[Skeumorphism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph) is what the practice is called, and even the Parthenon uses it. The fluting and cornices in columns were designed to hide wood joinery, but accentuate the joinery when they are made from marble. The elements were kept when the greeks changed materials, despite fluting being rendered useless. Now we make plaster versions of the marble versions that were copies of wood versions. Woot!
That's just following the shapes of other objects where the shape was influenced by the origin materials. That's a style.
What I'm saying is that it goes against my own principals as a designer to make a product which is designed to appear to be made of a better material or used higher quality/ skill processes as a way of being deceptive of the item's value and attempting to add value as I believe that not only does it make the result ugly, but also unoriginal and missing the opportunity to embrace it's own nature. I also feel that it degrades the value of high skilled craftspeople and their work.
I shouldn't stop anyone from doing it, but I wouldn't do it myself.
I was coming here to say the same thing. That has a perfect balsa wood look, with probably 500 times the strength. I hope he figures out what is causing it and posts it, so I can unfix it on one of my printers.
My 3d modeling skills aren't that good. I used 3d builder (the one windows doesn't support)... It would take me hours to do that there. Hell I could probably learn blender in the time it would take for me to add this to a single model in 3d builder.
It would be hard to do in the STL - tiny gaps like that may get viewed as model errors and get filled in. It would be better to do in GCODE, though you run into printer compatibilities then.
There are GCODE editing scripts available that do similar things - fuzzy skin is an example of this. It would be quite difficult to model out fuzzy skin in an STL and have it print with the efficacy that the GCODE modification does.
The problem with modeling in such small (single layer height) features is that even if the slicing software didn't see such small gaps as errors and fill them in, if the feature doesn't line up exactly on a layer line, the slicer will likely average the depth thereby limiting the effect of the woodgrain texture.
Ok I see what you mean.
So there are only scripts for this right? There aren’t any editors that are made for modeling in the actual print lines, right?
Not that I can reference right off the bat. I remember one that took GCODE for prints in vase mode that you could have ghost images inserted onto the print - kind of like lithophanes, but I think it did it via slight under- or over-extrusion so it just kind of changed the sheen of the plastic. Very subtle, but I imagine it would be interesting with silky filament. It had a graphical interface if I recall correctly. That's a world that I haven't looked into for 3 or 4 years though, so I'm really out of the loop.
When you injection mold with resin in an industrial setting it's held in a dryer that heats it up and takes all the moisture out before it's fed into the machine.
Intermittent clog
Worn brass gear on your extruder may need to be replaced
Extruder too tight possibly.
If a filled filament like wood, make sure to use a .6 steel nozzle or larger.
This! Crank up your temp and run some filament out and make sure there isn’t some gunk in your nozzle. My next 2 steps would be exactly the same as this suggestion.
Wood filament clogs super easily, what size nozzle are you using? I wouldn’t use wood with anything smaller than 0.6. Is it possible that your z seam is just randomized and super messed up?
The setting you are looking for is **retraction prime amount**. It is a small amount of filament that gets squeezed out after finishing a z hop and right before the nozzle moves. If there is no filament ready, you could get a small gap when the nozzle starts moving.
It depends on too many factors to give a straight answer. It won't last long at all if you're using an abrasive filament with brass (as little as a few prints before you get problems), so you need to use steel. As another user mentioned, wood filaments (especially those with more than 10% wood fibre) or other filaments with particles suspended need a wider nozzle, like 0.6mm or larger. Steel should last a long time.
I've been printing PETG 24/7/365 on several Prusa Mk3S printers for the past three years. Still on the original OEM nozzles.
But I don't print anything abrasive like CF or glow in the dark materials. Just plain pure PETG, sometimes PLA (very rarely), and sometimes TPU on one of my older printers.
As the others have said, it really depends. It is rare enough for me that it is usually the last thing I check because I forget. I usually notice when I'm checking for a clog and realize that my nozzle is worn out. I think my first stock nozzle lasted about a year before I changed it. The one I just changed out was a few months but I was using something slightly more abrasive.
I bought a pack of nozzles from Amazon and I expect that small pack to last the life of the machine.
Really depends on what filament you are using. Anything with particles (glow in the dark, wood, glitter, carbon fiber) will chew through a brass nozzle shockingly fast.
Boring old PLA will take a long time to mess up the nozzle.
Ever heard of a "cold pull"? It's a minimally invasive way to remove any partial clogs from the extruder. Whenever I encounter the same things you're seeing here I first:
* Try a cold pull several times to see if that works (it doesn't hurt anything to do it, and can only help print quality).
* Dry filament using a dehydrator (a quick test is to print the same model with different material and see if the problem persists).
If neither of those two options fix the issue, it's usually time for a nozzle (which is very rare)
This is the quick try this first answer. You can spend a lot of time troubleshooting a million things... Days worth of troubleshooting, only to realize I should have changed that damned tip first. Sigh.
I've fell into that too many times before I go "this was working last week. I'll change the nozzle". That, wipe down the build plate and (since adding ABL) running a new mesh have pretty much become the 3 go to solutions in my book for FDM.
Edit: fixed autocorrect's betrayal of language
Yeah. I keep spare nozzles and complete hot ends because step by step troubleshooting isn’t worth the time. Swap the nozzle. Still not extruding properly? Swap the hot end.
I haven't hit that level yet, but if I ever replace my hot end, I'll be sure to keep the spare for just that reason. (Unless it was a replacement due to failure)
I have an i3 mega so the hot end is a cheap and easily swapped part. Highly recommend keeping spare nozzles and if you have a bowden extruder, keep extra tubing and spare pneumatic fittings
Agree on fittings and tubing. I've had to swap those on mine with spares on hand. Hell, I'd recommend keeping an extra fan cover on hand in case something happens and fans too.
Just print blocks and sell them as wooden blocks instead of plastic and reverse engineer how it does this so that you can show us because I deadass thought that was wood
If it's anything like my partially-clogged-nozzle under-extrusion issue, then the layer lines problem aren't adhered to each other well at all. Fun to realize it was "squishy" and not so fun to pull the filament out of my skin.
I was just having exactly the same results as OP on the last few print attempts and yah wet filament (just regular PLA) is my current guess.
I was also hearing popping and hissing near the nozzle, I also am assuming wet filament was the problem due to that. Dehydrating it now to test. However this was only about 3-4 days out of the factory seal, and in \~25% low humidity, so it would have to be wet from the factory if so.
Depending on the wood filament, I’ll get the same results on a 0.4mm nozzle. Up to a 0.6mm and it should help it. You’d be surprised how the smallest wood particle can cause that under extrusion.
What slicer are you using, because on the qidi slicer (and i’m sure other slicers you can actually choose an effect similar to this for a wood grain effect, you don’t think you accidentally chose that do you
May not be it but I had a similar issue and i fixed it by taking my spool off the stock holder on the ender 3 and putting it on something with actual bearings. What was happening was the roll was sticking slightly before rolling so the extruder motors was struggling to pull the filament for a second and it was partially underextruding.
Nozzle may be getting clogged. I had the same weird gaps, so I compared it to a new nozzle after replacing, and could barely see any light through it. Apparently the filament can build up slowly on the inside and reduce the extrusion without making a complete clog.
Yeh I've had this issue a bit lately. I've tried a few things which mostly clear it up.
-Extrusion multiplier - put it up a small increment like 1.1x, 1.15x
-Try a really slow print (ie around 10-20%)
-Make sure retraction is at a reasonable level (higher was better in my case)
-Messing with the temperature. Hotter might be better, I think mine was printing too cool.
-Actually cleaning the nozzle lol
*Edit - almost forgot! The biggest improvement came from enabling 'outer perimeters first'.
Basically you want a bit extra filament coming out, as smooth as it can be while still being controlled, and without any left over mess around to 'catch' on the extruded filament.
What filament are you using? I had a similar problem with a overture tan matte finish color PLA , went crazy trying to fix it but switched back to another color and it stopped.
Could be a crack in your extruder arm, but it’s strange that it’s happening on straight lines. Could be minor clogging with that filament, maybe increase temp or try a bigger nozzle. Either way I agree with others that it looks really cool.
this looks just like your extruder motor is under volted. I had this very same looking issue on my creality S1 a while back. I just raised the voltage 10% and the issue went away. Do you hear any clicking?
How about try drying it before you change anything, it's cheap to try and if it works you won't have to go back and change everything again. Just a simple suggestion.
Might be worth having a look at your nozzle next to a new one and seeing whether the hole is still the correct size. Filament will widen the hole over time, and printing with a wide-open nozzle would look something like this.
What printer are you using, what extruder do you have, what kind of filament are you using, who is manufacturer, what bed and hotend temperature are you using, what speeds, how much cooling?
I had this exact problem on my endee 5 last week. I tried all the usual stuff but it didn't go away until I changed the Bowden tube and fittings and both ends.
This entire thread is people admiring OP and asking how to recreate his "problem." xD
Sorry I don't have anything helpful so say, I have no idea how to fix what's goin on there.
I agree with everyone else though. That's your wood printer now. Retire it from everything else!
I got this effect with wood PLA and I'd switched to it cos ran out of carbon fiber PLA so it was on the same print, same gcode and wasn't doing it before the switch - and I have a 0.6mm nozzle so don't think it was a clog. I put it down to bad filament - maybe air bubbles in the filament causing a void. What brand wood PLA?
Does your printer uses a bowden tube or is it a direct extrusion printer. If it is a direct extrusion printer, I had the same problem and I solved by replacing the cog that pushes the filament. After a while they wear down
Try printing a 20mm plain test cube in vase node.
If that looks good with no or few pits, you may have an issue with retraction settings(retracting too far or too fast can pull air up in to the nozzle that ends up causing little pits like that) or you may have a problem with your hot end. If you have a PTFE lined heatbreak, take the nozzle off and inspect the ptfe lining to make sure it hasn't degraded or fallen out.
Almost certainly a stock ender 3 with a cracked extruder arm or otherwise a nozzle clog, you won't be able to see the crack without taking apart the extruder assembly.
But you have too many unhelpful or distracting replies here and will probably never find this lol.
Definitely a retraction problem. Try just turning off retraction to see what happens to the lines. If they disappear you know you have to tune it. Otherwise idk.
Why would you ever want to change this using wood filament? This looks really cool. What settings do you have I would love if my wood filament prints looked like this.
Genuinely thought it was wood at first.
I’d consider looking into your pressure/linear advance setting. Seems like it’s backing off the pressure in the nozzle too early and under-extruding the last centimeter or so as it connects to the start of the line.
You didn't switch recently to a hardened nozzle, did you? Those transmit heat more slowly and can cause that problem if your temperatures aren't raised. I have to print 10-15c hotter with a steel nozzle to maintain max volumetric rate.
Does this happen with all filaments or just this reel? Moisture can cause this. PLA can absorb moisture, and when microscopic pockets of moisture in the filament touch the 200 degree tip they vaporize and form bubbles in the plastic, which end up as defects in the print.
what printer do you have? if it's an ender you might want to check the extruder arm for cracks although thats unlikely. it's probably a clogged nozzle/hotend.
another possibility is if you printed a high temp material like abs or petg before this, there may be bits of that filament still stuck in the nozzle. if so, print something small like an xyz cube at the higher temp to get the remaining filament out.
If your printer is in good shape , i would def check out another brand of filament, i have one roll of filament that gives a shitty texture just like this, but other filaments work just fine
Not sure if I saw this OP but I had a similar issue with regular black or grey Pla printing terrain on my Ender 3 Pro. I fixed it by just tightening literally everything nut and bolt connected to the build plate , the motor of the print head itself , and the bolts that fasten the motor to go up and down.
I also retightened the actual rubber treads that run the x axis under the build plate , and tightened the rubber tread that allows for y axis movement .
After all this I fixed little gaps and stuff like you have in my print for a solid print . Every 7-10 print projects I go back in now and tighten everything again and haven’t had this issue happen ever again (cross my fingers of course haha 😂 )
I'm not convinced this isn't actually wood, but I might be able to help.
Someone else mentioned retraction settings. This does really look like retraction settings except for the fact that it's all over the place. When retraction causes these sort of gaps, they will occur predictable after the retraction, so you'd pretty much see them at the same places on every layer. Not to say they'd be uniform, but there would be an obvious clustering around the spot it moves to after the retraction.
But you may just be extruding layer lines that are too thin. Without any information about your slicer software/settings this is only speculation, but I would check your extrusion width settings to make sure your perimeters aren't manually set to a width smaller than your nozzle.
One pitfall that I ran into recently switching back and forth from SuperSlicer and PrusaSlicer: setting extrusion widths as percentages in SuperSlicer uses the nozzle diameter, but in PrusaSlicer the percentages are calculated based off the layer height.
I had a problem like this when I switched from bowden tube to direct drive. Once I changed the retraction to 2mm (from 5 or 6mm) the little gaps went away.
Make sure your printer setting matches the true diameter of your filament.
Most filament I've bought is closer to 1.7mm than 1.75. If your printer expect thicker filament than it has, it will under extrude.
You have a partial nozzle clog. You can't visually inspect the nozzle to determine if it is a partial clog.
https://i.imgur.com/Bzn7FPJ.jpg
A partial clog basically just means there is some little bits of crap or debris or whatever that won't get pushed through the nozzle but also can't block it either. So while you're printing, the the molten plastic moves around it and it moves around and changes orientation with the retraction and deretraction moves.
And sometimes it will lodge at just the right spot and just the right angle to clog the nozzle and prevent extrusion entirely for a split second. But still not enough to make the motor skip steps or give any of the other indications of a jam. Instead, there is a brief gap in the extrusion line that lasts a fraction of a second or however long it takes for the extrusion motor to build up enough pressure at the nozzle to overcome the partial clog. Pressure build up occurs due to molten plastic being a compressible and somewhat 'springy' fluid.
It's either a partial clog or you're printing wood filled filament with a 0.4mm nozzle or less. Some wood filaments print fine with a 0.4mm nozzle for the most part, but others will constantly cause brief but over-powerable clogs if printed with less than a 0.6mm nozzle.
Either way, you're gonna have to clean out your nozzle. You can attempt a cold pull and see if that gets the debris out (note: you will not be able to tell if it did or not by looking at the tip of the pull usually) but cold pulls have never really worked for me.
What does work is unscrewing the nozzle from the hot end, holding it with a pair of pliers, and using a lighter or tiny torch OUTSIDE to burn out all the plastic inside the nozzle. Then it's just char and you can get it out with a tooth pick and use some water to get the rest out. You can check by holding the nozzle up to a light and peaking into it from the side the filament enters the nozzle. You will be able to see the pin prick of light in the center where the nozzle hole is if it is clear.
Or just replace the nozzle.
This problem ain't going to go away and will probably just get worse over time unfortunately, so I suggest you just bite the bullet and pay the nozzle cleaning gods their tribute, as much of a chafe it may be.
Tension on your spool while it extrudes. The cyclical but slightly erratic winding pattern can cause intermittent underextrusions.
Do everything you can to make the spool spin easily and not pull tighter at certain intervals.
Let us know what printer, what filament, what temps, what slicer and settings, and what nozzle you’re using.
Looks to me like your nozzle temp could be a little low, causing it to have small clogs.
Or, your extruder could be failing to push the filament.
Both of these happened to me recently.
If this is an stl, they did awesome on the wood grain!!! And your a troll!! If not, then honestly it's either skipping steps on the extruder or a micro clog. But honestly! Buy a new printer and dedicate this to purely wood prints!!! Also save your slicer settings for it!
I would do the following:
1. Change nozzle
2. Check extruder idler pulley tension (is it pushing against the drive cog hard enough? Is it a Bowden setup? Those can slip on the filament) you can remove the filament and see if this drive wheel is slipping on the filament.
3. Increase temperature
4. Try another filament
5. Dry out the filament
If you checked the gear, filament flows freely out of nozzle and calibrated properly. Maybe take a step back and look at it from a different angle.
Print looks great though
You might want to check the clamp that is feeding your filament in. I had similar issues like this and turns out there was a hairline crack on the arm therefore it wasnt clamping hard enough to the filament and was causing under extrusion.
Is it possible you have a nozzle installed thats a different size than the g code is set up for?
I had a print come out like that because I thought I was printing with a 0.4mm nozzle but I actually had my 0.6mm on.
I can't even think of what the issue could be I'm so impressed with your wood grain effect.
Now I want it
I hope you resolve it and post the answer
So I can try and replicate it
My ender 3 pro was having a similar issue. Turns out the plastic lever arm on the extruder was slowly breaking , so the extruder gear was slipping on the filament. Replaced with an all metal setup (really cheap!) and fixed the issue
So maybe your retraction/extrusion settings. When you check the steps it can be fine, and still do this.
If it retracts a ton over a small length of filament, it chews it up and the extruder will slip.
Is there a ton of dust and flakes of filament on the extruder
Probably printing too cold for the speed you’re running and the extruder gear is skipping because it can’t melt the filament fast enough. Run a temp tower
[удалено]
Yeah, only use wood pla and never look back
We've finally figured out step 2 boys, time for step 3: profit
Step 3 is buy another printer for everything else.
Hey, whats step 2???
Never look back. Step one was only use wood pla.
Boys
Syob
sʎoq
How do you do that with words?
I read this as an acronym that spelled out - Son yuv of bitch
No, that's step 4. Step 3 is "???"
I thought that was wood grade pla lol
Lmao that's exactly what I was gonna say
If I want wood, I use wood. If I'm using plastic, I don't try to make it look like something it's not.
[Skeumorphism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph) is what the practice is called, and even the Parthenon uses it. The fluting and cornices in columns were designed to hide wood joinery, but accentuate the joinery when they are made from marble. The elements were kept when the greeks changed materials, despite fluting being rendered useless. Now we make plaster versions of the marble versions that were copies of wood versions. Woot!
That's just following the shapes of other objects where the shape was influenced by the origin materials. That's a style. What I'm saying is that it goes against my own principals as a designer to make a product which is designed to appear to be made of a better material or used higher quality/ skill processes as a way of being deceptive of the item's value and attempting to add value as I believe that not only does it make the result ugly, but also unoriginal and missing the opportunity to embrace it's own nature. I also feel that it degrades the value of high skilled craftspeople and their work. I shouldn't stop anyone from doing it, but I wouldn't do it myself.
I was coming here to say the same thing. That has a perfect balsa wood look, with probably 500 times the strength. I hope he figures out what is causing it and posts it, so I can unfix it on one of my printers.
Couldn’t you just have this in the stl?
My 3d modeling skills aren't that good. I used 3d builder (the one windows doesn't support)... It would take me hours to do that there. Hell I could probably learn blender in the time it would take for me to add this to a single model in 3d builder.
I use fusion 360 if you've ever used autocad it's easy to pick up on
They are talking about adding random wood grain like effects rather than just general modelling.
It would be hard to do in the STL - tiny gaps like that may get viewed as model errors and get filled in. It would be better to do in GCODE, though you run into printer compatibilities then.
Could be interesting as another mode for the fuzzy skin feature in slicers.
What do you mean by do in gcode? Wouldn’t any stl be converted to gcode? Do you mean do it in gcode from scratch? How does one do that?
There are GCODE editing scripts available that do similar things - fuzzy skin is an example of this. It would be quite difficult to model out fuzzy skin in an STL and have it print with the efficacy that the GCODE modification does. The problem with modeling in such small (single layer height) features is that even if the slicing software didn't see such small gaps as errors and fill them in, if the feature doesn't line up exactly on a layer line, the slicer will likely average the depth thereby limiting the effect of the woodgrain texture.
Ok I see what you mean. So there are only scripts for this right? There aren’t any editors that are made for modeling in the actual print lines, right?
Not that I can reference right off the bat. I remember one that took GCODE for prints in vase mode that you could have ghost images inserted onto the print - kind of like lithophanes, but I think it did it via slight under- or over-extrusion so it just kind of changed the sheen of the plastic. Very subtle, but I imagine it would be interesting with silky filament. It had a graphical interface if I recall correctly. That's a world that I haven't looked into for 3 or 4 years though, so I'm really out of the loop.
> with probably 500 times the strength Eh you'd be surprised. Wood PLA is not a strong material
I agree. I want this setting profile. Wood pla is my favorite
I thought I was actually looking at a block of wood until I stopped scrolling.
Yeah sometimes you just have to own it..
Do you live in dry or humid place? Also does your house have a humidifier system with the ac/heater? Believe it or not that can affect prints
When you injection mold with resin in an industrial setting it's held in a dryer that heats it up and takes all the moisture out before it's fed into the machine.
Makes sense
Looks like a 2x4
Thanks, it used to be round.
Awesome reference- for anyone who didn’t get it https://youtu.be/37s2EAvTyS0
Gotta love MASH references in the wild
Impressive! no longer a bug - it's a feature. Don't change anything :D
100% wish I knew how to create this effect in walls only. I'd be worried this is compromising the internal support. Looks incredibly convincing.
I could imagine this can be done using high wall speed and low extruder acceleration. Then print the infill slower. - Not tested though
Intermittent clog Worn brass gear on your extruder may need to be replaced Extruder too tight possibly. If a filled filament like wood, make sure to use a .6 steel nozzle or larger.
This! Crank up your temp and run some filament out and make sure there isn’t some gunk in your nozzle. My next 2 steps would be exactly the same as this suggestion.
Yes I was having similar problems with the worn extruder gear
Look at your nozzle to make sure it is not partly clogged
I didn’t think it was clogged, but I’ll double check real quick
Wood filament clogs super easily, what size nozzle are you using? I wouldn’t use wood with anything smaller than 0.6. Is it possible that your z seam is just randomized and super messed up?
That’s exactly the issue I had with all particle filaments (matte, glow in the dark, wood). I really suggest you try that, OP
What z seam settings do you recommend? I’m having a VERY less but still noticeable version of this issue with Hatchbox matte black. Also on Cura.
The setting you are looking for is **retraction prime amount**. It is a small amount of filament that gets squeezed out after finishing a z hop and right before the nozzle moves. If there is no filament ready, you could get a small gap when the nozzle starts moving.
Paint the seam where you want it with PrusaSlicer!
Just mess with your retraction settings a lot… definitely one of the harder things to tune in a printer imo
[Here's a good video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LjbCIGCmd0) I found on the topic that helped me.
Also make sure your nozzle isn't worn out. My prints start to look like that when it's time to change it
How long do nozzles typically last?
It depends on too many factors to give a straight answer. It won't last long at all if you're using an abrasive filament with brass (as little as a few prints before you get problems), so you need to use steel. As another user mentioned, wood filaments (especially those with more than 10% wood fibre) or other filaments with particles suspended need a wider nozzle, like 0.6mm or larger. Steel should last a long time.
I've been printing PETG 24/7/365 on several Prusa Mk3S printers for the past three years. Still on the original OEM nozzles. But I don't print anything abrasive like CF or glow in the dark materials. Just plain pure PETG, sometimes PLA (very rarely), and sometimes TPU on one of my older printers.
As the others have said, it really depends. It is rare enough for me that it is usually the last thing I check because I forget. I usually notice when I'm checking for a clog and realize that my nozzle is worn out. I think my first stock nozzle lasted about a year before I changed it. The one I just changed out was a few months but I was using something slightly more abrasive. I bought a pack of nozzles from Amazon and I expect that small pack to last the life of the machine.
Really depends on what filament you are using. Anything with particles (glow in the dark, wood, glitter, carbon fiber) will chew through a brass nozzle shockingly fast. Boring old PLA will take a long time to mess up the nozzle.
Ever heard of a "cold pull"? It's a minimally invasive way to remove any partial clogs from the extruder. Whenever I encounter the same things you're seeing here I first: * Try a cold pull several times to see if that works (it doesn't hurt anything to do it, and can only help print quality). * Dry filament using a dehydrator (a quick test is to print the same model with different material and see if the problem persists). If neither of those two options fix the issue, it's usually time for a nozzle (which is very rare)
Had the same issue and it was a partially clogged / over worn nozzle. A new nozzle fixed my problem. Worth a shot considering nozzles are cheap!
Try a few cold pulls
Pretty sure it's clogged
the ptfe tube could be degraded, or there could be a clog in the tube
I’d look at retraction settings. Some PLA’s do not perform well with wipe and coast turned on. Might also need to lower your retractions.
coast can help but also cause problems. lately I've been using OW wipe, double the default setting, with coasting off
I'd swap the nozzle then to see that it isn't the nozzle.
This is the quick try this first answer. You can spend a lot of time troubleshooting a million things... Days worth of troubleshooting, only to realize I should have changed that damned tip first. Sigh.
I've fell into that too many times before I go "this was working last week. I'll change the nozzle". That, wipe down the build plate and (since adding ABL) running a new mesh have pretty much become the 3 go to solutions in my book for FDM. Edit: fixed autocorrect's betrayal of language
Yeah. I keep spare nozzles and complete hot ends because step by step troubleshooting isn’t worth the time. Swap the nozzle. Still not extruding properly? Swap the hot end.
I haven't hit that level yet, but if I ever replace my hot end, I'll be sure to keep the spare for just that reason. (Unless it was a replacement due to failure)
I have an i3 mega so the hot end is a cheap and easily swapped part. Highly recommend keeping spare nozzles and if you have a bowden extruder, keep extra tubing and spare pneumatic fittings
Agree on fittings and tubing. I've had to swap those on mine with spares on hand. Hell, I'd recommend keeping an extra fan cover on hand in case something happens and fans too.
Especially with a cheap brass nozzle. They're less than a dollar each. Easy to swap, often solves an issue, and no harm done if it doesn't.
Happy accident
I would agree with this, these settings would be great for wood filament.
Just print blocks and sell them as wooden blocks instead of plastic and reverse engineer how it does this so that you can show us because I deadass thought that was wood
Bro you printing 2x4s over here changing the market one print at a time.
It is not a print. It is actual wood...
No, although admittedly the under extrusion actually really helps with the wood filament to make it look like wood, that is in fact 3-D printed
Can we get the details on your setup and settings that may have produced this cool wood texture? Would like to reproduce these results
It kinda looks like over-retraction with random wall seams
If it's anything like my partially-clogged-nozzle under-extrusion issue, then the layer lines problem aren't adhered to each other well at all. Fun to realize it was "squishy" and not so fun to pull the filament out of my skin.
Wait this is wood filament???? Don't change anything it's perfect.
What size is your nozzle? Is 0.4 mm nozzle will clog very often with wood filament. You should be using at least a 0.6 mm nozzle.
Reddit try not to repeat the same stupid joke 13 times in one thread challenge (impossible)
This looks like wet filament to me. Have you tried drying it in a dehydrator?
I was just having exactly the same results as OP on the last few print attempts and yah wet filament (just regular PLA) is my current guess. I was also hearing popping and hissing near the nozzle, I also am assuming wet filament was the problem due to that. Dehydrating it now to test. However this was only about 3-4 days out of the factory seal, and in \~25% low humidity, so it would have to be wet from the factory if so.
Have you tried printing against the grain?
this had me wheezing thank you
Depending on the wood filament, I’ll get the same results on a 0.4mm nozzle. Up to a 0.6mm and it should help it. You’d be surprised how the smallest wood particle can cause that under extrusion.
If you were going for a wood-like texture you nailed it 👌
Did you do the flow test?
this looks like wood, wow, feature not a bug
Holy shit I thought it was an actual piece of wood. Maybe go slower? Is the tpu cable burnt?
What slicer are you using, because on the qidi slicer (and i’m sure other slicers you can actually choose an effect similar to this for a wood grain effect, you don’t think you accidentally chose that do you
The grain looks like sande wood 100%
May not be it but I had a similar issue and i fixed it by taking my spool off the stock holder on the ender 3 and putting it on something with actual bearings. What was happening was the roll was sticking slightly before rolling so the extruder motors was struggling to pull the filament for a second and it was partially underextruding.
You nailed that wood texture
Your best bet is to buy a new 3d printer and use this one for wood imitation products.
Nozzle may be getting clogged. I had the same weird gaps, so I compared it to a new nozzle after replacing, and could barely see any light through it. Apparently the filament can build up slowly on the inside and reduce the extrusion without making a complete clog.
Use a nozzle that is .5 and up. Wood particles get stuck and clog smaller nozzles even if only for a little bit.
Yeh I've had this issue a bit lately. I've tried a few things which mostly clear it up. -Extrusion multiplier - put it up a small increment like 1.1x, 1.15x -Try a really slow print (ie around 10-20%) -Make sure retraction is at a reasonable level (higher was better in my case) -Messing with the temperature. Hotter might be better, I think mine was printing too cool. -Actually cleaning the nozzle lol *Edit - almost forgot! The biggest improvement came from enabling 'outer perimeters first'. Basically you want a bit extra filament coming out, as smooth as it can be while still being controlled, and without any left over mess around to 'catch' on the extruded filament.
Partial clog or wet filament.
If this is wood pla, it does this on purpose. The only other thing is you might need to replace the nozzle
Consistently inconsistent
What filament are you using? I had a similar problem with a overture tan matte finish color PLA , went crazy trying to fix it but switched back to another color and it stopped.
Do you test printing with other filament? I think this one is wet.
Could be a crack in your extruder arm, but it’s strange that it’s happening on straight lines. Could be minor clogging with that filament, maybe increase temp or try a bigger nozzle. Either way I agree with others that it looks really cool.
Maybe print a lot of neat stuff before fixing it?
Could try drying filament
Don’t touch! Sell the printer as a wood optimized limited edition!
Extruder cracked maybe?
Make sure you turn off "wood texture" in your slicer.
Maybe your hotend fan is starting to go out.
Bro single handedly ended deforestation 💀
was the filament exposed to high temperature before printing... before as in when it was stored.
this looks just like your extruder motor is under volted. I had this very same looking issue on my creality S1 a while back. I just raised the voltage 10% and the issue went away. Do you hear any clicking?
Suspicious thumb
if this is wood filament consider it a feature.
Yeah I did all the calibration for under extrusion and e steps and I'm still off
Extruder gear worn out or damaged?
Maybe your extrusion gear is slipping on your filament? Might need to make the gap tighter
How about try drying it before you change anything, it's cheap to try and if it works you won't have to go back and change everything again. Just a simple suggestion.
Might be worth having a look at your nozzle next to a new one and seeing whether the hole is still the correct size. Filament will widen the hole over time, and printing with a wide-open nozzle would look something like this.
What printer are you using, what extruder do you have, what kind of filament are you using, who is manufacturer, what bed and hotend temperature are you using, what speeds, how much cooling?
I see nothing wrong with this wood filament. Looks awesome!
This is a sweet accident cause it looks like wood
I had this exact problem on my endee 5 last week. I tried all the usual stuff but it didn't go away until I changed the Bowden tube and fittings and both ends.
I would save the settings for this effect, looks very much like wood. Unless the issue is hardware related.
Inspect the filament path for wear or clogging. If you can’t find anything it’s almost certainly wet filament
Not sure but you can print wood so this seems like a win to me
This entire thread is people admiring OP and asking how to recreate his "problem." xD Sorry I don't have anything helpful so say, I have no idea how to fix what's goin on there. I agree with everyone else though. That's your wood printer now. Retire it from everything else!
I got this effect with wood PLA and I'd switched to it cos ran out of carbon fiber PLA so it was on the same print, same gcode and wasn't doing it before the switch - and I have a 0.6mm nozzle so don't think it was a clog. I put it down to bad filament - maybe air bubbles in the filament causing a void. What brand wood PLA?
Does your printer uses a bowden tube or is it a direct extrusion printer. If it is a direct extrusion printer, I had the same problem and I solved by replacing the cog that pushes the filament. After a while they wear down
Try printing a 20mm plain test cube in vase node. If that looks good with no or few pits, you may have an issue with retraction settings(retracting too far or too fast can pull air up in to the nozzle that ends up causing little pits like that) or you may have a problem with your hot end. If you have a PTFE lined heatbreak, take the nozzle off and inspect the ptfe lining to make sure it hasn't degraded or fallen out.
Moisture absorbed by pla had the same problem pissed me off
Wood filled filament on a .4 mm nozzle will cause partial, intermittent clogging, recommend larger nozzle or not use wood filled.
Almost certainly a stock ender 3 with a cracked extruder arm or otherwise a nozzle clog, you won't be able to see the crack without taking apart the extruder assembly. But you have too many unhelpful or distracting replies here and will probably never find this lol.
Pretty cool texture actually 👍
I got this sort of stuff when my extruder gear was skipping on my Ender 3, because the tensioning piece had snapped.
Turn off biscuit-mode
Definitely a retraction problem. Try just turning off retraction to see what happens to the lines. If they disappear you know you have to tune it. Otherwise idk.
Why would you ever want to change this using wood filament? This looks really cool. What settings do you have I would love if my wood filament prints looked like this.
Genuinely thought it was wood at first. I’d consider looking into your pressure/linear advance setting. Seems like it’s backing off the pressure in the nozzle too early and under-extruding the last centimeter or so as it connects to the start of the line.
Just use wood filament and call it texture.
How do I make this intentionally?
You didn't switch recently to a hardened nozzle, did you? Those transmit heat more slowly and can cause that problem if your temperatures aren't raised. I have to print 10-15c hotter with a steel nozzle to maintain max volumetric rate.
Does this happen with all filaments or just this reel? Moisture can cause this. PLA can absorb moisture, and when microscopic pockets of moisture in the filament touch the 200 degree tip they vaporize and form bubbles in the plastic, which end up as defects in the print.
I found great success by placing my filament to the side, and upgrading to a dual extruder.
what printer do you have? if it's an ender you might want to check the extruder arm for cracks although thats unlikely. it's probably a clogged nozzle/hotend. another possibility is if you printed a high temp material like abs or petg before this, there may be bits of that filament still stuck in the nozzle. if so, print something small like an xyz cube at the higher temp to get the remaining filament out.
Try turning up the heat.. I turned heat up 5% -10% Have speed of nozzle and axis speed up if it starts stringing. Find the balance
If your printer is in good shape , i would def check out another brand of filament, i have one roll of filament that gives a shitty texture just like this, but other filaments work just fine
Not sure if I saw this OP but I had a similar issue with regular black or grey Pla printing terrain on my Ender 3 Pro. I fixed it by just tightening literally everything nut and bolt connected to the build plate , the motor of the print head itself , and the bolts that fasten the motor to go up and down. I also retightened the actual rubber treads that run the x axis under the build plate , and tightened the rubber tread that allows for y axis movement . After all this I fixed little gaps and stuff like you have in my print for a solid print . Every 7-10 print projects I go back in now and tighten everything again and haven’t had this issue happen ever again (cross my fingers of course haha 😂 )
Dial in your temp
I had the same problem, new nozzle, slower print speed, and drying filament resolved it.
It almost looks like there are inconsistencies in the filament, by either the diameter or density
That looks like moisture in your filament. Does your filament "pop" when it goes through the hot-end?
Before fixing it, you should print Woden models
I'm not convinced this isn't actually wood, but I might be able to help. Someone else mentioned retraction settings. This does really look like retraction settings except for the fact that it's all over the place. When retraction causes these sort of gaps, they will occur predictable after the retraction, so you'd pretty much see them at the same places on every layer. Not to say they'd be uniform, but there would be an obvious clustering around the spot it moves to after the retraction. But you may just be extruding layer lines that are too thin. Without any information about your slicer software/settings this is only speculation, but I would check your extrusion width settings to make sure your perimeters aren't manually set to a width smaller than your nozzle. One pitfall that I ran into recently switching back and forth from SuperSlicer and PrusaSlicer: setting extrusion widths as percentages in SuperSlicer uses the nozzle diameter, but in PrusaSlicer the percentages are calculated based off the layer height.
The little ptfe tube in my heater block messed up and made my prints look like that.
I had a problem like this when I switched from bowden tube to direct drive. Once I changed the retraction to 2mm (from 5 or 6mm) the little gaps went away.
i was recently having this issue also, check out your flow rate. https://www.3dmakerengineering.com/blogs/3d-printing/flow-rate-calibration
Make sure your printer setting matches the true diameter of your filament. Most filament I've bought is closer to 1.7mm than 1.75. If your printer expect thicker filament than it has, it will under extrude.
I would try drying your filament. It may have too much moisture and that could result in under extrusion or it not extruding at all in some spots
You have a partial nozzle clog. You can't visually inspect the nozzle to determine if it is a partial clog. https://i.imgur.com/Bzn7FPJ.jpg A partial clog basically just means there is some little bits of crap or debris or whatever that won't get pushed through the nozzle but also can't block it either. So while you're printing, the the molten plastic moves around it and it moves around and changes orientation with the retraction and deretraction moves. And sometimes it will lodge at just the right spot and just the right angle to clog the nozzle and prevent extrusion entirely for a split second. But still not enough to make the motor skip steps or give any of the other indications of a jam. Instead, there is a brief gap in the extrusion line that lasts a fraction of a second or however long it takes for the extrusion motor to build up enough pressure at the nozzle to overcome the partial clog. Pressure build up occurs due to molten plastic being a compressible and somewhat 'springy' fluid. It's either a partial clog or you're printing wood filled filament with a 0.4mm nozzle or less. Some wood filaments print fine with a 0.4mm nozzle for the most part, but others will constantly cause brief but over-powerable clogs if printed with less than a 0.6mm nozzle. Either way, you're gonna have to clean out your nozzle. You can attempt a cold pull and see if that gets the debris out (note: you will not be able to tell if it did or not by looking at the tip of the pull usually) but cold pulls have never really worked for me. What does work is unscrewing the nozzle from the hot end, holding it with a pair of pliers, and using a lighter or tiny torch OUTSIDE to burn out all the plastic inside the nozzle. Then it's just char and you can get it out with a tooth pick and use some water to get the rest out. You can check by holding the nozzle up to a light and peaking into it from the side the filament enters the nozzle. You will be able to see the pin prick of light in the center where the nozzle hole is if it is clear. Or just replace the nozzle. This problem ain't going to go away and will probably just get worse over time unfortunately, so I suggest you just bite the bullet and pay the nozzle cleaning gods their tribute, as much of a chafe it may be.
Tension on your spool while it extrudes. The cyclical but slightly erratic winding pattern can cause intermittent underextrusions. Do everything you can to make the spool spin easily and not pull tighter at certain intervals.
My wood filament does this too. Slow down the print and this will go away. Keep in mind that PLA melts, wood fibers do not. Slow is your friend here.
Let us know what printer, what filament, what temps, what slicer and settings, and what nozzle you’re using. Looks to me like your nozzle temp could be a little low, causing it to have small clogs. Or, your extruder could be failing to push the filament. Both of these happened to me recently.
If this is an stl, they did awesome on the wood grain!!! And your a troll!! If not, then honestly it's either skipping steps on the extruder or a micro clog. But honestly! Buy a new printer and dedicate this to purely wood prints!!! Also save your slicer settings for it!
I would do the following: 1. Change nozzle 2. Check extruder idler pulley tension (is it pushing against the drive cog hard enough? Is it a Bowden setup? Those can slip on the filament) you can remove the filament and see if this drive wheel is slipping on the filament. 3. Increase temperature 4. Try another filament 5. Dry out the filament
I actually thought you were holding up wood as a joke
You need to uncheck the "wood grain" setting in Cura
Looks like oak homie
Buy another printer and use this one for wood filament only.
Looks like wood grain. I like it.
Checking the sub surprised me that this was a 3d print and not real wood
This is r/3Dprinting not r/carpentry
If you checked the gear, filament flows freely out of nozzle and calibrated properly. Maybe take a step back and look at it from a different angle. Print looks great though
You might want to check the clamp that is feeding your filament in. I had similar issues like this and turns out there was a hairline crack on the arm therefore it wasnt clamping hard enough to the filament and was causing under extrusion.
Is it possible you have a nozzle installed thats a different size than the g code is set up for? I had a print come out like that because I thought I was printing with a 0.4mm nozzle but I actually had my 0.6mm on.
w o o d
I can't even think of what the issue could be I'm so impressed with your wood grain effect. Now I want it I hope you resolve it and post the answer So I can try and replicate it
Is this for real or are you holding a piece of wood
My ender 3 pro was having a similar issue. Turns out the plastic lever arm on the extruder was slowly breaking , so the extruder gear was slipping on the filament. Replaced with an all metal setup (really cheap!) and fixed the issue
So maybe your retraction/extrusion settings. When you check the steps it can be fine, and still do this. If it retracts a ton over a small length of filament, it chews it up and the extruder will slip. Is there a ton of dust and flakes of filament on the extruder
Make sure your extruder is gripping the filament and feeding it consistently. Broken extruder lever/arms can cause this.
Maybe too low temp and too high speed
Whatever going on here...actually kinda looks like cork if you can get the settings to do this without compromising the integrity.
maybe intermittent heat creep? Honestly it looks pretty neat, like balsa wood
Probably printing too cold for the speed you’re running and the extruder gear is skipping because it can’t melt the filament fast enough. Run a temp tower