Hello folks… I’m using an X1 Carbon and printing PETG that has been dried for over 12 hours. I printed a small string test and it prints beautifully. I’m needing to print some large flat areas (about half the size of the build plate) a half an inch thick. Everything is adhering beautifully to the bottom plate. Once the first few layers are laid down on the build plate the infill begins to print. My infill is set to 20% to achieve a nice smooth surface across the top.
The issue begins showing up as the print reaches two or three layers into the infill. The infill begins tearing away in areas from the bottom layers it was supposed to be adhering to. Smaller test prints around an inch in size print beautifully. It’s as if when printing the full size project it takes so long for the printhead to cycle through the project that the previous layer has cooled down and the filament is having trouble adhering to the last layer. This is honestly just an educated guess as to what the problem is. I’m providing it as an observation just to help give an accurate assessment of what I believe I’m experiencing. I will try and post some photos as well as screenshots of some of my settings.
Below is the string test I printed with the PETG after over 12 hours in my dryer.
After being pleased with my string test I started my first large print (I have may) expecting all to be well. Below shows the reality I was confronted with. The print was halted by the Lidar detecting the spaghetti. The infill was set to only 5% here in an attempt to save filament on such large objects.
The picture below shows a couple more attempts where I started printing only one of these objects at a time. On the left I had raised the infill to 20% thinking that would give more bulk to allow the infill to stay connected. Then it became apparent the infill was simply not adhering well to the layers below it.
On the right I think I raised the hot end temp a bit after the first layer. But once the print got to the infill it was obvious that was not going to help so I stopped the print.
Below is the small test print I made (circled in green) of the larger object demonstrating the settings I’m using are working fine when the print is completed in a much shorter period of time.
I’m thinking the fan and or bed or head temp may need to be changed but thought I’d come out here in hopes of gaining some experienced help.
Here are some screen shoots of the Filament settings I feel may be needing tweaked:
I’ll also put my Studio file out here so all my settings are available if desired:
Arrow.3mf (68.5 KB)
Thanks so much for your help!
As an update… I adjusted the “Cooling for specific layer” perimeter in the Cooling area of the filament setting. I set it to no cooling for the first 100 layers. This would keep the fan off while the infill was being printed. Then the fan would turn on again when the top layer was being printed. While this printed better… It’s evident below there were still a few areas (circled in green) where the infill still did not adhere to the bottom layer.
In this second pict the printer entered layer 101 and the fan was aloud to run again. But it’s interesting to note at least one infill area had closed and another area had opened up (circled in blue).
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All the prints above are using a .4 nozzle. Below I tried slowing the printhead down to 50mms in the left panel. The middle panel is showing an attempt when using a .6 nozzle to try and speed up the print. In the right test panel I tried a bit slower. This is the same magenta filament from DURAMIC 3D I’ve been using about, the location’s lighting was just a little different. Obviously I’m not getting this infill to still to the base layer well. Any ideas would be appreciated.
