Inland PLA+ Dark Blue Stringing at Lower Temperatures

[Vahalas]

I picked up a spool of Dark Blue Inland PLA+ last week from Micro Center & I can’t figure out what’s going on with this filament. I read that Inland is similar to eSun PLA+ so I chose that as my filament to do some test prints.

In general it was printing fine at all of the defaults: 220, 0.8 retraction but I did bump the flow to 1.02 initially since the tests seemed to indicate that worked better.

I got decent prints of my keychains but was seeing a little oozing at the end of the dark blue layer when it would switch to a different color. I thought I would go ahead and see if a retraction tower would help me dial this in a little bit more.

What I’m seeing though is bizarre. I’ve dried this filament for about 24 hours total at this point but still get these spiderweb wisps (even at low temperatures). It’s actually worse at lower temperatures!

I’ve tried some 3 point retraction towers and every time I get stringing at the very tops. I’ve tried 1.0, 0.8, 0.6, 0.4, 0.2, 0 retraction length with speeds at 30, 35, 40 and don’t see much difference.

The latest steps I’ve been trying is upping the temperature to 235 and it seems to behave a little better (still see stringing at the top of the 3 point retraction tests even at 0.4/40 retraction).

Any thoughts? I haven’t disabled Z-hop OR turned off the Aux Part Cooling Fan yet. Is there any chance either of those is contributing to the Halloween cobweb look, especially at lower temperatures?

This filament is a real head-scratcher compared to Bambu Basic PLA & even PETG HF which still print very cleanly for me.

[user_3026326371]

Try this >
Print the standard cube with 3 bottom layers, 0% infill and no top layers.
Measure the resulting wall thickness.
If it matches the set value for outer walls you are good.
If not it means adjusting things.

The flow ratio defines how thick this single wall gets.
Let’s say you used the standard of 0.42mm but measure the wall at 0.38mm >
Set flow ratio divided 0.38, then multiplied by 0.42.
Quite simple but only good for vase mode.
If your flow ratio was 0.98 the resulting value would be 1.083.
Note this value for those vase mode prints…

Generally this flow ratio value is higher than what you need for normal prints.
If you don’t want to wait half an hour or more for the Bambu calibration:
Print the cube again but only 2-3mm high.
Set 2 bottom layers, 5 top layers and 15 infill.
Check the TOP surface…
Any build up between the lines or saw tooth patterns along the wall means the flow ratio is too high.
Gaps between the infill lines means the flow ration is too low.

Why do I mention this?
Because you can get away with a slight under extrusion or over extrusion and just get a good top surface by using the ironing options.
If unsure just use the Bambu calibration in full.
Meaning to do the calibration run twice as it is suggest in the options.
Go for the number of the patch that neither shows ridges building up nor gaps between the lines.