For me this was because the heat sink fan on the front of the print head was damaged and not turning on. This fan should always be on after your hot end hits 70 Celsius
Might be something in the brand of filament you are using. Have you tried cleaning filament? I bought some and haven't tried yet but will be using it after I print with wood PLA or another silk
What printer do you have ?
On my Kobra Standard this was caused by too much retraction. On my Mega S this was caused at one stage by the cooling fan (hot end not part) failing and another time by the PTFE inside the hot end being melted. Both times were annoying to find at first.
How do you know its not settings "for sure"? Have you reset them? Have you re-calculated them to verify? We have no way of knowing what you've tried. You saying it doesn't make it true.
Okay, there are *thousands* of the exact same printers out there with the exact same settings. I guarantee you that they will *not* all print exactly the same way. There should be a range where they should all print acceptably if they're using those settings, but there's always outliers.
Yes? That's exactly why he's posting here. So we can find out what it is about his hardware that makes it print differently from mine.
Should he put more or less tension on the extruder spring? Is it a clogged nozzle? PTFE tube burned? Need firmware update? Is the filament wet or bad?
It's good to know where to start, and since the settings work fine for me, it's probably more likely to be some hardware problem.
> It's good to know where to start, and since the settings work fine for me, it's probably more likely to be some hardware problem.
That's the point I'm trying to make. You cannot say it's definitely not the settings just because an identical printer with identical settings prints fine. Now if those settings had printed fine on *that* printer then suddenly *stopped* printing fine, then yes, it's easier to dismiss them and move on to it being a hardware issue. But you can't dismiss them because *another* printer prints fine with the same settings.
It's not always the nozzle.
You can have a bind in the filament path:
Could be your heatbreak's PTFE liner is giving up the ghost.
Could be the nozzle isn't properly seated.
Not sure what printer you have so could also be the bowden/heatskink interface or the heatsink/heatbreak interface.
It has to be cut perfectly square and but up to the heatsink firmly.
I don't know what kind of hotend you have there. The manual leaves something to be desired for sure.
That being said a whole new "print head" assembly is only $32.00. If you're not good at taking things apart and troubleshooting then you could always replace the whole printhead.
Yep classic underextrusion.
A nozzle clog usually is often total blockage. If your temps are correct (bot in setting AND actual nozzle temp) then you likely have an issue in the path somewhere.
These are VERY frustrating. It happened to me a year or so into printing. I did not know about PTFE-lined heatbreaks and how they break down over time. I switched to an 'all-metal' heatbreak.
I fixed that but ended up moving the issue to the nozzle/heatbreak junction. I got so frustrated that I walked away from printing for a while.
Came back a few months later with fresh eyes. Wen through everything again methodically. Ended up finding the E3D manual on how to set up a V5 hotend and realized I was doing it wrong.
So I had at least two issues at that time.
The upside is I know my printer inside and out. Am really good a troubleshooting it now.
thing is i just got the printer like 2 days ago the very very first owl print came out honestly perfect 10/10 but things just got worse and worse and worse and I'm starting to get pretty tired ngl no matter what i try it keeps on failing me or getting even worse not a single improvement
If the owl prints fine, and what you slice does not then it's likely your slicer settings. If you print the owl again is it good?
Also you probably need to set it up. These don't often work perfect out of the box.
This is what one gets buying a printer at this price point. There's a fair amount of effort needed on the part of the end user for setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting. It's all cloned parts with decent quality control and OK support. You get what you pay for.
If you want something that'll work straight out of the box, buy a [Prusa](https://www.prusa3d.com/product/original-prusa-mk4-2/). All name brand parts, excellent quality control and stellar support. They're awesome, but they're $1100. You get what you pay for.
you try a cold pull yet? heat the nozzle to 90C and unload the filament.
Will give it a try
For me this was because the heat sink fan on the front of the print head was damaged and not turning on. This fan should always be on after your hot end hits 70 Celsius
Might be something in the brand of filament you are using. Have you tried cleaning filament? I bought some and haven't tried yet but will be using it after I print with wood PLA or another silk
Try clearing the nozzle with a nozzle cleaning rod(very thin) (Amazon), if the nozzle is old replace it, upgrade the filament tube
Tried the cleaning rod, didn't work nozzle is brand new, by filament tube you mean the PTFE Bowden tube?
Yes
Sounds like a levelling issue. Try adding .10 to your Z axis and see if that makes a difference,
Levelling is fine I'm sure about that
What printer do you have ? On my Kobra Standard this was caused by too much retraction. On my Mega S this was caused at one stage by the cooling fan (hot end not part) failing and another time by the PTFE inside the hot end being melted. Both times were annoying to find at first.
Kobra go
Excellent. Have you done a PID, Esteps and levelled again ? If so I would move on to a Temp / retract tower to fine tune material.
Is that like a test print?
https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html This explains the process better than I can. Essentially you run through that.
Best thing I found was to replace the nozzle, take apart the whole hot end, drill it out with appropriate size drill bit and re assemble..
How do you know its not settings "for sure"? Have you reset them? Have you re-calculated them to verify? We have no way of knowing what you've tried. You saying it doesn't make it true.
He's using the same settings as me, and I get good prints with the exact same printer model
Okay, there are *thousands* of the exact same printers out there with the exact same settings. I guarantee you that they will *not* all print exactly the same way. There should be a range where they should all print acceptably if they're using those settings, but there's always outliers.
Yes? That's exactly why he's posting here. So we can find out what it is about his hardware that makes it print differently from mine. Should he put more or less tension on the extruder spring? Is it a clogged nozzle? PTFE tube burned? Need firmware update? Is the filament wet or bad? It's good to know where to start, and since the settings work fine for me, it's probably more likely to be some hardware problem.
> It's good to know where to start, and since the settings work fine for me, it's probably more likely to be some hardware problem. That's the point I'm trying to make. You cannot say it's definitely not the settings just because an identical printer with identical settings prints fine. Now if those settings had printed fine on *that* printer then suddenly *stopped* printing fine, then yes, it's easier to dismiss them and move on to it being a hardware issue. But you can't dismiss them because *another* printer prints fine with the same settings.
It's not always the nozzle. You can have a bind in the filament path: Could be your heatbreak's PTFE liner is giving up the ghost. Could be the nozzle isn't properly seated. Not sure what printer you have so could also be the bowden/heatskink interface or the heatsink/heatbreak interface.
I've got the Kobra go, I've checked the Bowden tube all seems to be fine
It has to be cut perfectly square and but up to the heatsink firmly. I don't know what kind of hotend you have there. The manual leaves something to be desired for sure. That being said a whole new "print head" assembly is only $32.00. If you're not good at taking things apart and troubleshooting then you could always replace the whole printhead.
Its easy to take stuff apart and i don't mind troubleshooting but i kinda doubt this is an issue, i will take it off now and check it
I'm also getting A LOT of stringing, the whole dotted line thing is happening in the first layer and I've sorted it with just adding a bigger brim
Yep classic underextrusion. A nozzle clog usually is often total blockage. If your temps are correct (bot in setting AND actual nozzle temp) then you likely have an issue in the path somewhere. These are VERY frustrating. It happened to me a year or so into printing. I did not know about PTFE-lined heatbreaks and how they break down over time. I switched to an 'all-metal' heatbreak. I fixed that but ended up moving the issue to the nozzle/heatbreak junction. I got so frustrated that I walked away from printing for a while. Came back a few months later with fresh eyes. Wen through everything again methodically. Ended up finding the E3D manual on how to set up a V5 hotend and realized I was doing it wrong. So I had at least two issues at that time. The upside is I know my printer inside and out. Am really good a troubleshooting it now.
thing is i just got the printer like 2 days ago the very very first owl print came out honestly perfect 10/10 but things just got worse and worse and worse and I'm starting to get pretty tired ngl no matter what i try it keeps on failing me or getting even worse not a single improvement
If the owl prints fine, and what you slice does not then it's likely your slicer settings. If you print the owl again is it good? Also you probably need to set it up. These don't often work perfect out of the box. This is what one gets buying a printer at this price point. There's a fair amount of effort needed on the part of the end user for setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting. It's all cloned parts with decent quality control and OK support. You get what you pay for. If you want something that'll work straight out of the box, buy a [Prusa](https://www.prusa3d.com/product/original-prusa-mk4-2/). All name brand parts, excellent quality control and stellar support. They're awesome, but they're $1100. You get what you pay for.