Hi, im printing an axylotyl, 56 hours for this guy, and ive input the parameters for the silk filament from the brand new package, and ive had it in my filament storage case… anyway, it started out perfect, then i looked this morning, and there are “booger” or blobs of filament and strings all over the print. What could i possibly be doing to cause this? I’ve slowed the print according to the filament recommendations, 45mm per second, 205° on the nozzle, and 60° on the heated bed. I peinted a snake the last time, with a 27 hour print time and it came out rough too, with the rattle really messed up. The silk pla should be super smooth! Im ready to chuck this machine and buy one thats more user friendly because im wasting so much time and filament.
Silk filaments are themselves, a bit of a challenge sometimes. The polymers they include to give them the shininess, makes the filament thicker even when melted. As such, they tend to string and blob a bit easier. Something that helps a lot is reducing the retraction speed, and maybe the distance.
Since the filament is a bit thicker, when it retracts it might be too fast and disconnect the molten blob from the unmelted filament, which then just sits there and oozes out the nozzle. Slowing it down and decreasing it a little, lets it actually relieve the pressure so it doesn’t ooze.
Also, I’ve always found silk filaments prefer to run hotter. My silk profile runs at 220C, also if you can, bump your non-print travel speed up a touch. So it moves fast enough to break any strings. Using a ramp lift helps a ton but I do not think it’s an option in Luban.
Thank you for that! I will try it. Have you used the wood PLA before? I think it clogged up the nozzle when I used it, and I haven’t had very good luck with that either.
Yep. This was done with a “rainbow” wood PLA that changes various dark woods.
You can see a bit of the gradient from the side.
One of my favorites from this filament was done a couple days ago. Printed some light switch plates and they used just enough filament to fit between the color swaps exactly, all four are a different color from the same roll.
With wood PLA, you absolutely HAVE to dry it. Otherwise it becomes a stringy absolute mess, the wood content sucks up moisture. I also found that wood PLAs like to have a lower temp, I ran this spool at 200C. You can actually vary the temp a little and it causes the PLA to swell and contract to give it a grain pattern, but that’s a bit advanced.
Another thing to keep in mind, is the fact it actually has wood fibers in it, so smaller layer heights can be problematic and clog. Run at minimum 0.2 layer heights, 0.25 would be better. A larger nozzle helps as well, but I’ve gotten away fine with an 0.4 nozzle.
Wow that’s super helpful, thank you!
Rebecca 
I’ve used some of the silks before too. Watch how it comes out of the nozzle when you are doing a load and maybe just hit load again to observe…it comes out and almost auto-retracts or forms this like gloopy swelling bead, against gravity, where the normal PLA will just spool out in a consistently dropping drool string. (It’s actually kind of facinating…)
I normally have set my PLA retract at like 40 speed and 0.6mm, for the silky my theory is it wants to “retract” itself if the extruder stops pushing so I dropped it to 30 speed and like 0.4mm. I also run it at slightly lower temp, like 204C vs. 208-210C for normal PLA.
(Your temps might also look different … I splooge a little thermal grease into the replacement hot ends around the thermister when I install them, on the theory that helps them get a more accurate reading…)
All that said, I would have to admit I still get less consistent final surface results from the silkies, and they do seem to benefit from drying like they pick up moisture easier. (Live in TX, DFW area so can be somewhat humid.) I store in a cabinet that isn’t a drybox (I do put a big sugar-shaker canister of alumina dessicant in the cabinet as a half-assed assist, and do bake that out quarterly or so … but I use the Sunluu dryers for 6-10 hrs before I switch into a spool that’s been off to the side for months as a just in case…)
Thank youfor the info! I had it at 205° and upped it a bit and its not quite as bad, but still not ideal. I dont find an optionto squeeze some hot filament out, where would that be? Ive looked, because i do thinkmy nozzle was plugged up. Possiblyi need to replace that. Ill include some pics if they go thru
Also, i have my filament in a dryer, and its on, and feeding directly into the printer.
Also, are these times outrageous for this print?
I originally had the temp at 200°. The end of the tail came un attached from the platform, and having nothing else to glue it with, i used a hot glue gun to tack it down, it was moving with the nozzle
I really can’t comment on the overall time for the project and stuff. I don’t typically print that sort of thing.
As far as an option to just spool some out - use the load command again is the easiest way, if you’re just at the touchscreen. My usual start sequence is to turn the machine on, go to Controls. Have to home it first. Then turn on heated bed and start preheating it to my desired bed temp (60-70 region depending on size for PLA usually). Then if I need to load filament, switch to the extruder temp and set that to say 204-206…when it hits 200 you’ll see that the “Load” button (or “Unload” if you already had something in it you need to yank first) becomes available.
To test if my nozzle is clear I might hit Load another time or two. And as a rule with print starts I always use “skirt” at about 4-5 line counts. (NOT brim - Brim is attached to the part and a pain in the tail to remove. But the “skirt” is just a perimeter outline and gives you good opportunity to see if your bed level / first layer is going down well, so you can tweak the Z offset right then at runtime.
The silkies do need a little more squish than usual to be sure they stick first layer, but you don’t want it so close that the nozzle isn’t letting anything out…that will help ending up ‘backing you up’ for sure.
If you’re computer connected you can use the console to send extrusion commands – like in the page about calibration your extrusion steps? – but I’m 99% running ‘offline’ from my computer. I use the little thumbstick to move files on and print from the touchscreen.
IF that line around the tail and nose to the right side of the pic was your ‘skirt’ then I’m guessing you don’t have enough first layer ‘squish’. It looks pretty much like a thread sitting atop the bed, instead of a flat mashed first layer.
I probably OVER-squish in general – I hate to use any sort of glue or anything, just clean my build sheets with isopropyl and those narsty blue shop paper towels – because I’d rather the print be a little hard to remove than come loose during (or warp up). If I hold my finished prints up to the light sometimes a little ‘elephant’s foot’ is visible from overcompression of the first solid layer … but only if you’re really looking for it.
This is just plain shiny white PLA, and a pretty “small” print, like 62mm dia… which makes it easier to get more ‘squish’ since you’re not relying on the bed mesh as much. And I only have the A250, don’t recall which one you had. But you can see how mashed down my outer skirt is?
(The back side of the print looks kinda weird because this print has a sloped top face and some embedded text on its really thin backside, so you’re seeing the start of localized ‘top layers’ that are down in the embedded lettering…)
Also now I think of it, hard to tell from your pics if you have the enclosure?
Ahhhhhh… that makes so much sense! I’ll try to get it closer. I did mess with the distance, but probably didn’t give it enough chance to see a difference. I was never sure how close to have it. Thank you! You builder people here are so helpful!
Rebecca
I don’t find a setting to increase how many times to go around for the skirt, or did I interpret that incorrectly? I have the 350, and the enclosure. Should I close the doors while printing?
Rebecca
I closed the enclosure doors, and have the filament coming straight from the dryer/heater. I found the advanced settings, and tweaked a few. After about 10 tries, I think it is finally printing ok, but the 56 hour build of the Axolotl the tail is really messed up. It came loose from the plate at about 75% finished. I tried gluing it down, but that didn’t work. Does anyone know if I can print just a tail end or a portion of any build and glue it on? I really don’t want to waste all of this time and start over.
Thank you!! I found it 
May I ask what settings do you print?
56hours for this little thing, i think it could be printed in less than 10hours?
Why not try printing with a larger layer height like 0.2mm?
