I’ve been using a Creality Ender 3v2 for around a year now. It’s my first 3D printer, and after learning to successfully level the bed, it’s been pretty foolproof to get decent prints.
I recently got asked to print some dinosaurs for a kid’s birthday cake, and that’s when my troubles began.
Stringing
After finding and modifying some models to fit my needs, I started printing and got awful strings of filament all over the place. It’s not a problem I’d had before, so I started googling and found that my PLA was probably picking up moisture. It’s been a pretty damp few weeks.
Baked PLA
I “baked” the PLA in my oven at 40ยบ for around three hours, and tried printing again. Still no improvement, so I loaded up a fresh pack of filament. Annoyingly, the prints were still a mess, so I assumed I’d knocked or messed something up. I started printing tests and all sorts to diagnose the problem.
The Fix (Max Retraction Count)
During all my test prints, I was messing with some Cura retraction settings. At some point I’d reduced the “Maximum Retraction Count” from a default of 100 down to 5. This effectively turns off retractions after 5. God knows where I read that as a solution. Changing it back to 100 immediately sorted the problem. Incidentally, the retraction is set at 7mm, but I could probably go lower know I’ve found the issue.
Next, I’ll get a proper filament dryer and retry the old filament again.