PLA "Balling Up" During Print

[3D in CLE]

Good Morning Everyone,

New to 3D printing and making my first post on this forum. I was wondering if anyone in the community could help me with a issue I've been having. After somewhat successfully printing off a few of the objects that come with the software and others that I found on various 3D sites my extruder and/or PLA has started to behave strangely.

Instead of laying down a thin stream of PLA, the plastic doesn't lay perfectly flat. The bumps and buckles and then gets caught on the headed extruder on the next pass which causes the PLA to start 'balling up' thereby completely ruining the print. The bunching/balling up can occur on the first layer placed, or it can happen half-way through the run.

Has anyone experienced this happening before? I'm very, very new to 3D printing and it can quite easily be something that I'm doing wrong.

For the record I'm using the PLA that came with the machine, I'm printing directly onto the glass bed that came with the machine. I clean the bed before each run with soap and water or with an LED screen cleaner. I use 220 as my extruder temp and 70 for my bed. I'm using S3D software with the default speed slowed down to 1800 from the 4400 that it started with. That helped a bit, but hasn't resolved the issue. It just makes it occur later in the process.

Any help would be most appreciated. Thanks and happy printing!

[Jules]

It's generally not supposed to "lay down" a thread, it's supposed to smash the thread onto the plate a little. If your threads aren't sticking, the most common cause is an incorrectly set starting gap, that either has too much space, or too little, which forces the thread to squish out the sides.

You can make an adjustment to the Starting Height using the application below:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3666

(And if you post a few pictures of the first row problems, it's a lot easier for the folks here to see what might be causing the problem.)

This is also a good read:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3047

[3D in CLE]

Jules,

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I will try your suggestions and come back with photos or short video clips if the error continues.

[3D in CLE]

Hi Jules (and those of you lurking

The problem ended up being that my print wasn't adhering to the glass, thus causing the entire print to 'ball up'. Nothing a cheap can of hairspray couldn't solve.

I appreciate your help regarding the Start Gap and will definitely keep that in mind if the problem arises in the future.

Happy printing!