Printing Excessive Material

[gamerfanatic 1]

Not too sure why the printer is doing this, it seems like the printer keeps printing parts that are raising off the bed, or like printing excessive material and it seems to slip up like in the picture below.

Any ideas on what is going on?

[gr5 2,172]

Did you watch it happen? that blob on top of your bottom layer looks like it was created when you started the print - the printer prints out some filament to get things started and sometimes it kind of sticks to the nozzle and then gets dragged around with the nozzle for a while until it eventually falls off and then later maybe the head hits it again and pushes it somewhere else.

I always run over to the printer when I hear it starting and grab the initial filament and pull it - pulling extra fast as it moves to the start of the print (to make a thinner-than-thread, easily broken, safe strand).

[gr5 2,172]

raising off the bed

Are you talking about edges of parts that lift off the bed later? When you are printing upper layers? This happens a lot because as the upper plastic layers shrink it pulls hard inward and lifts the lower corners. There are many great and easy fixes to overcome this problem.

[gamerfanatic 1]

It seems like it keeps getting stuck when it trys to print those little gears as it has so many "retraction" points to just put a blob of filament down for the teeth... how can I fix that?

Here is the print http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:23030

[cloakfiend 995]

try printing a little closer to the bed as well. its when the PLA? doesnt stick i used to get this all the time. I print the first layer hot and closer to the bed. never got these problems since.

Or the only other problem which ive also had was i unknowingly moved the object a touch up of the xy so it prints in the air, but that was my fault for not checking the base alignment properly, worth taking a look also.

Edited May 10, 2015 by Guest

[gamerfanatic 1]

Did you watch it happen?  that blob on top of your bottom layer looks like it was created when you started the print - the printer prints out some filament to get things started and sometimes it kind of sticks to the nozzle and then gets dragged around with the nozzle for a while until it eventually falls off and then later maybe the head hits it again and pushes it somewhere else.

I always run over to the printer when I hear it starting and grab the initial filament and pull it - pulling extra fast as it moves to the start of the print (to make a thinner-than-thread, easily broken, safe strand).

See my posts above about the retraction speculation, I watched it happen. More photos incoming on the 3rd failed attempt. It definitely has to do with this retraction of the filament out of the nozzle to place like little dots of filament on the bed as "gears".

Edited May 10, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

On the other hand there are a few odd prints where i noticed a useless bit of plastic, but i believe that to be related to the leftover plastic melted in the nozzle, building up pressure as the newly heaated up filament pushed in to the old and then you get a clump, which i just remove and its fine. Im sure you wont get it with all prints. Its a small price to pay, and it only happens during the first layer which i always tend to watch so im not too bothered by this.

You could always try printing on a raft? i used to but dont anymore since printing closer to the glass.

Edited May 10, 2015 by Guest

[gamerfanatic 1]

Ohh, I bet a raft will help. For now I am going to print the other parts alone individually. I will go back to those small planet gears after the other parts are finished.

I'll report back in a little! Thanks for the rapid responses so far.

[gr5 2,172]

Oh, now your post is becoming more clear when I see the photo of the gear inside the gear that is not sticking.

I don't think this has anything to do with retraction. It's just not sticking well.

Your primary problem is probably just as cloakfiend said: print closer to the glass. Turn those three screws looser the same amount - quite a bit - maybe 1/4 turn. Counter clockwise as seen from below.

Also what temp is your glass? You need at least 50C to have it cool slow enough that it makes a good contact with the glass (flows well) before freezing.

Also you can get even better results with some PVA glue. You need a very very thin coat. So for example you can use woodglue mixed with water, hair spray, or glue stick thinned with water. For example with the glue stick make a few swipes with the glue stick covering about 1/4 of the area such that most of it has no glue stick. Then dip a small paint brush in water (or add a tablespoon of water to the bed) and spread that glue all around and let it dry on the hot bed and it should dry invisible.

Also when you get the glass closer to the bed don't go too far or the bottom layer of the gears will be squished too flat and the gears won't mesh as well.

[gamerfanatic 1]

Thank you for the help all. Everything is working great now.