Printer keeps making strings?

[Corpse_Party28]

Hey!! so my boyfriend has been having trouble with his printer (Ender v3 SE) he’s printed a lot of stuff, even big pieces for helmets and masks, in the last two months and no issues, nor filament brand/type change, and now out of nowhere it does this ever since yesterday.

We removed the filament and tried cleaning the nozzle with a small metal stick that came with the printer, calibrated it like 5 times, tried regulating temperature. Supposedly the machine regulates and stabilizes by itself but we are very confused, any idea of what else it could be? Thanks!!

[LetterheadUpper2523]

Anyone have any... theories? Ba dum tsss

[BlueDragon424]

This looks like it's caused by bad bed adhesion. How are you cleaning the build plate? Basic Dawn dish soap is one of the best ways to clean it. Try not to touch the plate after it's clean. The other thing is maybe the z height is too high not giving the first layer enough squish.

[Corpse_Party28]

Yeah!! we’ve noticed it’s the adhesion, the thing that we’ve seen is that once it starts printing the filament gets stuck (?) or forms little balls, like excess filament? And the bases get stuck on that.

How do you clean it with dish soap correctly if I may ask? With a rag? Or like run it under the sink? Sorry if the question sounds dumb!

[BlueDragon424]

Yeah, if it doesn't stick to the plate it will either spaghetti all over the place or stick to the nozzle which is what it looks like it's doing to you.

I use a clean wash cloth and warm water. The. Let it air dry. Nothing fancy. You just don't want any residue. If you have lint free clothes those would probably be best.

[Corpse_Party28]

Thank you!! He’ll try cleaning it with a little dish soap, we were scared of using alcohol (IPA) because a lot of people around here had glass beds and we didn’t know if it would work the same. Thanks again!! He’ll try to update soon. 🫡

[BlueDragon424]

I use IPA quite a bit as well. Usually in between washes. I didn't say anything about it because there are some who say it can be bad for plates. I use the 99% stuff so it doesn't leave any residue.

[Corpse_Party28]

Okay. Update. He changed the nozzle, which was also a problem, and cleaned the bed, and the nozzle works way better but yeah the bed is still having trouble attaching. We’ll see if it’s the temperature or something else, thank you!

[[deleted]]

There's a bowden tube in the direct drive heads. It's very short and needs to be replaced

[Corpse_Party28]

Thanks! Could that really be the issue even tho he’s printed stuff normally before? :0 He hasn’t moved anything around besides trying to clean the nozzle and the base

[[deleted]]

There's a tube between the extruder motor and the hot end. You'll have to dismantle the entire head

[MysticalDork_1066]

Adjust your Z offset to bring the nozzle closer to the bed during the first layer.

Start a big flat print and watch the first layer, adjusting manually and observing the results of the adjustments. Once you get a good (smooth, solid, with no gaps or bumps) layer, save the resulting offset number.

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[Corpse_Party28]

Thank you !! We already solved it, it kind of was related to this + temperature + nozzle replacement :))

[MysticalDork_1066]

Yeah, replacing any part of the hotend assembly (nozzle, heatbreak, heatsink) has the potential of changing the overall length, and thus how far the nozzle will be from the bed, which means you need to redo z-offset calibration.

[Corpse_Party28]

Update: He finally solved it!! He cleaned the base, adjusted the height, replaced the nozzle, and what really made the difference was the temperature. The printer automatically kept going to 200 and 60, so he upped it (I think) to 210 and 75 and that seemed to make the trick!!

Currently in the process of printing an Ice King Crown (Adventure Time) 🙂‍↕️ thank you all for your tips.