-lift when I get a chance, and hope that this is partially the crappy filament.

I just cant seem to find the right settings to work with layer heights under .2mm yet (haven't really got there on ABS either) .It's just frustrating when .3mm works so freakin' well!

Inspired by your post, here and on reddit, I did the same pyramid at .1mm and got a lot of retraction artifacts, but not the globby mess (until the very top).

I would try slowing down on layers that take a short time. A default setting in Cura, not sure if it's available in slic3r.
This print had to slow down a lot, and still got messy at the top.