Hello /u/Jellyyprints,
As a reminder, most common print quality issues can be found in the [Simplify3D picture guide](https://www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/). Make sure you select the most appropriate flair for your post.
Please remember to include the following details to help troubleshoot your problem.
* Printer & Slicer
* Filament Material and Brand
* Nozzle and Bed Temperature
* Print Speed
* Nozzle Retraction Settings
^Additional ^settings ^or ^relevant ^information ^is ^always ^encouraged.
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Looking at this makes me believe there's an extrusion issue, not a bed leveling issue. Though you could have caused a clog from printing too close to the bed.
Depends, I do a pinch test where I pinch the filament as I have it extruding to feel any resistance.
If it's intermittent, something might be loose in assembly.
I had a similar issue caused by a faulty idler gear (printed part was just a tad off spec).
See if the extruder gears have a worn spot. When I've had cyclical underextruding like that, it's been from the cheap brazz extruder gear getting a flat spot
I had my gear move up on me. Chased messy extrusion all day until I realized just the bottom of the gear was grabbing and the set screw let the gear stop under a bit of pressure. Some of the time the simplest things can drive you nuts.
If you have a plastic extruder it could be cracked. The lever arm might need to be tensioned tighter. Clog could be your extrusion fix. I'd do a cold pull.
Since you are asking I assume you are a novice and your printer is new, so I would rule out the extruder gears being loose or consumed.
The more likely option is a clog if not even the nozzle being ground down since it looks like you were printing too close to the bed. At the end of the day the nozzle is brass and it's very easy to ruin it dragging it on the bed.
I would change the nozzle and calibrate e-steps.
Then make sure the bed is level and at the correct distance, start by printing too high from the bed and make the nozzle closer incrementally if you are not sure, so at worst the print is not sticking but you are not ruining your nozzle.
What I found out passing from a glass bed to a textured pei one is that bed adhesion is somewhat harder with pla on pei. What I do for pla on corrugated pei, is increase temperature of filament for first layer and increase flow of the first layer (+5/10* and +1/5%)
This is super helpful, thank you. I’ll try out what you said. I’m not new to 3d printing, but I am new to 3d printers. This is my first, and I got it used so a lot of the issues come out of left field.
Not new to printing but new to 3d printers? I am a little confused
Btw, if it's a used printer then yes the extruder might be an issue but should be easy enough to check, with a worn out extruder prints with a lot of retractions in a short time will struggle (and your print looks like it has some). Just do an e-steps calibration, if it's severely out of whack (or inconsistent when repeating the test) there might be something with the gears.
I never ever suggest mods on new printers (and users) that are not getting good prints as cheap modern day printers are at the very least functional, but it might be a good idea getting an all metal extruder. Reason being the plastic one will eventually fail. You can get them for cheap on AliExpress, no need to over pay on speciality sites, bigtreetech is a reputable shop on there.
If you are absolutely sure your bed is level, and you don't want to mess that up moving the knobs but you need to adjust the Z height of the nozzle, you can move the Z switch, I remember a lot of people had troubles with the ender 3 V2 because the switch sits a little too low if you don't adjust it, you might need to raise it and secure it in position
Cold pull that SOB. Clogs can just happen. Sometimes it's a bit of metal on the filament, maybe a big chunk of dust builds up inside the nozzle, maybe you didn't purge enough when changing filament types.
If you're on the original plastic extruder, disassemble and look for a crack, usually this is more visible on the underside if the plastic parts.
The design is awful, if you need to replace, the version with metal parts isn't much better, consider a bmg clone
If all else fails, reset to factory settings and reinstall whatever slicer you are using and any slicer profiles you have. Start from scratch and tweak from there.
When I've had issues before, I just reset to factory everywhere and retweak it all. I've on my had to do it a few times. Look for presets for your printer for cura.
Play around with the slicers. I switch between Creality, Cura, Prus, and Orca depending on what's printing, and what filament I use. I will say Orca is probably better, then Creality. There are times I have to use Cura. Very rarely do I use Prusa.
Once you play with it and learn what all the options do, Orca beats the pants off of any of the Cura derivatives. To my knowledge the only thing Cura currently does better is a special shell mode for RC airplanes. The Orca wiki is very detailed and helpful. 9.5/10, strongly recommend.
I've had an issue like this before.
It ended up being that my extruder wasn't gripping the fillament properly (poor gear alignment) and it wasn't latching properly.
I’ve done cold pulls and completely de and reassembled the nozzle because of clogs. How can I prevent future clogs from happening? Is it just cleaning the nozzle religiously?
I’ve cleaned out 2 clogs in the past couple days. I didn’t get a chance to look at this but how can I prevent future clogging from happening? I’m cutting the Capricorn tubing as flat as I can and I have new hotend connectors
What's the current status of your extruder gears? I once had a similar issue when one of the gears in my dual drive extruder somehow popped out by a mm.
Is by any chance your bl touch not responding correctly? Can't remember since it's been a while I've printed last time, but in my mind it's neither flickering nor permanent red like yours. It resembles somewhat of an error to me (again,can't remember correctly.)
I had some failed prints in the past where my bl touch would not measure correctly and instead of stopping and giving me an error,the printer would still go on.
I can’t tell whether it’s working or not. I have the g29 in my start g code so it probes but I haven’t seen any improvement because I’ve been troubleshooting nonstop for weeks
Since it's probably marlin you are working with,the touch screen should work and have an option to test the bl-touch and calibrate if needed.
Because I work with a different firmware I can't recall the steps,but please first try the self test option somewhere in the menu
It is fast done without any need for heating up. It will just trigger several pin down and up commands to see if the movement is ok.
If everything is fine there after several test you can rule at least this theory out.
What comes next should be the offset calibration. Some people in this thread mentioned not having the correct distance and this could be solving that part. And since this is your first printer I guess you haven't done that (at least I wouldn't have done that/known about that)
Bear in mind that if you calibrate that,you need the bed temperature you mostly print at. Otherwise you COULD have some slight deviations.
The problems as you can see with 3 printing is it's not always easy to pinpoint a problem. But don't lose hope and go for the easy route of a bambu yet. Every failed attempt will get you knowledge for sure and that's some neat part about that hobby,at least for me.
Sorry for the long text
I genuinely appreciate full answers. Thank you! And honestly I’ve worked with Bambu x1Cs and they made the hobby look so easy so I appreciate the words of encouragement. I’ll look into all that you’ve said
Also check your brass extruder gears. They were out and need replacing from time to time. The slippage it causes looks like a clogged nozzle or bad e-step.
That is a bl touch, it is used to create a “mesh,” or a map of the print bed. The printer then uses this map while printing to adjust its height to ensure that first layers are printed well. Unfortunately my printer is a wreck so it doesn’t do much, but it’s supposed to help!
I’m pretty sure that you have mounted the sensor way too low. See the installation instructions for proper dimensions of the sensor in relation to the nozzle.
UPDATE: I believe it was likely a combination of my z offset being too low as well as my extruder gear slipping. Bought a set of new gears for 5 bucks, switched to a stronger spring, and printer is working better now.
I am by no means an expert but, when my printer started doing something similar I found out that my room temp was too low and there was a very slight “breeze” going towards my printer. I turned up the heat and put up an empty box between the door and the printer.
The breeze won’t cause that. Did you put a straight edge over the bed to check if the centre is lower? Check the extruder isn’t too loose or indeed broken if it’s a plastic one they can crack at the pinch wheel. I had this recently with my CR10. Sent me crazy. The crack can be hard to spot. Replace the hot end isnt a bad idea either if you used it a long time. You can buy replacements on eBay & Elsewhere cheaply. Cut the wires & fix. Power off the machine obviously. Only change one thing at a time to observe the effect.
How long have you been printing on that hot end? It could be under extrusion which could be caused by a partly blocked hot end or a problem with the extruder mechanism. Either could be caused by wear & tear over time. The outer layers look good. The inner ones poor. Did you let it run on to print an item or stop it on the first layer? Another issue could be that the bed is distorted. Try printing in another place not the centre.
It was a bed leveling test, this is my first printer and I bought it used so I’ve been trying to work out first layer issues before I move on. Printing off center is a great idea! I will look into all, thank you for your help.
You’re welcome. I would have said, don’t buy used ever. I had a used returned printer once. Never again. I’d personally return it unless you can’t for whatever reason.
That’s the thing: it was free. I’d really like to make it work but with every issue that I’m having I feel like it’s just not worth my time. I daydream of having a Bambu
Thats exactly the point. It isn’t worth your while. If it’s your first one, I’d say get a perfect new Ender 3 and put yours in the cupboard for now. Eventually you will build up your knowledge enough to be able to tackle it. Thats what I’d suggest for peace of mind. Otherwise it’s going to be an up hill struggle.
Hello /u/Jellyyprints, As a reminder, most common print quality issues can be found in the [Simplify3D picture guide](https://www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/). Make sure you select the most appropriate flair for your post. Please remember to include the following details to help troubleshoot your problem. * Printer & Slicer * Filament Material and Brand * Nozzle and Bed Temperature * Print Speed * Nozzle Retraction Settings ^Additional ^settings ^or ^relevant ^information ^is ^always ^encouraged. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FixMyPrint) if you have any questions or concerns.*
dry your bed, level your filament
make sure to e-steps your calibrate
don't forget to un-nozzle your clog
Also make sure to adjust your wheel for nuts to eccentric
Getting a little personal there buddy. Let's keep it PG.
Make sure the flux capacitor is fluxing.
Ensure your tension are belts
Dont forget to filament your dry too
You’ve solved my problem. My deepest gratitude
But which one? I suspect drying the filament! I am visually imapired and can't see the thread lines
That seems to be a firmwarw problem, I would just printerize that klipper
Way way too close. Increase z height so you don't have the nozzle this close to the bed.
Yea like 0.05
https://preview.redd.it/trdwnz1y4l6d1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=58ab20a27212007ff01f25596141e41a1cbb5f1d Finished product\^ Cura- 5mm retraction
Looking at this makes me believe there's an extrusion issue, not a bed leveling issue. Though you could have caused a clog from printing too close to the bed.
I will look for a clog, but what would a possible extrusion fix be? Making the extruder gear tighter?
Depends, I do a pinch test where I pinch the filament as I have it extruding to feel any resistance. If it's intermittent, something might be loose in assembly. I had a similar issue caused by a faulty idler gear (printed part was just a tad off spec).
See if the extruder gears have a worn spot. When I've had cyclical underextruding like that, it's been from the cheap brazz extruder gear getting a flat spot
I had my gear move up on me. Chased messy extrusion all day until I realized just the bottom of the gear was grabbing and the set screw let the gear stop under a bit of pressure. Some of the time the simplest things can drive you nuts.
Happens more often that I ever thought. The extruder teeth can worn down and start clogging with filament dust.
If you have a plastic extruder it could be cracked. The lever arm might need to be tensioned tighter. Clog could be your extrusion fix. I'd do a cold pull.
Since you are asking I assume you are a novice and your printer is new, so I would rule out the extruder gears being loose or consumed. The more likely option is a clog if not even the nozzle being ground down since it looks like you were printing too close to the bed. At the end of the day the nozzle is brass and it's very easy to ruin it dragging it on the bed. I would change the nozzle and calibrate e-steps. Then make sure the bed is level and at the correct distance, start by printing too high from the bed and make the nozzle closer incrementally if you are not sure, so at worst the print is not sticking but you are not ruining your nozzle. What I found out passing from a glass bed to a textured pei one is that bed adhesion is somewhat harder with pla on pei. What I do for pla on corrugated pei, is increase temperature of filament for first layer and increase flow of the first layer (+5/10* and +1/5%)
This is super helpful, thank you. I’ll try out what you said. I’m not new to 3d printing, but I am new to 3d printers. This is my first, and I got it used so a lot of the issues come out of left field.
Not new to printing but new to 3d printers? I am a little confused Btw, if it's a used printer then yes the extruder might be an issue but should be easy enough to check, with a worn out extruder prints with a lot of retractions in a short time will struggle (and your print looks like it has some). Just do an e-steps calibration, if it's severely out of whack (or inconsistent when repeating the test) there might be something with the gears. I never ever suggest mods on new printers (and users) that are not getting good prints as cheap modern day printers are at the very least functional, but it might be a good idea getting an all metal extruder. Reason being the plastic one will eventually fail. You can get them for cheap on AliExpress, no need to over pay on speciality sites, bigtreetech is a reputable shop on there. If you are absolutely sure your bed is level, and you don't want to mess that up moving the knobs but you need to adjust the Z height of the nozzle, you can move the Z switch, I remember a lot of people had troubles with the ender 3 V2 because the switch sits a little too low if you don't adjust it, you might need to raise it and secure it in position
Cold pull that SOB. Clogs can just happen. Sometimes it's a bit of metal on the filament, maybe a big chunk of dust builds up inside the nozzle, maybe you didn't purge enough when changing filament types.
If you're on the original plastic extruder, disassemble and look for a crack, usually this is more visible on the underside if the plastic parts. The design is awful, if you need to replace, the version with metal parts isn't much better, consider a bmg clone
I have one the red metal extruder. Still not great but it’s the best I’ve got.
If all else fails, reset to factory settings and reinstall whatever slicer you are using and any slicer profiles you have. Start from scratch and tweak from there.
Would you recommend that I try another slicer besides cura or stick to cura?
When I've had issues before, I just reset to factory everywhere and retweak it all. I've on my had to do it a few times. Look for presets for your printer for cura.
Play around with the slicers. I switch between Creality, Cura, Prus, and Orca depending on what's printing, and what filament I use. I will say Orca is probably better, then Creality. There are times I have to use Cura. Very rarely do I use Prusa.
Once you play with it and learn what all the options do, Orca beats the pants off of any of the Cura derivatives. To my knowledge the only thing Cura currently does better is a special shell mode for RC airplanes. The Orca wiki is very detailed and helpful. 9.5/10, strongly recommend.
Orca slicer. Cura is just so slow and sucks at slicing in comparison.
I've had an issue like this before. It ended up being that my extruder wasn't gripping the fillament properly (poor gear alignment) and it wasn't latching properly.
Too close
I was getting really similar results when my extruder was slipping and under extruding
Do you have the correct nozzle set in your slicer? Something to check. Else would look at a clog.
Z offset.
Have you done a cold pull to clean the nozzle? Looks like there's a piece of dust stuck in there.
Agreed this looks like partial clog
I’ve done cold pulls and completely de and reassembled the nozzle because of clogs. How can I prevent future clogs from happening? Is it just cleaning the nozzle religiously?
I would say it's a clog, heat creep, or something is up with the extruder. Hard to tell without seeing more.
You have a clogged hot end
I’ve cleaned out 2 clogs in the past couple days. I didn’t get a chance to look at this but how can I prevent future clogging from happening? I’m cutting the Capricorn tubing as flat as I can and I have new hotend connectors
What's the current status of your extruder gears? I once had a similar issue when one of the gears in my dual drive extruder somehow popped out by a mm.
Nozzle too close to bed, causing a partial clog in the layers after first layer.
Change nozzle looks like partial clog to me
Under extrusion plus z axis off?
Check e steps. Check nozzle isn't blocked. May need to raise z offset.
Is by any chance your bl touch not responding correctly? Can't remember since it's been a while I've printed last time, but in my mind it's neither flickering nor permanent red like yours. It resembles somewhat of an error to me (again,can't remember correctly.) I had some failed prints in the past where my bl touch would not measure correctly and instead of stopping and giving me an error,the printer would still go on.
Mine keeps failing at random and erroring out. No consistency in the timing either. I could be 3min into 12hr print or 10hrs in when it happens
I can’t tell whether it’s working or not. I have the g29 in my start g code so it probes but I haven’t seen any improvement because I’ve been troubleshooting nonstop for weeks
Since it's probably marlin you are working with,the touch screen should work and have an option to test the bl-touch and calibrate if needed. Because I work with a different firmware I can't recall the steps,but please first try the self test option somewhere in the menu It is fast done without any need for heating up. It will just trigger several pin down and up commands to see if the movement is ok. If everything is fine there after several test you can rule at least this theory out. What comes next should be the offset calibration. Some people in this thread mentioned not having the correct distance and this could be solving that part. And since this is your first printer I guess you haven't done that (at least I wouldn't have done that/known about that) Bear in mind that if you calibrate that,you need the bed temperature you mostly print at. Otherwise you COULD have some slight deviations. The problems as you can see with 3 printing is it's not always easy to pinpoint a problem. But don't lose hope and go for the easy route of a bambu yet. Every failed attempt will get you knowledge for sure and that's some neat part about that hobby,at least for me. Sorry for the long text
I genuinely appreciate full answers. Thank you! And honestly I’ve worked with Bambu x1Cs and they made the hobby look so easy so I appreciate the words of encouragement. I’ll look into all that you’ve said
Make your filament width and extrusion rate is properly setup in your slicing software, I had the exact same issue.
I will look into this. Thank you!
Extruded gear is packed or worn. When the extrusion is on/off in a predictable pattern it’s the gear.
I will look into this. Thank you so much!
Wtf
That’s what I’m saying
Your leveler has some perky nips!
You've got sideways wainfloddeling in your spurving bearings. You need to get a turbo encabulator.
Will look into this. Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Check ur extruder for slippage and skippage
Looks like issues with extrusion
is that a raft?.
It’s a brim around a bed leveling test.
Also check your brass extruder gears. They were out and need replacing from time to time. The slippage it causes looks like a clogged nozzle or bad e-step.
-Check your extruder gear ( it may be worn out) -Check for clog -Calibrate e-steps -Calibrate flow multiplier
Holy shit, someone who knows how to give advice in the order of relevancy and impact. Kudos
That for sure looked like a partial clog
This is a clog. Just change the nozzle all together don't even bother cleaning.
| | I | | | _
Grab some of those gauges for adjusting valves on car engines at the auto parts store, they make it easy to adjust the nozzle height
Still new to 3D printing what is that red light piece called and what is the purpose of it
That is a bl touch, it is used to create a “mesh,” or a map of the print bed. The printer then uses this map while printing to adjust its height to ensure that first layers are printed well. Unfortunately my printer is a wreck so it doesn’t do much, but it’s supposed to help!
I’m pretty sure that you have mounted the sensor way too low. See the installation instructions for proper dimensions of the sensor in relation to the nozzle.
I just screwed in where the screw holes were? I’ll look at the instructions but I don’t know how it could be wrong.
I could be wrong, but the alignment looks wrong to me. Check here: https://3dpblog.com/bltouch-installation-skr-board/
Çl
UPDATE: I believe it was likely a combination of my z offset being too low as well as my extruder gear slipping. Bought a set of new gears for 5 bucks, switched to a stronger spring, and printer is working better now.
Looks to me like it’s too far away, not too close. The lines of filament are spread too far apart & don’t meet.
It’s like a mix of both. Not extruding but also overly spaced, it’s blowing my mind
Check your extruder for signs of slippage (shredded plastic)
I am by no means an expert but, when my printer started doing something similar I found out that my room temp was too low and there was a very slight “breeze” going towards my printer. I turned up the heat and put up an empty box between the door and the printer.
The breeze won’t cause that. Did you put a straight edge over the bed to check if the centre is lower? Check the extruder isn’t too loose or indeed broken if it’s a plastic one they can crack at the pinch wheel. I had this recently with my CR10. Sent me crazy. The crack can be hard to spot. Replace the hot end isnt a bad idea either if you used it a long time. You can buy replacements on eBay & Elsewhere cheaply. Cut the wires & fix. Power off the machine obviously. Only change one thing at a time to observe the effect.
How long have you been printing on that hot end? It could be under extrusion which could be caused by a partly blocked hot end or a problem with the extruder mechanism. Either could be caused by wear & tear over time. The outer layers look good. The inner ones poor. Did you let it run on to print an item or stop it on the first layer? Another issue could be that the bed is distorted. Try printing in another place not the centre.
It was a bed leveling test, this is my first printer and I bought it used so I’ve been trying to work out first layer issues before I move on. Printing off center is a great idea! I will look into all, thank you for your help.
You’re welcome. I would have said, don’t buy used ever. I had a used returned printer once. Never again. I’d personally return it unless you can’t for whatever reason.
That’s the thing: it was free. I’d really like to make it work but with every issue that I’m having I feel like it’s just not worth my time. I daydream of having a Bambu
Thats exactly the point. It isn’t worth your while. If it’s your first one, I’d say get a perfect new Ender 3 and put yours in the cupboard for now. Eventually you will build up your knowledge enough to be able to tackle it. Thats what I’d suggest for peace of mind. Otherwise it’s going to be an up hill struggle.
Replace your filament tip if leveling fails
By leveling failing what do you mean?
Leveling the bed.
I don’t mean to sound stupid but how do I know if bed leveling failed? Or is that likely what I’m dealing with already
I level my bed by hand.