Anyone Know how to Fix THIS?

[McDazzle 0]

I have no idea why it looks like this, and I've added some glue to the baseplate cause it might be a sticking issue. Please tell me if you might know, or if I need to add more glue. Thanks!

[Slashee_the_Cow 410]

Details always help 👩‍🔬 Pictures aren't always that much to go by. If you have a Cura project file for this (.3mf, get it set up and then go to File > Save Project) it'd really help. Or at least answers to questions like these:

• What model printer?
• What's your plate made of?
• What material are you using?
• What temperatures are you using?
• What size nozzle?
• What print settings (at the very least line width, layer height and speed)?
• What's it supposed to look like?
• What's the ambient air condition (temperature/humidity) where your printer is?

Also remember: if you're using glue, wipe your bed down with isopropyl alcohol after each attempt to get rid of any residue.

[McDazzle 0]

4 hours ago, Slashee_the_Cow said:

Details always help 👩‍🔬 Pictures aren't always that much to go by. If you have a Cura project file for this (.3mf, get it set up and then go to File > Save Project) it'd really help. Or at least answers to questions like these:

• What model printer?
• What's your plate made of?
• What material are you using?
• What temperatures are you using?
• What size nozzle?
• What print settings (at the very least line width, layer height and speed)?
• What's it supposed to look like?
• What's the ambient air condition (temperature/humidity) where your printer is?

Also remember: if you're using glue, wipe your bed down with isopropyl alcohol after each attempt to get rid of any residue.

The model is an Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro (I think), The plate I believe is glass, I am using some PLA+ at 210/220 degrees for the nozzle and 70/80 for the bed, I don't know the size but for the file I have it at 5mm, and the printer is inside a box in my room made out of a hard fabric.

EN3PRO_collar_mid_right.gcode

[Slashee_the_Cow 410]

My guess at this stage would an issue with your extruder, or a clog somewhere in the system. Before it even tries to print the inner islands and gridlines it's supposed to do a fair few laps of brim:

In your photos it's already started doing the islands and gridlines but while it's hard to see exactly how many lines it has gotten down around the edge, I don't think it's that many. There's also a few places where it's obviously pushed out a large blob at once:

If it was an adhesion problem you'd have a bunch of spaghetti where it's extruded but not adhered.

 

So if it is a clog and you want to try cleaning it:  Your photos make it look like your printer has a similar extruder/hot end setup to my Ender-3 V3 SE. My printer came with two cleaning tools: a nozzle cleaner (a very thin bit of metal with a thicker handle bit at the end) and one for for getting stuff out of the extruder hot/end (a metal rod roughly the diameter of filament with a handle on one end). If you don't have one, one alternative I've heard is a wire coat hanger (straightened out).

 

Raise your Z axis gantry so that you have enough room to get underneath with the nozzle cleaner, turn on your printer, unload your filament, get the hot end nice and hot (I print PETG at about 245° so to make sure I can get that out if there's any I go up to 250°), stick the extruder/hot end cleaner straight down the hole where you insert filament, it'll push out any of whatever you just used left in the system and hopefully if there's any clogs, them too. Once you've gotten all you can out that way, stick the nozzle cleaner into the nozzle (a task I'm sure almost everyone finds easier than I do because with a target that small, having depth perception probably helps), push it straight up as far as it'll go, then bring it some of the way out and just have a poke around. Repeat at each end and try printing again. If that doesn't work, it's possible you may have a more thorough clog (and not knowing in the slightest what the internals of an Elegoo print head are, I'm not even going to try to explain how you'd disassemble it to look for that) or as I said, it's possible the extruder just isn't working right.

[McDazzle 0]

On 8/23/2024 at 11:27 AM, Slashee_the_Cow said:

My guess at this stage would an issue with your extruder, or a clog somewhere in the system. Before it even tries to print the inner islands and gridlines it's supposed to do a fair few laps of brim:

In your photos it's already started doing the islands and gridlines but while it's hard to see exactly how many lines it has gotten down around the edge, I don't think it's that many. There's also a few places where it's obviously pushed out a large blob at once:

If it was an adhesion problem you'd have a bunch of spaghetti where it's extruded but not adhered.

 

So if it is a clog and you want to try cleaning it:  Your photos make it look like your printer has a similar extruder/hot end setup to my Ender-3 V3 SE. My printer came with two cleaning tools: a nozzle cleaner (a very thin bit of metal with a thicker handle bit at the end) and one for for getting stuff out of the extruder hot/end (a metal rod roughly the diameter of filament with a handle on one end). If you don't have one, one alternative I've heard is a wire coat hanger (straightened out).

 

Raise your Z axis gantry so that you have enough room to get underneath with the nozzle cleaner, turn on your printer, unload your filament, get the hot end nice and hot (I print PETG at about 245° so to make sure I can get that out if there's any I go up to 250°), stick the extruder/hot end cleaner straight down the hole where you insert filament, it'll push out any of whatever you just used left in the system and hopefully if there's any clogs, them too. Once you've gotten all you can out that way, stick the nozzle cleaner into the nozzle (a task I'm sure almost everyone finds easier than I do because with a target that small, having depth perception probably helps), push it straight up as far as it'll go, then bring it some of the way out and just have a poke around. Repeat at each end and try printing again. If that doesn't work, it's possible you may have a more thorough clog (and not knowing in the slightest what the internals of an Elegoo print head are, I'm not even going to try to explain how you'd disassemble it to look for that) or as I said, it's possible the extruder just isn't working right.

I have done a thorough cleaning of both ends of the extruder and it still isn't working. I have the printer in an enclosed mostly fabric box with not much air-flow unless the door is open so do you think it is an overheating issue? I also have some spare nozzles that I can replace it with. Do you think that might fix it?

[Slashee_the_Cow 410]

23 minutes ago, McDazzle said:

I have done a thorough cleaning of both ends of the extruder and it still isn't working. I have the printer in an enclosed mostly fabric box with not much air-flow unless the door is open so do you think it is an overheating issue? I also have some spare nozzles that I can replace it with. Do you think that might fix it?

I keep my printer in a tent and print with the flap closed most of the time (unless it's the sort of thing where I'm changing colour every 5 minutes in which case I don't bother) so I can tell you that at the very least it doesn't bother an Ender-3 V3 SE. I can't speak to Elegoo printers but I know for some printers (including - I think - some earlier Ender-3 models) the motherboard doesn't exactly like getting too warm, so it's worth moving it into an open area and trying it, but don't pin your hopes on that.

 

If you've got a spare nozzle, it certainly doesn't hurt to try (unless you burn yourself changing it, that does hurt), it's a much easier test than disassembling the extruder and hot end 🙂 but it may have to come to that 😞.

[Tmiller1958 0]

I don't know man, don't look like stopped up extruder to me...  Looks more like an adhesion problem. I'd think it's cause is a combination of temp and Z height and possibly running too fast..

I bought an infrared temp gun to shoot my bed and found that my printer bed has an issue with temp consistency. My code will be set for 80 C but when I shoot it, it's running 70-71. Next print it might be spot on... So I check it on every run now.

I'd suggest bumping your temps up about 10 degrees on both nozzle and bed, for first 2 layers at least. I'd also set layer height at .2 and set print speed for first layer or 2 to about 30mm. Then while the print is running the brim start lowering your Z height on the fly. The pics look to me like your too high by about 15 to 20 points. My printer changes by .5 per click so on mine it'd be 3-4 clicks on the ▼. You'll know if you get too low, it might squish but should at least stick. Adjust from there

Your layer of glue looks uneven but that might just be from glare. You mention that you think the bed is glass, I can't tell if you have a sheet on top of the PEI plate or not. Unless you're just partial to glass I'd go with the textured PEI with a decent coating of glue stick. With proper temps and nozzle height glue may not be needed...

It's worth a try.

Edited September 7 by Tmiller1958

[Slashee_the_Cow 410]

Please remember that all this advice is only relevant in the "if the problem is adhesion" case.

 

2 hours ago, Tmiller1958 said:

I bought an infrared temp gun to shoot my bed and found that my printer bed has an issue with temp consistency. My code will be set for 80 C but when I shoot it, it's running 70-71. Next print it might be spot on... So I check it on every run now.

IR temp guns (especially the cheaper ones) aren't great with glass because a) IR light passes through most glass and b) the diffraction, depending on the angle at which you're hitting it, will affect the reflection back to the gun. In this sort of case I'd say it's a "use a a comparative guide, not a precise reading" thing.

 

2 hours ago, Tmiller1958 said:

I'd suggest bumping your temps up about 10 degrees on both nozzle and bed,

If they're already running at 210/220, I would never put any PLA (or PLA+) higher than 220. With PLA+ it can depend on the brand (there isn't a specific "PLA+" formula). Regular PLA I run at 200. PLA+ I run at 210. If it's the "silky" kind, add 5 degrees. Also add 5 degrees for the first layer.

 

Running at 70/80 for the bed is probably already too hot. PLA has a glass transition temperature (the point where it begins to soften up and melt) of about 55 degrees (so don't leave your PLA prints in a car parked in the sun, kids). If you keep the bed much above that then the bottom will either never (or take quite a while to) set fully meaning you won't have a stable base. Regardless of silkiness or plusness of my PLA I run the bed at 60 (65 for the first layer).

 

3 hours ago, Tmiller1958 said:

I'd also set layer height at .2 and set print speed for first layer or 2 to about 30mm.

For my first layer, unless I really need dimensional accuracy (or if my layer height were equal to my nozzle diameter, which I've never done), I run at 150% of the layer height (so for most prints it'll end up being 0.3mm). 0.2mm is a good place to start as a minimum but it should by no means be a hard rule. 30mm/s isn't a bad speed to start off at, but watch your print as it does the first layer: especially at corners, if you see the filament being pulled along behind the nozzle instead of sticking to the bed. There is such a thing as too slow, for PLA I wouldn't go any lower than 15mm/s myself. I also set my initial layer line width to 150% and initial layer flow to 105% to increase adhesion.

 

3 hours ago, Tmiller1958 said:

Then while the print is running the brim start lowering your Z height on the fly. The pics look to me like your too high by about 15 to 20 points. My printer changes by .5 per click so on mine it'd be 3-4 clicks on the ▼. You'll know if you get too low, it might squish but should at least stick. Adjust from there

*inner graphic designer starts yelling* "A point is ~0.35mm damnit! You don't want to move it anywhere near that!"*

Sorry, hard to keep that part of me under control. I literally judge businesses based on their graphic design (mainly that if they obviously haven't paid to have any done - or got crap and didn't realise it - that they might be cutting corners elsewhere).

Anyway, we're talking about fractions of a millimetre here. Pretty damn hard to eyeball. If you've properly levelled your bed (and especially if your printer has an ABL sensor) once you get the Z offset right yourself (or if the printer does it, like mine) you shouldn't have to change it (especially during a print). Move your nozzle too low and worst case is it drags along the bed, leaving a scratch, bad case is that because there just isn't enough room for the volume of filament that is getting pushed through to come out, it'll start clogging the nozzle and the clog expands from there.

 

3 hours ago, Tmiller1958 said:

You mention that you think the bed is glass, I can't tell if you have a sheet on top of the PEI plate or not. Unless you're just partial to glass I'd go with the textured PEI with a decent coating of glue stick. With proper temps and nozzle height glue may not be needed...

I've never needed glue on a PEI bed, even for ABS. Especially on textured ones it's not always a great idea because tiny bits can dry and get stuck in the impossibly small variations in height that make up the texturing. Whatever surface you're using, if you're using glue, make sure to wash your bed with isopropyl alcohol after each print.