Boneheads Raven Skull: Extruder Contamination, Continued

The Boneheads Raven Skull demo came out reasonably well, albeit in a reduced size, on the Squidwrench Frank-o-Squid:

TOM286 - Raven Skull on platform
TOM286 – Raven Skull on platform

So I ran off a full-size version on the M2 for comparison:

Raven Skull - on M2 platform
Raven Skull – on M2 platform

The extruder apparently contained a gobbet of black PLA, left over from the Pink Panther Woman, that managed to hang on inside until the very tip of the beak:

Raven Skull - beak contamination
Raven Skull – beak contamination

Close inspection found two black strands closer to the base of the printed parts:

Raven Skull - black contamination
Raven Skull – black contamination

The rear of the skull joins the front just behind the eye sockets, where the solid bottom layers make a visible contrast with the air behind the perimeter threads elsewhere. Refraction darkens some of the threads, but the two black patches stand out clearly.

If it weren’t natural PLA, those flaws wouldn’t be nearly so noticeable.

Were I doing this stuff for a living, I might dedicate a hot end (or an entire extruder) to each color and be done with it.

All in all, the printed quality is about as good as I could expect from a glorified glue gun.

The extreme slowdown while printing the tip of the beak pushed Pronterface’s remaining time estimate over the edge:

Boneheads - Raven - Pronterface time estimate
Boneheads – Raven – Pronterface time estimate

I’m not sure what the correct value should be …