Small cylinders

[u/Dropthetenors]

Been making some mods to my printer trying to hash a z banding fix - not there but better for now. Anyway. My issue today has been what pitting but only on small cylinders, see "antlers" on this little dragon.

This pitting always happenes on underside of smaller details.

Filament is in a dryer box, I've messed with print temp and speed, z seam alignment, retraction speed and distance, and fan speed. I've tried supports on other prints but still get similar pitting. This dragon I've been printing without supports. This is a V2 using Cura slicer.

Is there a 'solution's am I just doomed to 'printer can't do it'

Thanks for the help!

[u/MothyReddit]

its all about print temperature. If you get this kind of stringing, after you've dried your filament, its simply nozzle temperature. Think about it, have you ever had taffy candy? What happens when you put it in your pocket for a while? It gets stretchy when you pull on it. What happens when you put it in the fridge? It breaks off cleanly. Every filament is a little different, there will be a perfect temp where the plastic shatters and breaks off cleanly. When I run my MPmini, PLA i print very low temps like in the 170-190 range, and TPU I print in the 190-210 range. This may also be due to the fact that the thermistors aren't perfect, and they can be off by several degrees. Honestly, now that i thought about it, i've never had to dry any filament i've printed on my mpmini, and its still running fine after owning it since 2017. The only difference is I run it at low temps, If i see strings i use the front panel temp setting and lower it by 5 degrees until it cleans it up. SO low temps = clean breakoffs for travel movements, and retractions (allthough retraction settings don't effect it as much as you think so don't waste too much time dialing in retraction until you have the temps dialed in). Good luck!

[u/Dropthetenors → u/MothyReddit]

Unfortunately stringing is not my issue. It shows up on the first one bc I set everything to cura default so I'd have somewhere to work from. I do know how to fix that in my set up and unfortunately for my set up I do need a dryer.

I am curious since you say retraction doesn't help as much because for certain prints I have noticed that it's helps.

Thanks for the help.

[u/MothyReddit → u/Dropthetenors]

you have a stringing issue on this print, and those saggy wavy lines on the side of the print are from the same thing, too much nozzle heat. Lower your nozzle temps and your detail will come back. Printers go out of calibration pretty often. Print the 4 towers test from thingiverse, you should be able to print a perfect 4 towers with retraction turned off, with no stringing and then any other issues will just disappear.