I recently got a new A1 Mini and I’ve only printed with white PLA. However, for some reason, these brown spots are appearing on my prints. I think it might have to do with a clog but I’ve only printed 7 times before so I’m not sure. Also, I have used about 300 grams of filament in total but I don’t know if that helps. Does anyone know whats going on?
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That is your plate shining through your bad 1st layer(s),
a) wash your plate
b) dry your filament
And clean the filament your hothead seems to have picked up (the unfocused shot makes it hard to tell what that is).
Will do, thank you so much
Thats not the plate shining through, thats clearly brown sections on print.
It can be caused by nozzle to hot, burnt residue of filament left caught in the nozzle.
Clean around your nozzle also, remove that buildup.
Try lowering your nozzle temp by 5c, wash your build plate.
can be caused due to wet filament, grease on the filament etc.
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Also I can’t see the nozzle tip in the hole of the silicone sock. Looks like filament is pushed between the hotend and the silicone sock and oozing out at the end where the sock is open towards the toolhead.
When you have removed the filament make sure the silicon sock is mounted correctly.
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That discoloration looks like it’s in the PLA discoloring/decomposing from heat and not the build plate showing through.
The way you word your post it sounds like you were getting good prints initially but now are seeing trouble. Was there a particularly bad print between when it worked and when it started really acting up? It looks like as @Stephan_Kraetzschmar says - you probably got filament jammed up in the silicone sock. Go to the Wiki and see how to remove that sock and clean out the stuck filament. That takes human intervention and will not clear itself. You need to get that head cleaned up or you’ll keep getting blobs of “burned” filament in your prints. Careful heat can help getting it to soften and pull free.
That stringing visible in the photo makes me wonder if what happened to cause this was moisture in the filament. Filament can arrive fresh from the factory with enough moisture to cause issues when printing. If you’re in a humid location that adds more weight to that. Moisture will build up over time if you let it and prints can get progressively worse.
Unfortunately there is lots of confusion about drying filament. If moisture might be the issue, get a hygrometer and poly cereal box that seals well and can hold a spool of filament, put them both in the poly box and seal it up. When the humidity value stops changing it will give you a handle on filament moisture. I leave mine overnight for best results and the more full the spool the better the test results. I’ll bet you see 30-40% or higher if the issue truly is water. Well-dried filament should be 10% or less. Maybe, maybe as high as 20% but you are cutting into margins if it is much higher.
If you aren’t familiar with the poly boxes, Amazon ASIN B08TWH2QHV. The hygrometers I’ve been using are ASIN B07GR67G1M but there are a bunch of different models. If you can get them that can read below 10% (the lowest mine can read) thay will be more useful for this.
Again, if it is moisture causing your issues, you may be in a high enough humidity area that you can’t store your filament openly. You don’t mention filament drying or storage so just guessing that you don’t dry filament yet and aren’t storing in air/water tight containers. Those poly boxes are great for storage and will prevent moisture absorption when it’s just sitting.
But just guessing on a lot of this. To keep it from happening again, it might help if you describe how you handle and store your filament, what kind of humidity you typically see, etc.
Sorry for the late reply
Yes and no -the print where I started noticing brown dots (which was before this) was a relatively quality print until it started producing brown dots about halfway up. However, on that same print, one of the supports did not print. However, I think that’s more related to slicing, not printing.
I’m not sure if my filament is wet because I usually store it in a bag with some desiccant on it- although it is still a possibility.
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That missing support is what’s probably all up in the sock and on the extruder I bet. If the slicer said it was going to print that support, it would have extruded the filament but without a surface for it to stick to it probably made all sorts of fun spaghetti stuff until it somehow got turned up into the sock by some other part of the print.
About storing filament in bags and any container with desiccant - it’s a two way street. If the desiccant is known to be drier than the filament, that’s great and it will scavenge moisture that gets into the bag. If the desiccant is wetter than the filament, the filament will grab water from the desiccant. That’s qualified. Some desiccants do chemical reactions that lock the water in place and won’t do that. Water just sticks to the surface of other desiccants like silica gel and can easily come or go depending on conditions.
Plastic bags can have another issue in that the plastic is thin and some are a bit transparent to small molecules like water. Some bags have special layers to seal against water but it’s important to know if the bags you are using for storage are water impermeable or not. Depends on thickness, material, and in some cases if those additional layers are there.
If you get some inexpensive hygrometers and put them in the bags with the filament and desiccant you’ll see what’s actually happening in your case pretty quick.
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