3D printer stringing

We all know it and we do not like it: STRINGS! We wrote down an illustrated problem solving method for this stringing issue.

So our print on our test printer, the ender 3 pro, came out really stringy and just not good

Our first thought was either a wrong temperature or wrong retraction speed (or both!) So, that is what we are going to test.

In our second attempt we changed the temperature from 230 degrees Celsius to 220 degrees Celsius, because when the filament is too hot, it might keep dripping a bit (in this case PLA) and becomes a string. We changed the retraction speed (the speed that the filament is sucked into the nozzle when moving to another part of the print) a bit faster from 40 to 60 mm/s. As you can see, the stringing got better but not good enough.

In our 3rd attempt, we lowered the temperature even more and went from 220 degrees Celsius to 210 degrees Celsius and made the retraction speed from 60 to 80 mm/s. Unfortunately still not good enough. 

In our 4th attempt, we changed the temperature from 210 to 205 degrees Celsius and put the retraction speed to 80. There was not a lot of difference with our 3rd attempt so we decided to not change the temperature or retraction speed anymore.

For our idea, this was the best we good get from going stringy to somewhat acceptable. But as precisely as we are we decided to give calibrating the bed also a try and BINGO. When we printed this peg board support for the 5th time it came out as perfectly as we wanted and we massively printed a lot of new hangers for our IKEA peg board. 

Conclusion: Stringy prints are mostly caused by high temperature, to slow retraction speed and keep your bed calibrated for the ultimate results  

(be aware that if you go too low in temperature or too fast in retraction speed you will find other problems)