NOTE - SEE UPDATE FROM 2/11/2022 BELOW.
I have been using a bit of wood PLA lately and really like Amolen Dark Wood PLA which uses walnut, and also Hatchbox Wood PLA, which is lighter in color. Both these print well, even with a 0.4mm nozzle on my ender3, and both have made some really nice prints. I recently picked up a couple of spools of Hatchbox wood, and noted that there is quite a bit of oozing on these new spools, which I had not noticed in the past. I normally run less than 1mm of retraction on my direct drive converted CR10S Pro, however with the Hatchbox I have found that I need to raise that quite a bit. I have gone to 5mm, but still have significant stringing and blobs. I just tried 6mm and it looks like that may do it, but I will try increasing the retraction speed to see if it's any better. I have lowered the temps (to 205°C) and speeds (to 40mm/s) previously, and dropped flow (to 90%), and plan to tweak the extra prime once I get the retraction to where it looks OK. I'm also running these tests with coasting turned off, but will tweak that after everything else is optimized as best I can get it with my printer. I'm really interested to see if the combination of an aggressive retraction to reduce the blobs, combined with some extra prime to get things restarted after a reaction may work for a filament that is really oozy like the Hatchbox seems to be in my printer.
The Hatchbox almost seems like a foaming PLA with the way it oozes, but I have never used those before so cannot really compare. I don't recall that happening in the past but I also did not have a camera on the nozzle to see happening live so cannot be sure. The models I have been printing with wood PLA have not been a good test for retraction either, so they may have hidden the oozing issue. I'm primarily interested in reducing the z-seam in my prints, since that is what my models will show the most (stringing is less of an issue). The Hatchbox does seem to be forgiving when dropping flow however, and even though the pics show what looks like a rough surface, it is actually very consistent when viewed normally. I still think Hatchbox wood is one of the best for wood filaments, so it's worth the effort to try and get it looking as best it can.
I have been using a bit of wood PLA lately and really like Amolen Dark Wood PLA which uses walnut, and also Hatchbox Wood PLA, which is lighter in color. Both these print well, even with a 0.4mm nozzle on my ender3, and both have made some really nice prints. I recently picked up a couple of spools of Hatchbox wood, and noted that there is quite a bit of oozing on these new spools, which I had not noticed in the past. I normally run less than 1mm of retraction on my direct drive converted CR10S Pro, however with the Hatchbox I have found that I need to raise that quite a bit. I have gone to 5mm, but still have significant stringing and blobs. I just tried 6mm and it looks like that may do it, but I will try increasing the retraction speed to see if it's any better. I have lowered the temps (to 205°C) and speeds (to 40mm/s) previously, and dropped flow (to 90%), and plan to tweak the extra prime once I get the retraction to where it looks OK. I'm also running these tests with coasting turned off, but will tweak that after everything else is optimized as best I can get it with my printer. I'm really interested to see if the combination of an aggressive retraction to reduce the blobs, combined with some extra prime to get things restarted after a reaction may work for a filament that is really oozy like the Hatchbox seems to be in my printer.
The Hatchbox almost seems like a foaming PLA with the way it oozes, but I have never used those before so cannot really compare. I don't recall that happening in the past but I also did not have a camera on the nozzle to see happening live so cannot be sure. The models I have been printing with wood PLA have not been a good test for retraction either, so they may have hidden the oozing issue. I'm primarily interested in reducing the z-seam in my prints, since that is what my models will show the most (stringing is less of an issue). The Hatchbox does seem to be forgiving when dropping flow however, and even though the pics show what looks like a rough surface, it is actually very consistent when viewed normally. I still think Hatchbox wood is one of the best for wood filaments, so it's worth the effort to try and get it looking as best it can.
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Update 2/3/2022 - Well I printed about 20 of these things and a few of my test cubes once I had the settings down. I ended up by turning the flow down a bit (89%) and went with 4.5mm @ 45mm/sec for the retraction using my BMG direct drive. I did not need to use the "Extra Prime" fortunately. When I tested with it, it only caused more stringing with no noticeable benefit to the seams. I'm not happy with the seams still but I gotta actually print something sometime, and found the best middle ground for stringing and seams that I could at this point. If I figure something else out I will update here, but for now this is gonna be it.
Update 2/11/2022 - I found a major problem with my BMG extruder (a grub screw was missing from one gear), so this was all for nothing, but the problem is at least fixed now.
Update 2/11/2022 - I found a major problem with my BMG extruder (a grub screw was missing from one gear), so this was all for nothing, but the problem is at least fixed now.
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