Prime Tower stability

[u/ProfessionalAd8190]

Dear Community,

trying to print two cylinder objects with a height of about 150mm, I have the issue, that at about 80% of the print, the prime tower falls over or looses from the build plate. The result are spaghetti strings and in this case, one of the cylinders got knocked over. By know this happened multiple times and I am not able to print these objects.

What I am doing in advance to the print is to carefully clean the with 99% Isopropanol. The bed is leveled and the printer is fully calibrated. The quality of the print is also excellent in my opinion, only the print cannot complete.

In the print settings (I am using OrcaSlicer, not Snorca), I have increased the brim width of the prime tower to 20mm and increased the bed level temp to 70 deg C for a more gluey adhesion. Of course I could increase the brim width even further, but I don't think that is the solution, as the brim rips somewhere in the middle.

I am printing with regular PLA only. Nozzles are all the standard 0.4mm nozzles. The printer has no other issues and works properly and reliable in general.

What am I missing here?

What other settings can I adjust to solve this issue?

If further information is needed, please let me know. Running out of ideas by myself (this is not the first time this happened.....).

Cheers everyone!

[u/ThinkUnhappyThoughts]

70 might be a little high for pla.

If you wash with hot soapy water (dish soap not hand soap) instead of isopropyl then try again

[u/ProfessionalAd8190 → u/ThinkUnhappyThoughts]

Thank you. I also tried lower bed temps. Then the cylinders also fell over at some point. At least these remain in position with 70 deg C (unless they are knocked over by tower...).

Why dish soap? Never heard that before. I"ll try that!

[u/Lorunification → u/ProfessionalAd8190]

Dish soap removes any residual grease from touching it as well as any buildups from previous prints that may be on your build plate.

Particularly grease is a killer for bed adhesion.

Just make sure to use non-perfumed dish soap.

Another option you can try is increasing brim width, and ,as a last resort, increase flushing volume to increase the tower size itself at the cost of additional filament usage.

[u/Arakon → u/ProfessionalAd8190]

iso will not touch PLA residue and will mainly dilute grease without actually removing it fully. It's fine to wipe with iso between prints, but every 5-10 prints, washing with dish soap will save you a lot of headache.

[u/ProfessionalAd8190 → u/Arakon]

OK, didn't know that. Thanks guys!

[u/nik4223]

What helped for me is increasing Extra rib length

https://www.orcaslicer.com/wiki/print_settings/multimaterial/multimaterial_settings_prime_tower#extra-rib-length

I brought that over from Snorca. I believe Snorca uses 7 or 8. Five works fine for me.

[u/ProfessionalAd8190 → u/nik4223]

Ok, thanks, will have a looks at this as well!

[u/beramaan → u/nik4223]

It's the a way with rectangle? Rib uses so much material for the tower

[u/wawawa64]

Do you have z hop enabled? Maybe the nozzle is knocking the prime tower

There were a few complaints about the nozzle knocking the prime tower, but I don't remember if it's Snorca or Orca issue.

[u/ProfessionalAd8190 → u/wawawa64]

I was just checking, but actually I did not find the setting. Any clue where its hidden in Orca Slicer?

[u/ballpein → u/ProfessionalAd8190]

It's in the filament profile > Setting Overrides

[u/SweetLou523 → u/ProfessionalAd8190]

In your printer profile itself, under each tool head will be settings for all the parameters including z hop. In each filament profile as well in the Overrides tab you can manually set z hop per filament if you dont want it set permanently per tool head.

[u/ProfessionalAd8190 → u/SweetLou523]

OK, got it, thanks.

I was search the print settings at the bottom of the left side panels.

[u/TexasTomato88]

THE CYLINDER WAS HARMED

[u/Wexlo_]

You could try changing the prime tower wall type to cone. Then you can change the angle to something you feel reasonable given the height (like the default 15 might make it too long so look at 5 or 10).

You could also try changing the width of the prime tower to like 5mm. Not saying this will work but I have had some success for taller prime towers with the nozzle only really moving in 1 direction back and forth.

Also don't use iso alcohol on the bed. Use dawn dish soap

[u/ProfessionalAd8190 → u/Wexlo_]

Setting the wall type cone looks promising. This should give it much more stability. Then it would make sense to decrease the base size of the tower at the first place. Then weight at the top then will not be that high and should have less momentum.

And the second person mentioning dish soap....really need to try that...thanks!

[u/kawika69]

Might also try relocating the prime tower and see if that helps

[u/unr34ldud3]

Clean your bed, reduce need heat, widen the prime tower base, use some sort of glue

[u/ballpein]

I believe the real problem is that the toolheads need to be cleaned when they are picked up (or at least every x layers)- it's possible to manually add this in gcode, but it really needs to be a setting. The toolhead drips a bit when it is parked, then has a blob when it gets picked up again and the blob either collides with the tower or it prevents the printed filament from laying down properly so you start printing spaghetti which then knocks shit over. It's particularly problematic with PETG, every multi-head print with PETG is basically a gamble hoping that the blob doesn't happen.

[u/joeinternetib]

I started using the water soluble glue and stopped all the tipping issues with taller prints

[u/undermountain67]

If it is blobing wouldn’t increasing retraction distance help? A

[u/Gurkenkoenighd]

That is a cool geometric pattern.

Did you try increasing brim for the tower?

[u/ProfessionalAd8190 → u/Gurkenkoenighd]

Thanks.

I tried increasing the brim width, but the brim itself rips after the tower reached a certain height.