Failed Prints

Didn’t see a place to show off my failed print, but this seems like the right place to do it!

Tried printing out the bottom half of the Terminator-Rex last night and woke up to this mess. I’ve been having a hard time with this black filament warping and detaching while on the print bed (even with a heated bed and glue). Any thoughts on how to decrease the amount of warping I see as the print cools?

Is that black ABS or PLA? I use blue painters tape on a heated bed (110C for ABS, 60C for PLA) make sure the first layer prints slow and squishes down very flat on the bed. If you can find a way of enclosing your printer to eliminate drafts do it.

What is the program you are using to slice the design and set your print settings? Also what type of printer are you using? Would help to know so if someone with the same printer as you can give you some more tips.

Here’s my failed print.
Guess yoda is having a bad day.

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Ditto on this Minecraft Skelly. Tried printing it four times? Didn’t realize that the bow would need a support, nor that the little nubs behind the legs would get messed up. I gave up

Looks like Herobrine was here
http://media-curse.cursecdn.com/attachments/65/96/8e306a66cb41baa3983d16459c7be85d.png

I tried printing 4 of these Kodamas. One came out victorious… his brothers on the other hand…

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Hey @dan_steele, the black is ABS. I tend to have an ok time with PLA but the ABS seems tougher to get to stick to the bed. I’m not sure if I fully trust the heated bed on the Prusa i3 I built, it seems like there might be a loose connection that is causing some intermittent problems. Sometimes it’s great, other times it’s a huge pain. I’ll see what I can do about enclosing it for future prints, any suggestions? Would a big cardboard box work?

@tanya_Wiesner Good point, sorry I left that info out. I have a Prusa i3 printer I built a few months ago. I use Cura to slice right now but I’m open to trying other things. I typically print at 0.1-0.2mm, this one was right in the middle at 0.15mm. I was using ABS for the jaw and printing at 250 degrees with my bead supposedly heated to 70 degrees.

I managed to get it to print properly switching back to PLA, and you can see my print here: https://pinshape.com/prints/180-terminator-rex

If you do not use a heated bed I would suggest turning on rafts in Cura. I’ve had similar issues in the past on my printerbot that despite having bluetape laid down, the print wouldn’t adhere to the print bed properly. Even on the printer at my work I print with rafts on a heated bed to minimize warping at the bottom of the prints. Printing on rafts uses more fillament but I don’t have the issue with prints coming loose anymore. Also dan_steele made a good point about drafts. I had to print a fan enclosure for my printer so the fan wasn’t blowing everywhere, only in the area near the hotend.

@RepRaptor A cardboard box would work fine, but you wouldn’t be able to see what’s going on inside…you could cut a window and glue a sheet of plastic over it… Tanya’s also spot on with using rafts…the biggest downside is cleaning them off your print after, but it’s worth it to have a flat print.

I feel your pain @RepRaptor. This is what I came into the office to find this morning. Doesn’t quite look like the birdhouse I hoped it to be.

Yowza! For all of the successful prints I see of the of the birdhouse, the failures are often impressive. It looks like you weren’t using a raft, but is your build plate heated?

Yeah in this case, there was no raft. This filament we are using has been giving us some curling and lifting problems recently and our printer seems be be having a hard time at the upper temperature range (Ultimaker 2 is giving heater errors at 250C for the nozzle and 50C for the bed). Might have to try a reprint in a different filament.

250C seems awfully high for PLA. I suppose it depends on your print speed and machine settings. Still, PLA is much less predictable when it goes well past the phase change at around 180c (differs between brands). The smaller the thermal gradient, the better the print. Still I can understand if it is the bowden drive that needs the smooth flow of super-heated PLA. Let me know if different plastic helps!

In this case we are actually using PET+, the PLA has been more reliable for us for sure. I’ll try a reprint in that next week.

Do you have buildtak or something similar for adhering your prints? That will greatly improve warping. Also rafts do greatly help. I do not recommend using a heated bed other than on ABS and Nylon materials because that will cause warping instead of helping it. I know abs prints great with a heated bed at 110 C but I am not sure about Nylon. Do not use a heated bed with PLA. That will do the opposite of helping with warps. Also try adding rafts if none of this helps. I wish you the best of luck!!!