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Pillowing

Top surfaces are not closed properly or come out bumpy.

Elephant's foot

The lowest layers of the print flare out.

Irregular circles

Circles come out misshapen and lines are not properly touching.

Warping

Corners of the print lift and detach from the platform

Stringing

Unwanted strands of plastic span across the print

Ringing

Waves/shadows appear in the print

Ugly overhangs

The lower surface of overhangs come out ugly

Gaps in bottom surface

Lines are overly visible or spaced apart on the first layer

Shifted layers

Parts of the print suddenly shift along the X or Y axis.

Prints are leaning

Prints gradually lean over or become skewed

Under extrusion

The printer is not extruding enough plastic leaving gaps in the print

Walls not touching

Parts of, or entire walls of the print are not fused and touching

Lower parts of the print cave in

The lowest parts of the print appear to shrink before reaching the proper dimensions

Filament grinding

The feeder screw has ground a groove into the filament

ERROR - STOPPED

The display shows a bed temperature sensor error

Scratched top surface

The nozzle moves across the top surface and causes what looks like scratches.

Protruding axes

One or more rods are sticking out from the side of the printer

Random fill layers / Voids being closed up

An opening or a void in a model has "random" fill layers. Expected voids are completely filled in.

First layer not sticking / Parts coming loose

The first layer of your print doesn't seem to want to stick or your parts come unstuck partway through the print.

"Hairy" prints

Very thin strands of plastic appear on the surface of the print.

X or Y switch broken

The display shows a message indicating that a switch is broken, typically during homing.

Skipped layer/Bed drop

You find that a layer or more is missing in the middle of a print or you hear/see that the bed suddenly drops down too far.

Misaligned axes

The rods going through the head are not perfectly square.

Caked nozzle

Plastic has leaked or extruded incorrectly and encased the nozzle in plastic.

Ultimaker 3 specific

Front cover falling open

The front fan cover will not stay closed.

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Warping
Warping

Warping

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Warping happens when the plastic cools and contracts. As the print cools down and shrinks slightly it starts to pull in on itself. Eventually the forces become so great that the print bends up from the platform. The best way to prevent this is with a heated build platform. By using a heated platform the plastic is kept just below the point where it goes solid, the so called glass transition temperature, and it therefore stays flat and connected to the platform. Although the heat from the platform is often enough it is also recommended to add a thin layer of glue to the platform to promote adhesion. Your printer will have come with a small stick of glue, spread a thin layer of glue onto the platform. Then, with a moistened rag or piece of paper, spread the glue out evenly onto the platform. As the bed heats the water will evaporate and leave a very nice thin and even layer of glue.

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ABS is much more prone to warping than PLA and needs some extra care. Besides needing a higher bed temperature (remember to change the material setting on your machine to ABS) you also need to be more careful with cooling. If at all possible try to print without using the cooling fans at all. Ideally the printer should be enclosed to keep a constant temperature in the printing area. To promote bed adhesion you can make a slurry of ABS by dissolving a few bits of scrap ABS in a jar with Acetone  Spread this slurry like a glue onto your build platform.

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shifting
shifting

Leaning prints / Shifted layers

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You can check/fix this issue by lowering the amount of current for the x/Y steppers in the settings of the printer. Go to Maintenance -> Advanced -> Motion settings -> Current X-Y and set it to 1200mA and then attempt a new print.

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pillowing
pillowing

"Pillowing"

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Pillowing show up as bumps in the top surface of a print and can either be open or closed. The most important thing here is to make sure that your cooling fans are going top speed when the printer is laying down the top layer. Without proper cooling the thin strands of plastic tend to curl up and stick up above the surface of the print and make it harder for subsequent layers to properly span over the gap. With good cooling the strands gradually grow over the gaps until it closes fully.

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Some users have also reported that the change in infill pattern between 24% and 25% (and up) makes a big difference. The difference between infill percentages at 24 or lower and 25 and higher is how cura lays down each layer. The infill is a crosshatch pattern made with diagonal intersecting lines. At lower densities both directions are laid down for each layer while at higher densities it is only laid down in one direction per layer. So, for layer X it will do lines from the lower left to the upper right. At layer X+1 it will do lines going from lower right to upper left.

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elephant
elephant

Elephant's foot

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It's very common that the first couple of layers of a print is wider than you expected them to be. This is because you will generally want to make sure the first layer is nicely squished into the build platform so that it sticks properly. By doing this the plastic gets squished out into a thicker line than normal and thus the bottom of the print will bulge out a bit like an elephant's foot. You can decrease this effect by levelling your bed so that the nozzle is slightly further away from the bed and lowering the bed temperature a bit. It's hard to get rid of this effect entirely without sacrificing bottom layer quality and bed adhesion. It will be easier on small prints as they are less likely to warp and detach from the platform and you can therefore get away with not squishing the first layer as hard.

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An additional step you might want to take while you're at it is to ensure that the set screws of the pulley on the motor is nice and tight, tighter than you might think should be enough.

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Stringing
Stringing

Stringing

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The primary countermeasure for stringing is something called retraction. When you have retraction enabled the printer will "suck" the filament back a short distance before moving the print head over an open space. By sucking the filament in a bit it helps prevent plastic from dripping from the nozzle during the travel move.

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Finally it should be noted that some filaments are simply prone to stringing and no matter what you do it might be all but impossible to completely eliminate them. Even different colours from the same manufacturer can differ in how much they string.

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Ringing
Ringing

Ringing

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Ringing is what we call the small waves or shadows that usually appear around sharp corners on a print. It's often very apparent if you have text on your print as you will see what looks like shadows of the text. This happens when the print head makes a sudden direction change and the inertia of the head causes vibrations that show up in the print. To combat this there's a couple of things you can do. Simply slowing down your print speed will help lessen the effect. Decreasing the acceleration of the printer will make a big impact on the reduction of ringing without affecting print speed too heavily. You adjust this setting by going into the advanced settings on the printer itself Maintenance -> Advanced -> Motion settings. Try 3000 or 1500 and see how that affects your print.

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