Context
Hello folks, I’m struggling to get a clean result on a mesh-like print I’m working on. The model has no walls, no top or bottom layers—just infill. It looks perfect in the slicer, but the prints keep failing.
Printing PLA. I’ve already tried increasing retraction in the filament profile, but that didn’t help. The filament was thoroughly dried, and I also tested with different filaments and even on different printers.
I’d really appreciate any ideas or suggestions on what might be going wrong.
Slicer Settings Showing what I did change
Slicer preview – Exactly as intended
Real Prints
Bottom looks great
Body looks terrible
What you’ve created is a retraction torture test for your extruder. Extruding a dot then moving on.
Start calibrating retraction settings for that filament. You said “increased” but that isnt quite the whole story, those dots probably are incapable of being wiped since they look less than 1mm length, so you REALLY need to get the temp, retr length/speed, and zhop right.
Fully agreed with the torture test haha.
I ended up finding the problem/solution though: the minimum travel distance before retracting
My model wasn’t retracting for most of its travels. Look before and after on the preview retraction pattern
Before
After
After adjusting that and boosting retraction from 1.4mm (default) to 2mm, got a nearly perfect print.
Hope it helps anyone trying a similar model!
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Glad that you (and the machine) passed the test! 
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