Not so clean PETG Prints

[Carl3]

I am printing a Box with wired angels. I ran all the calibration test in orca slicer 1-2 weeks ago, tried different settings, fan speeds and so on…
I ran out of ideas by now… so the thing why i am posting this is i always get the same wired pimple and wavy pattern. I will share the .3mf file and some pictures.
I would really appreciate any helpful ideas to get a perfect(ish) result.

I am using:
Elegoo PETG Black
Bambu Lab p1s
Hardend steal nozzle

Anyway thx for having me and looking forward to your ideas.

Tesla M3 2021 Mittelconsole Box V4.0.3mf (159,4 KB)

[simon14]

Slow down print speed for start, like under 100mm/s. Secondly what is your PA?

[Carl3]

Hi Simon,
what is PA? Pressure advance? that would be 0.028
I am printing it now at 80mm/s right now… lets see how that turns out

[flabbyorca]

hate to be that person but you never mentioned if you dried your filament or not.

[Carl3]

hehe… its always good to be on the safe side. Yes its dried

[Carl3]

so i printed one at 80mm/s yesterday… looked a bit better but still far from perfection.

Than i put the filament in the dryer at 70 celsius for 20 hours and printed today it at 40mm/s

At 40mm/s it seems that these imperfections are kind of holes!?

Anyone any ideas whats going on?

[simon14]

From the pictures, I can’t really tell if it is random seam or bursted bubbles. Did you set it random seam?

There is stringing, so I am still thinking of wet filament.

What is the humidity of the room you are drying your filament. Drying filament effeciency depends on dry air to take away moisture. If your drybox is sealed, no air in or out, then pretty much all moisture still stay inside the drybox. Same if your room is already saturated with moisture.

[Carl3]

Simon I fear you’re right! After drying it the scale showed more than before drying, and i thought the clutter on my desk must have interfered with the scale somehow… but after checking the humidity in the room (66%), I really started thinking, was it maybe really “just” moisture the hole time!?
I found the dries room, which is sadly still at 53% humidity… I am drying it again and checking on the weight until it loses some significant amount. How much water can 1kg petg hold? ChatGPT claims 0.2-0.5%

Thanks for bearing with me guys! Really appreciate it

[3D4fun]

I run a small room dehumidifier 24/7 in my basement and it just keeps the level at 40% here in summertime MD. If it rains that goes up. I should get a bigger one.

[user_430438980]

Hello, Carl!

Try with this settings:
First layer perimeter speed = 15 mm/s
First layer infill speed = 75 mm/s
Other speeds set lower than 150 mm/s
All accelerations set lower than 2000 mm/s^2
Also for better adhesion:
Bed temperature at first layer: 80 deg C
Bed temperature on other layers: 75 deg C

Yeah, pretty slow, but much better quality. Hope this will help you.

[MikeDVB]

That really looks like wet filament to me.

If your environment is humid - and you’re leaving the spool out in the open environment while printing - it’s going to absorb water.

Are you printing from your drier?

[flabbyorca]

agreed.

the zits + stringing combo really screams wet

if its been dried its possible the filament was just already bad due to prolonged moisture exposure and no amount of drying will fix it.

[MikeDVB]

@flabbyorca

if its been dried its possible the filament was just already bad due to prolonged moisture exposure and no amount of drying will fix it.

I have seen this - filament that no matter how much I dried it for how long I dried it - would just never print right.

That said it was generally cheap no-name PETG, and not a name-brand.

[flabbyorca]

Yeah the water knocks something out of the filament; I forget what but it chemically alters it.

It’s why you’re not supposed to have too many spools of filament going at the same time but yknow. Kinda hard to resist. :')

[Carl3]

So i dried it for over 24 hours and the dryer claimed the humidity inside was 12%. it just lost close to 1g of water in the process aaaaannnnnd prints the same ;(
So the more i think about it its sounds like its damaged irreversible. Its that something i could confront the reseller with or do they don’t care? anyone any experience with that? I sill will try the suggested settings above but i am not really hopeful at this point! Having said that i am very grateful for all of you taking the time to share this with me… I was really disappointed and as still beeing new to all of this, felt like its all my fault. So thank you everyone.

Any suggestions for great PETG in black and cheap

[Bullocks]

I will say I haven’t been impressed with elegoo’s (and overtures) PETG performance. Always seems to have zits and moisture problems despite lots of dry and prophylaxis. I really like their PLA+ though.

Its not [super] cheap, and is matte, but for PETG I very highly recommend checking out Tinmorry PETG-CF. It’s fricken luxurious.

[MikeDVB]

Before I got a Bambu printer I ran Overture PETG almost exclusively and beyond being a bit more stringy - I’ve almost always had good results. The times I had bad results I can generally blame on myself for doing something unusual.

That said I’ve been enjoying this Sunlu Matte High Speed PETG - beyond the plastic spools being a bit narrow for the AMS Pro 2.

[Carl3]

@Bullocks

Tinmorry PETG-CF

I ordered that one and it will arrive end of the week. I will run calibrations and print my box and see how it turns out.

@MikeDVB

Sunlu Matte High Speed PETG

that one is as cheap as the Elegoo petg where i live so i will give that one a try as well!

Thx guys for the help