Hi everyone,

I’m having a weird issue with text such as the one in this image. Big or small, fancy or regular, all text comes out looking like it does in the image - cracked and hollow. I’ve spent the last few days trying to figure out why, and I’m stumped.

I’ve tried printing slower and slower and adding more and more top layers (the bottom 2 bottle caps are completely solid with 100% infil), but it doesn’t seem to fix the issue.

Here’s what I’m working with:

  • Ender 3
    • Software 2.0.8.27
    • Hardware 4.2.2
  • CR Touch
  • PrusaSlicer 2.8.0
  • MakerBot PLA Filament
  • I’ve used various temperatures and speeds. All of them have generated the terrible text you see here

Thanks in advanced for the help!

Update: We seem to be getting somewhere!

The top 2 are the same ones featured in the post above. The bottom left was printed at 110% extrusion and normal speed. The bottom right was printed at 110% extrusion and a much slower speed for the text, and it looks much better! I’m printing another now with higher bridge flow rate (it was 70%, I set it to 85%), so I’ll update again in a few minutes when that finishes!

Thanks for the information about calibrating e steps from everyone! It’s getting late, so I don’t want to mess around with that tonight, but I’ll give it a shot tomorrow!

Update 2: welp.

That’s possibly the worst one yet. I’m reprinting the bigger insert piece seen in the original post to check if my printer simply can’t do that quality or if it’s the e steps. If it’s e steps, I’m going to bed…

Update 3:

Welp, seems like it’s the e-step. However, it’s too late for me to care about that right now, so I’m going to bed. Thanks for the help everyone! I’ll work on fixing the issue tomorrow

  • @[email protected]OPEnglish
    2•4 months ago

    I’m reprint the bottom 2 caps now using the profile I did the bottom left in, but now with 110% extrusion! Wish me luck!

    • @[email protected]English
      1•4 months ago

      You should only need to see a few layers to tell if there’s still a problem. No need to waste filament printing a complete failed piece.

      Oh I should have mentioned in the previous post… if a cold-pull doesn’t make any difference, have you checked the nozzle itself? It’s a very tiny hole, easily damaged, so if the head smacked into anything it might have slightly crushed the tip (not something you would see by eye). You could also try clearing the nozzle with the long needle that came with the printer – if it doesn’t fit into the nozzle tip then it’s almost certainly suffered some damage. Always keep a bag of spare nozzles on hand!

      • @[email protected]OPEnglish
        1•4 months ago

        The Nozzle’s recently been changed from one I managed to completely clog, as well as having been thoroughly cleaned. When I got this thing up and running again, I did everything shy of a complete reassembly for cleaning. I’m not sure about the crushed tip part. I’ve long since lost the needle that came with the printer, but I can run out to Walmart tomorrow and grab a new one to check.

        I’m also just using these bottlecaps as markers that only I’ll be able to see, so their overall quality isn’t super important, I just want to improve future prints, and this lets me test out text quality. Figured I’d just knock out 2 birds with one stone!

        • @[email protected]English
          2•4 months ago

          That works, just keep testing changes until you figure it out.

          May be a stupid question, but are you hearing any clicking from the extruder while printing? If the brass gear gets clogged up it can start slipping. Or if there’s not enough tension on the spring it might not push the filament through reliably. For that matter have you printed an arm to change the angle the filament feeds into the extruder (if you still have the spool in the stock position on top of the printer)? There are many better ways to handle that issue, but original setup causes a lot of friction and you’ll actually see the filament cutting a groove into the extruder, and the arm is the easiest print to solve it. You pretty much want to check everything that might be causing the filament to drag or not allow it to feed smoothly into the head.

            • @[email protected]English
              2•4 months ago

              The second one with the blue arm is the style I was talking about. It changes the angle so the filament doesn’t get pulled into the extruder at a right-angle. It will help for now, but there are other models that use a ball bearing for a spinning wheel that the filament rolls over. And if you really want to make it smooth, there are ball bearing rollers so the whole spool spins more freely. That’s one of the things I love about this printer, there is such a range of mods you can print to make the whole machine better.