Controlling the flow rate in Skeinforge
Flow rate is the speed in which material is extruded from a nozzle. It works proportionally with the feed rate, which is the speed in which the extruder (or the x and y axes platform) physically moves. If the extruder moves very fast, a higher flow rate will be necessary, and for a slower extruder speed, a lower flow rate would be required.
For a new user of Skeinforge, these adjustments can be confusing. We'll keep the adjustments to a minimum, and we'll only examine how the flow rate affects a model. In this recipe, we'll calibrate a rate that is near perfect to the width of the nozzle's diameter.
Getting ready
For this recipe, we'll be using the thin wall calibration from the essential calibration kit, which we downloaded from Thingiverse. You'll also need precision calipers. Trying to make a precise measurement with a metric rule will not work well with this calibration.
How to do it...
We will proceed as follows:
- Slice...