3D Printing Tip of the Month: How to Reduce Stringing

MicroCenterMaker

Do your 3D prints have excessive stringing issues? Even after re-leveling the bed, adjusting nozzle & bed temps, increasing and decreasing z-offset, lowering print speed, and adjusting every other parameter of your print and 3D printer?

Did you try drying your filament?

If you're hearing hissing or popping when you’re 3D printing, you're printing with wet filament! Moisture in the air can get trapped in the plastic filament, resulting in poor bed adhesion, warping, bubbles in your prints, clogged nozzles, and even stringing.

Whenever I would get a stringy print, I assumed my bed wasn’t level, or the printer settings were incorrect. I live in Florida, where it is quite humid. Keeping filament dry is pretty much impossible. My filament dryer has saved many frustrating hours of making minor printer adjustments, resulting in the same stringy 3d prints.

We've made a couple of benchy prints to showcase the differences between a wet filament print and a dried print!

Our Setup:

Printer: Ender 3 V2

Filament Used: Inland Silk Blue, 1.75MM

• Nozzle Temp: 210°
• Bed Temp: 55°

Infill: 15

Print Time: 1 hour

Software: Ultimaker Cura

Filament Dryer: eSun eBox Lite Filaments Storage Box

The Prints:

Below is a benchy printed with Inland Blue Silk Filament that has been open for about 5 months. Pretty rough, right? 

I dried the filament in a filament dryer at 50°C for 6 hours and printed the same file with the same printer and settings. Below is the result…still a little stringy, but a noticeable improvement. 

I dried it one last time for another 6 hours. The result is below, hardly any stringing at all! 

Here are all three prints, starting from the wettest filament and moving to the most dry. You can really see how much of a difference drying the filament had on the final print!

Show us what you're printing and Win!

Print something especially cool this month? Show it to us and you could win 5 free spools of Inland Filament! Just photo a photo (or several!) of your build in the comments below and we'll select one to win!

Entries start today and run till 11:59 PM ET, November 10, 2022, and afterward, we'll be selecting one print to receive five Inland Filaments of their choice! See below for official rules.

3D Print of the Month Contest Terms and Conditions - November.pdf

ronwoodson

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/12083/3d-printing-tip-of-the-month-how-to-reduce-stringing

Now this is a truly insightful and useful article. @MicroCenterMaker

Rye_Bread

Interesting! Im still learning about 3d printing, and never knew this was a thing.

smaddaus

Awesome tips! I love how helpful the 3D printing community is!

StephenH07

This was my most recent print! It came out awesome! 

Adam_Luther

This is what I have been working on for the last month. Last 2 pieces are currently printing!

Ian

Great tips! Thanks for sharing!

jmf5123

Started printing earlier this month. The Inland PLA+ is a great filament for people just starting on the hobby. It’s almost foolproof. Dried it before starting print and they came out great. First prints were a new antenna cover for my car and a rare Rock Lobster!

frontierplus

I've been thinking about getting into 3D printing for a while now, but cost and expertise constraints have always eaten into my eagerness to begin the hobby. Now that I have recently taken a crash course in programming robot arms like the FANUC kind, I think expertise constraints aren't as big an issue but I am still unable to participate due to cost constraints.

I know the invisible hand of the markets (or Adam Smith's ghostly hand) might make costs come down in about a century but living in the early part of this century, with the risks and medical tech of today, I don't think I'll last long enough to see the cheap prices I need to start this hobby, so I guess unless someone can buy me a decent 3D printer for Christmas or something like that, I may have to settle for acquiring one of the cheap-trash Chinese-made 3D printers which sell on Jeff Bezos' phallic-rocket-funding web store... I'm sure you know which one I mean.

Anyways.

Adam_Luther

Keep an eye out at your local Micro Center - They sometimes have great deals on the printers themselves.

ChaosDTV

3d printing is such a cool art and intriguing i love seeing peoples builds

smaddaus

Awesome tips!

Elliot_L

the rock lobster makes me so happy 😂