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Linear Advance and retraction with Direct Drive and stock hotend
Main Post:
Hello everyone!
I recently upgraded to a direct drive system on my Ender 3, using my dual gear metal extruder, however I decided to keep the stock hotend.
Right away I decided to try linear advance and oooohhh myyyy gooood, why did I not do this earlier? I have a MK3S as well which is my workhorse printer and the Ender 3 is getting damn near to the same quality as my MK3S now. However, I am struggling a bit to dial in my settings.
My direct drive conversion is done with the Hydra Fan Duct (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4062242) which I can highly recommend, beautifully designed and the best fan duct I have used for cooling so far, can probably bridge the whole hotbed if I want to (with PLA).
Here are my issues:
Printing the k factor calibration test patterns, it looks like K0.3 gives me the best corners, but from what I have heard the higher K values are used for longer bowden tubes. Print quality looks great but can't see much difference between K0.09 and K0.3 when it comes to normal prints. Dimensions are correct on both with 100% flow rate. What K value do you use with your similar setup?
Retraction has been a real issue. From what I understand, with linear advance and direct drive, retraction distance should be closer to 1mm or less, but if I go below 2.2mm + 60mm/s I get stringing and blobs, even with PLA. But maybe the other values I have seen has been with all metal hotends? If you use the stock hotend with direct drive, what's your retraction distance?
I hope you are all doing great, thanks for reading my post!
Top Comment: I have similar setup and noticed very little change with adding linear advance. But I mist say I wasn’t complaining about the quality before. I use 3-4mm retraction, otherwise I get stringing.