I have a 3 month old A1 Combo and it seems to be having some problems printing infill (see image).
This is something that just started and I’m a bit perplexed on what the problem is. This is printed in Elegoo Rapid PETG which I print with all the time and generally it prints fine. For some reason it’s now doing a sloppy job of printing the infill in spots. Appreciate any guidance on what the problem may be and what I should do to get it resolved. Thanks.
This is because grid isn’t a great infill pattern for this exact reason, it crosses over itself which can mean collisions. Try gyroid, it doesn’t cross over itself.
Also, have you dried this roll of filament? That can also exacerbate these issues. Even if it’s a brand new spool, it can have a decent bit of moisture in it
Ok, thanks. Strange issue is I’ve used grid quite often and never saw this problem until now. Any ideas why this should be surfacing now? I can try grid and see how it goes.
My first thought was humidity. A tiny bit of water in the filament can turn to steam in the nozzle and cause a micro bubble pop, which causes printing inconsistencies (you can actually see this happen if your filament is really wet, but yours doesn’t seem crazy bad.) Do you have a filament dryer? Tossing it in there for 6-12 hours overnight might be a good idea, especially since PETG is more hydroscopic than something like PLA.
It only takes one or two pops and knock some filament into the path of the nozzle and then it all goes downhill
As @Leonilian mentioned, PLA is much more forgiving than PETG. PETG’s affinity for moisture and nozzle adhesion will quickly punish insufficient drying and the use of crossing infills and surfaces.
Filament moisture can be accumulated by moisture diffusing through the bagging during its sea journey and will affect rheology long before audible effects occur. But that is not all. In one particularly memorable case, a powerful weather front affected all of my open rolls of PETG within half a day.
A good first indicator is usually curling on overhangs and bridges. So yes, definitely dry your PETG as @Leonilian reccomends.
In my experience, PETG also rewards taking your time. So if it does not work with the usual defaults, slowing down print speeds can often make the key difference.
But whatever you do, do NOT use grid infill with PETG. Go for Gyroid or honeycomb and select non-crossing surface patterns as well (monotonic, concentric,…).
Been there after a hurricane late last year. >20 rolls of filament that were now in 100% humidity for days (I live in a humidity bubble in a city that made “top 3 most humid cities” in my country a couple years ago) without AC to dehumidify the place. I only have a single spool filament dryer so everything has to get a full dry the night before I use it (AMS 2 Pro come save meeee)
