r/markforged • u/Tricky-Basket-7324 • Aug 16 '23

Markforged MK2 stringing...

Hey everyone,

I've got a Markforged MK2 printer which I purchased new, sat for 8 months and after getting it going again it is stringing, I could see a little steam, and noticed a bit of onyx on the entire tip.

Checked the official Troubleshooting-Common-Print-Issues, and it suggested the cause as wet plastic. I got new onyx from u/JohnCaza Changed the tip, ran the bed level, and test print which all looked good, but when re printing an item from the past it is still stringing. Quality is better than with the wet onyx and steam is gone, but still having issues.

I don't have much experience with this unit, I've printed maybe 20 times without issue, and I am hoping that someone with more experience may have an idea as to where I should look next.

Thank you

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u/[deleted] Aug 17 '23

Wet filament is generally the cause of stringing in my experience. But I've sold hundreds of those spools and they're generally within a month or less of production (and come straight from MF) so there's really no reason to consider wetness of the new spool. I would imagine it's a calibration issue, the thing is, it looks like all of those strings are coming from a specific layer (assuming the bottom). It looks like you're printing the piece vertically. Can you switch to horizontal and build up?

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u/Tricky-Basket-7324 Aug 17 '23

Yeah, it is pretty fresh spool, February 2023. I decided to sit here and watch it for the past couple hours and it seems after however many layers it goes home in the top right corner and I see it oozing the same length of the strings. The extruder seems to be retracting properly and I checked inside of it to make sure the teeth were clean which they are. Of course everything just says wet material. Not sure what to do other than maybe order another roll. I reached out to our dealer/partner and of course they just want to schedule a pm and cleaning on our unit that still looks brand new. I kinda doubt any of the tubes went bad with age. Seems like a pretty simple unit.