What To Do When Things Go Wrong With Your Prints

One of our official distributors wrote a great article about what to do with things go wrong with your 3D prints, and it was such great information that we would like to include it on our blog.   Many thanks go out to MatterHackers for their knowledge and experience in the 3D printing field.

There are a few key things to check when your prints aren’t working.  These are just suggestion and hopefully they will help solve your issues.

My Printer is leaving stings on my printing project or is spitting out filament and leaving holes in the print project.

1. Your filament most likely has absorbed moisture and you will need to dry out the filament. We suggest our PrintDry filament dryer that can be purchased on this website: printdry.com

“I can’t get the first layer to stick.”

1. Make sure the extruder is at the right height. Adjust the limit switch or extruder 0 height
2. Make sure the print bed is level. Level the bed

“The part has bad internal layers and top surfaces.”

1. Check the extrusion temperature (you may need to increase it by 5 degree bumps)
2. Check the filament tension.
3. Clean the filament drive gear

“The outside edges of my parts have lots of little bumps on them.”

1. Make sure your printer is getting enough data. If printing from a computer, ensure that the computer is not too busy to feed the printer commands. If the printer is pausing it is usually due to the printer being too busy.
2. Print from SD card. On some printers you can try and print from SD card.  This often helps the printer have enough data to run more smoothly.
3. Source better PLA.  We have found that the quality of your print material can have a big impact on the quality of your part.  Getting better PLA can help you get better parts.  However, don’t be too quick to assume the problem is in your PLA.  With the right settings and patience hobbyists have succeeded in printing all sorts of materials many of which have very low viscosity and inconsistency.  You should be able to get at least usable parts even with some lower quality filament.

“Tall sections of my prints look melted or squished together.”

1. Turn on “Cooling”. If your printer has a fan you should enable “cooling” in the print settings.
2. Get a small fan. If your printer does not have an integrated fan you should look into getting a small desk fan.  This can help dramatically with tall sections of your print or when “bridging” (printing top layers that span gaps).

“My printer will not put out any material.”

1. Make sure your hot end is getting hot. Check that the hot end is heating at all.  If it is not you need to have your printer serviced.  It is likely that you have a loose connection, or your electronics have been fried (assuming the printer is still connected and responding to your host software :).
2. Clean the drive gear and adjust tension. The first thing we are going to do is clean the filament touching drive gear and ensure that we have proper tension against the filament.  Usually improper tension or a clogged drive gear will make the print look more like the picture we have for low temperature filament, but it sometimes does prevent extrusion all together.  Clean the pinch wheel with a wire brush, and make sure your tension is good and solid (too much can also prevent extrusion and is more common with direct drives [the motor is directly connected to the drive gear] but less common with geared drives).
3. Remove the current filament. It may be that you have a small particle in your extruder tip jamming the plastic.  Follow your usual way of removing your filament or use the settings on your printer
4. Check for and remove jams between the extruder and hot end. This is the most extreme type of problem because now it is time to take things apart.  Sometimes heat can creep up the filament in the extruder and cause a bulge that then cools and prevents any further extrusion.  This is usually at the junction between the extruder and hot end.  Take off the extruder and remove all the PLA you can (you may need the hot end hot (80c-100c) to get all the material out.  If you can’t get out all the filament by pulling it out, you may need to try and drive it down through the hot end. We usually use a small Allen wrench.  If this fails, you can try and drill out the extruder or hot end but you may need to replace parts.  Be sure to take precautions against being shocked or burned.  If you are not qualified to do this work find someone who is, rather than risk injury.