What do you call this weird stringy artifact? Why does it occur? Doesn’t cause much quality loss in the part but only occurs on specific parts. This part is printing on rep2, makerware: 90/120speeds, 2shell, 10 infill, .2lheight
Wild theory - it’s happening on the rapid path from one side of the print to another. Either the retract isn’t far enough or bad filament is causing a bubble on the tip that is getting wiped off on the self assembling, oddly protruding artifact.
Again, just a wild theory. Would be neat to see a some video of it forming…
@Alex_Wiebe Not wild at all, it’s exactly what happens. I’ve seen this several times, and actually watched it form. When the effector moves over the same gap in the same direction, a small amount of ooze wipes off on the artifact. If you break it off, or after the artifact gets long enough to sag far enough that the ooze no longer wipes, a new one starts.
So, in the picture the artifact is pointing up and to the right. Does that mean it is being formed as the effector moves in from the right? That would explain why the upper one starts at the same height as the lower one ends. Interesting.
It’s happening as the effector moves from left to right, from the perspective of the photo. I suspect the lower one got long enough and sagged far enough under its own weight that the wiping no longer occurred - that’s when the next one started.
@Alex_Wiebe @Patrick_Ryan Yes, that makes sense to me. We don’t get much options in makerware for adjusting the retraction and wipe nozzle settings. I may switch over to cura or simplify3d.
It looks goofy, but it doesn’t seem to cause much (if any) print quality reduction. That’s especially true if you let them grow, rather than break them off, because it reduces the number of little bumps (anchor sites) on the final product.
Ooze collecting fix retract.
Plastic Lighting!!!
I call it tree-branching, and I’ve seen some really elaborate ones. It happens when the ooze from the nozzle during a travel move wipes off on the plastic that oozed from the nozzle and wiped off on the previous layer. Things to do about it:
- Faster travel, you want your non-printing moves to be as fast as possible.
- More retraction, if you don’t retract enough to relieve the pressure in your nozzle from printing, plastic will still be flowing briefly after you retract
- Lower temperature, if your plastic is too liquid, retraction won’t be as effective.
- Decrease extrusion speed, printing thinner layers or printing thick layers slower will create less pressure in the nozzle, making it easier to equalize pressure when you retract.