Trails of filament during print...

[JSDK 0]

Hi,

I'm still quite new in 3D printing and just recently bought an Ultimaker 2+. I noticed during printing that certain sporadic trails of filament occurs during print, when the print head moves to shift direction. I find it a bit strange as filament i partly deposited during print head movement.

I wonder if this is caused by improper build plate calibration or if this can be adjusted somehow via settings. I also see the movement trails in Cura, but I'm not sure if it is normal that the printer deposits filament during the head movement.

Any advise of this?

[tommyph1208 55]

Hi, welcome to the forums and to the world of 3d printing

The blue lines you see in Cura are so called travel moves, they occur when the printhead is forced to move to a new place on the model, but not extrude during that move.

There are a number of settings you can tweak in Cura, to minimize the visibility of these moves on your print.

Start by switching to full settings in Cura, if you haven't done so already ("Expert" tab -> "Switch to full settings")

Now under the "Advanced" tab you'll find settings for retraction. This is a feature in which filament is pulled back during travel moves, to minimize any side effects of these on the print (oozing, stringing etc.), you'll want to play around with these values a bit.

If you open the expert settings ("Expert" -> "Open expert settings"), you'll find some additional retraction options that can help you, z-hop will eg. lower the bed a little when doing the travel move, which along with a good retraction setting should eliminate the lines you see on the top of your print...

Edited June 14, 2016 by Guest