Z Offset Changing Mid-print / print a bubble in the air

New to 3D printing. When I print something with the 2.0 the nozzle moves upward gradually over the course of the first 30 minutes of the print to end at a point where it is before calibration.

I apologize if this is a duplicate question but it’s super frustrating.

Do you have any video or images that would help illustrate this? Do you mean it raises up to where the print head is for homing?

I don’t have a video or pictures but I can try another test print. Printing a miniature, so it printed the circular base and when I came back at 3% it was above the surface at the level it is before calibration (too far to extrude anything). It was going through its motions but acting more as a heat gun than anything else.

How far above the printed circular base was the print head? Your description sounds like it was printing in mid air but no filament was coming out?

If thats correct then it sounds like filament stopped extruding. This could be due to a number of reasons but causes the extruder gears to grind a groove into your filament so it no longer feeds.

Potential causes are:

  • z-offset for first layer is too close to the bed (try raising)
  • tension on the filament being fed into the printhead
  • printing temp is too low (either set too low or perhaps your thermistor is reading the incorrect temperature)
  • excessive retraction settings (try 2mm at 30mm/s)
  • it can also be caused by trying to print too fast but I doubt this will be your case unless you have changed the default print speeds to be excessive

You mentioned a minature. Instead of @C.Harris idea that it was printing in mid-air without any filament coming out, was it printing in mid air, and making a big ball of spaghetti filament?

That’s a common problem on minatures that need to have supports enabled.

You’re new, so you probably can’t post images or video yet (that’s annoying, since posting photos is what first time posters need the most). If you can give us a link to the model, and links to GPhotos or iCloud pictures and videos, we might be able to help more.

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Thank you for the ideas, guys - much appreciated. I reset everything with the filament, re-calibrated the z-offset and added supports. Success!

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Edited your Topic name to: Z Offset Changing Mid-print / print a bubble in the air