SOLVED New to 3D Printing - Problems with Stringing

[revolutton 1]

I recently received an Ultimaker3 for my 20th birthday and am still new to 3D printing. I have tried all the basics, changing the head movement speed and lowering temperature. I have read the Ultimaker help guide on how to fix and followed the steps. I have used the Ultimaker PLA and another brand of filament (X3D PLA) and the stringing occurs with both. I was playing around in CURA to try and fix the stringing and the only thing that seemed to make a difference was the layer height. The thicker the layer height the less the problem. Photos attached. I would appreciate any help as I am rather new at this and still getting the hang of it all. Is this amount of stringing normal? Thanks heaps.

0.06mm

0.1mm

0.15mm

0.2mm

[gr5 2,265]

How low did you go in temperature? (and can you go into your profile settings for this forum and mark that you have a UM3?).

I'm doing some prints right now on a UM3 and had to lower by 10C to stop stringing. Don't be afraid to go all the way down to 180C.

Although I have to say the final picture looks quite good as far as strings are concerned. Towards the end (top) it stopped retracting because Cura won't let you retract more than about 20 times on the same spot of filament (or you can grind the filament - in fact I usually set this to 10).

So I think you were successful.

[revolutton 1]

How low did you go in temperature?  (and can you go into your profile settings for this forum and mark that you have a UM3?).

I'm doing some prints right now on a UM3 and had to lower by 10C to stop stringing.  Don't be afraid to go all the way down to 180C.

Although I have to say the final picture looks quite good as far as strings are concerned.  Towards the end (top) it stopped retracting because Cura won't let you retract more than about 20 times on the same spot of filament (or you can grind the filament - in fact I usually set this to 10).

So I think you were successful.

 

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I have already tried going down to 185C and didn't see much improvement. Just wanted to clarify that the top image at 0.06mm looked normal for that layer height? Thanks again for your help.

PS. I have set that I have an Ultimaker3 for you

[gr5 2,265]

You can definitely get it better. You probably need to go down to 170C or 160C. But the printer won't let you go down to 170C so it would require a firmware change. I know you tried a few different versions of PLA (it's really more about the additives that make the color) but some colors behave better. White is probably the most difficult to print regardless of brand. I prefer PHA/PLA but for this unusual print (I guess all prints are special?) I think the PHA will make it string more.

Lower layer height doesn't always increase quality - especially as you found out for this model. The 0.2mm version looks the best - those whispy strings at the top can be removed very easily - in fact trying to keep those strings attached to the print over the next year would be difficult.

Did you play with retraction distance? I use 4.5mm on my UM3 (defaults I think to 6.5mm). As long as the bowdens are fixed in place (doesn't move up and down at either end - feeder or head) then personally I think 4.5mm works best but I could be wrong.