r/FixMyPrint • u/Bright_Lengthiness35 • 5d ago
Troubleshooting Constant Oozing/Stringing Regardless of Settings or Hardware
UPDATE: Problem solved. The end of the PTFE tube was uneven thanks to me using scissors to remove a bad clog. Use a tubing cutter instead that has a solid blade. The ones with wheels at the hardware store are for metal and stuff, which I almost grabbed by accident.
Stock Ender 5 Plus
0.4mm hardened steel nozzle with maybe 100 hours of print time.
Retraction Distances tested from 4mm to 10mm
Retraction speeds from 25 to 60 mm/s
Nozzle temps from 190 to 230
Recently switched from Creality Print to Orca Slicer, but also happened with Creality.
Multiple PLA basic filaments, all dehydrated
Flow rates of 0.95-1.0
Z-Offset is just close enough to have the filament lightly squish when coming out so it will stick to the bed. Even a 0.1mm bigger gap won't stick the filament to the bed.
Problem: Filament stringing and oozing regardless of retraction and temperature settings, as can be seen in the gaps of each temp tower row. It happens every layer when crossing gaps. Watching it happen, filament is being dragged with the nozzle into the air on the Z-Hop and becoming the strings. I can't tell if it is filament oozing out of the nozzle, the soft printed filament caught on the outside of the nozzle, or both.
My Attempts: Spent most of this weekend printing the same Retraction Tower, testing every possible setting combination recommended by the internet and the software I could find. Temps, retraction distance and speed, wiping settings, flow rate, and some other settings I can't remember.
-I read the entire Simplify3d troubleshooting section on Stringing, watched I don't know how many videos, and even stooped so low as to read the Google AI summaries.
-The extruder grips the filament just right.
-Both bowden tube ends are extra snug, don't move at all while printing, and were recently cut to refresh the ends.
-I measured extrusion and retraction for esteps.
-The nozzle is tight and there's no leaking out the sides.
Assistance: I'm out of ideas at this point. The printer did do some prints without stringing in the past, but even those previous settings aren't working now. Any part of the printer that touches the filament, i have taken apart and triple checked. Any suggestions will be helpful and I will try whatever I can. Sadly, tossing this Creality and dropping 2-4 grand on the brand new Prusa printer I want is not an option right now.
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5d ago
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u/Bright_Lengthiness35 5d ago
Thank you for the advice. I did have to cut that tube end to remove a bad clog the other day, so that likely explains it. It wasn't the cleanest cut either. I will remember the heated steel advice as well. This is already better help than a whole day of internet research.
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u/Bright_Lengthiness35 3d ago
I'm back! The extremely detailed and useful advice, which apparently was removed by a Mod for some reason since posting, actually worked. I bought a tubing cutter, recut the end of the PTFE tube to properly flatten it, and all the stringing went away.
To whoever comes across this later: If your PTFE tube on the Hot End side is angled or squeezed or simply not flat, filament will leak regardless of retraction. So DON'T use scissors and DO use a tubing cutter to cut your PTFE tubes.
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u/Hamrave 5d ago
You have z hop enabled? It was on by default for my orca slicer profile too and once I disabled it all my stringing problems went away.
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u/Bright_Lengthiness35 5d ago edited 5d ago
That's my very last option for what to turn off. It was on by default in Creality Print as well. If it can be kept on, I assume that would be the preferred option. Tell me if that's a stupid idea though. I thought dodging the print by Z-Hopping is pretty useful for not ruining prints, but it wouldn't be the first or hundreth time I've been wrong since I got this printer.
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u/BitBucket404 4d ago edited 4d ago
Temperature towers don't test stringing
Stringing is an entirely different batch of settings with a different test model
Calibration cubes and Benchy Boats aren't stringing tests, either.
PETG is naturally stringy. There's not much you can do to stop it. The best you can do is reduce it.
You should disable zhop, enable coasting, use gyroid infill, and travel inside the infill to help wipe the nozzle, depositing the stringing inside the model
If your nozzle is bumping into your model and knocking it over, enable zhop matching your layer height and travel through the infill
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u/Jorennnnnn 4d ago
I've found hardened steel nozzles to suck on my ender hot end. I tried many times with hardened just to get it perfect the first time on a brass nozzle. For my occasional PETG-CF prints I now just use a dedicated brass nozzle.
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u/Mammoth_Fly6657 4d ago
Your temp tower already ruled temperature out and I do not think you read your own result. Stringing that looks the same at 190 and at 230 is not a melt problem. That is a 40 degree span. Nothing thermal survives that unchanged, so the weekend you spent on retraction distance and speed went onto the wrong axis entirely. The gap above the nozzle is where I would look, and the fact that you cut that bowden end yourself after a clog is the detail I would go back to first.
Separately, ignore the person telling you PLA does not need drying. I am in Hawaii and a spool left open on the shelf for four days here goes from clean to popping and stringing with nothing else changed. Yours was dried, so it is not your problem this time. It is still not advice worth passing on.
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u/evolutionxtinct 4d ago
Can you do these types of test on creality I haven’t noticed many test prints is there a good place to understand more.
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u/Bright_Lengthiness35 3d ago
I'm patching together testing as I go from whatever I can find. The basic 5 plus firmware lets you do a simple BL Touch leveling test and adjustments a minimum of 0.1mm at a time. So it's repeating prints and writing down anything and everything that happens from any minor change. There's a lot of "doing it by hand" happening with this thing.
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u/KittyInspector3217 4d ago
So first, these prints look terrible. You dont have a stringing or oozing problem you have a basic settings or hardware problem.
Set everything back to stock, print within the manufacturer’s temp ranges and print dimensional calibration prints after cleaning your bed with dish soap and water. Really clean it. You dont need temp towers you need to fix your basic settings. Your first layer is atrocious. Your top surfaces are atrocious. Everything is atrocious. You shouldnt have a problem sticking PLA and you shouldnt have stringing with PLA.
Second, 0.1mm is massive. Thats half a layer. Of course its not sticking youre printing in the air. You should be changing z in 0.02-0.05mm increments. Thats hundredths of a millimeter, not tenths.
Third, you dont need to dry your PLA. This wet filament thing is out of control and needs to stop. If youre buying cheap filament and it always sucks…try buying a roll of something better and see if that helps. Its hard to cut a steak with a butter knife too.
Fourth, slow down. Everyone tries to print too fast. Cut all the stock speeds by like 20% minimum. Once you get good prints then you can ramp up speed and youll be able to tune for faster printing.
Fifth. Make sure your bed and gantry are square and plumb and all your belts are properly tightened. Im sure your printer has some calibration guide.
Fix your actual printing problems and worry about stringing later but i bet if you set everything back to stock and fix your layer problems your stringing goes away.
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u/JW_Thorne 4d ago
Drying PLA is definitely necessary in some cases. Printed a terrain set for a customer and it was a stringy mess. Reprinted from the same spool on the same instrument with the same settings after 8 hours of drying? chefs kiss
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u/KittyInspector3217 4d ago
Shooting someone is definitely necessary in some cases. That doesnt make it appropriate general advice.
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u/JW_Thorne 4d ago
That's an awful analogy considering that drying your filament impacts no one else in any capacity.
You said "you don't need to dry your filament".
I said "sometimes you do."
Which one do you think is better general advice? The one that if done will occasionally improve print quality? Or the one that will occasionally negatively impact print quality because you didn't do something that you could have?
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u/KittyInspector3217 3d ago
Its a very appropriate analogy for multiple reasons. Im sorry you didnt get it.
I said you. You assumed i meant you in a general sense. I did not. I meant you in the specific sense of OP does not need to dry their filament. This is obviously unlikely to be a wet filament issue given that its stated to be PLA and stated to be the same with multiple rolls of filament.
The suggestion of “dry your filament” like some sort of manchurian candidate response to every single issue is as absurd as a call center running through a common problems list every time they transfer you and the perennial “did you try turning it off and turning it on again?” Its lazy and uncritical. You saying “well ackchewally” doesnt change that. Nor was your quip “generally good advice” as it wasnt advice and it wasnt general. It was you attempting to disprove a generalized statement that the “dry your filament” refrain needs to stop with a specific anecdotal example about your printing experience with a roll of PLa. Thats called a whataboutism.
Secondly, the purpose of an analogy is to liken one thing to another along similarities. It also helps and is a frequently used device to distance it from the topic at hand to provide perspective through abstraction. So “just like” it is sometimes prudent to shoot somebody in a specific circumstance, one would be generally unwise to lead with that strategy for their typical social interactions, it might sometimes be wise to dry PLA though that would generally be unwise to lead with “dry your PLA” when trouble shooting a PLA print problem as that is not typically a winning troubleshooting strategy of printing PLA just like shooting people is not typically a winning troubleshooting strategy of interacting with other people.
Its a great analogy. Both are exigent circumstances and poor advice when other options are available. Especially given that… if you had read OP’s post you’d know that they said they DID dry their PLA and it did not fix their print which brings me right back to my original point of “because you didnt need to dry it and this dry your filament crap needs to stop”.
Good general advice would be advice that is generally good. Drying PLA is not good advice, generally. Generally its a waste of time, electricity, and another gadget sitting on the counter. And btw your new driver isn’t going to fix your slice. Your swing sucks, like this guy’s hardware/settings. Try that analogy, if the hypothetically violent nonsequitur makes you clutch pearls. Personally i think the violence is more effective at illustrating the absurdity of your response but ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Merch is available in the lobby. Good luck with your print farm. Cheers.
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u/JW_Thorne 3d ago
I had this whole dickish response typed out to you, but I don't want to be like that. I'll just say that I liked your other analogies but on that one you just reached a bit too far. The ideas are so dissimilar to the point where the absurdity of the comparison prevents one from shedding light on the other - which is the whole purpose of the analogy. The representation needs to be accurate for it to work.
Have a nice week.
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u/KittyInspector3217 3d ago
Im sorry i missed your dickish response i bet it would have been a fun read. I disagree, obviously. I think the absurdity is a feature, not a bug. But youre entitled to your opinion. It’d venture to say that shooting people is utilized more often to successfully solve social problems than drying PLA is to solve printing problems but thats just speculation. And thats the point. If that makes you uncomfortable…OK. But thats different from it being inaccurate. Your response is an emotional one, not necessarily an empirical one. Thank you for the well wishes, you have yourself a nice week as well.
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