I am new to 3D printing and my filament keeps building up on the print bed. I have leveled it multiple times and it still does not fix the problem. It has gotten bad enough that it would build up into the heating block. I don’t not know how to fix this after trying different things. Please help!
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Hi Davon,
I think I know exactly the phenomenon you’re talking about! Rather than sticking to the bed, your filament is either extruding into air and forming a spaghetti ball, or sliding around on the bed and forming a big blob on the nozzle.
There are a few ways around this:
- If you’re getting spaghetti, that’s usually because your nozzle is too high (but you can confirm this by actually looking at the level of the nozzle, I’d drop your Z-offset a bit, as even when using the paper method, some tuning is required. Teaching Tech has a good guide on this, and even has a video on manual mesh leveling if you can’t afford/integrate a BLTouch and have a warped bed
- If you’re getting a large blob, that usually means that while your level is good (it’s squishing the filament down as it prints the first layer), your filament is still slipping. This can be fixed by raising the bed temp (bed temps are a rule of thumb and unique to your printer - thermistors can lie and your environment and bed structure can influence the top temperature). Raising your bed temperature to 60, 70, or maybe even 80 can help it stick better. If you’re printing harder filaments like PC or ABS, as high as 120 might be necessary. Do this gradually though as you’ve got to respect both your printer’s limits, and not get your bottom layer tooooo soft. If your temp seems to bounce around, you may need to PID autotune it.
- If your filament is slipping, another thing to watch is how clean your bed is. You can use dish soap and hot water to clean off any grease, and IPA to soften any filament stuck to it and get the last of the grease off
- What’s your bed surface? They all behave differently, so my advice will differ, but generally adhesion aids like glue sticks or painters tape can be the last piece of the puzzle of adhesion (but I tend to stick away from them for most filaments as they can be a little messy.
Let me know if you’ve crossed of any of these already, or how you go on them. I’m keen to get you back on track!
-James
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This is what happened when I tried to print last night. This is what keeps happening, I have changed out the nozzle and I have a pex bed. I set my bed temp at 60 then tried another print at 70. They both turned out bad.
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Hey Davon,
Welcome to the forum! Thanks for posting 
Which filament are you printing in? Looking at it I’m assuming that it is PLA but it’s a little difficult to tell from just a photo. Also what kind of printer are you using? Looking at the second photo in particular, it seems like there’s either a jam in your hot-end, or the nozzle is getting too close to the bed and causing clogs.
Personally, I’d suggest moving your BLTouch down a little so that the nozzle sits slightly higher than where it is at the moment, and then also adding some blue painters tape to your print surface in order to get a little extra tack on the surface. I usually pick it up from Bunnings for my FDM printers:
I’d also suggest taking your hot-end apart and ensuring that it is completely clear and clean in case there’s any jams or broken tubing from the Bowden which is snapped off in there, it’s pretty quick to do on these machines, and giving it a clean every so often after a while certainly helps (just need to be very careful not to damage the fine thermocouple that usually sits in the end of these hotends, if your machine can’t detect thermal runaway in the firmware loaded onto it currently it’s a very quick way to accidentally start a fire)
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Hey Davon,
Hmm, those extrusions are confusing me a little with their shape, any chance you could video it printing and post it? Also if it’s this unreliable, you should be watching the first layer go down and stopping it way before you get to that amount of filament wasted/in the wrong place
-James
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