Common Faults and Troubleshooting

There are a lot of 3D printing troubleshooting issues that are bound to come up when we use machines. Some of the most common 3D-printing problems with the solutions in 3D printing are as follows.

The Printer Is Working but Nothing Is Printing

The Problem—Out of Filament

You have correctly designed the model in the slicing program, but nothing seems to happen; there’s absolutely no printing going on. You have repeatedly sent a print to the printer, but all you get in return is a filament spit coming out of the nozzle, or may be the model is about to be printed, and out of nowhere the filament extrusion starts running, but the nozzle keeps going, printing nothing (Figure 8.4).

The Cause

While this problem is obvious on machines that have their filament reel in full view, like the PRUSA i3, there are machines that are not designed with exposed filament reels, such as the MOOZ, Ultimaker, and Robox, which will make it a little difficult to immediately detect the problem. These types of 3D printers either have their filaments encased or hidden at the back of the printer.

The Solution

The 3D-printing troubleshooting process here is relatively simple. No matter what type of 3D printer you use, all you have to do is remove the remaining file and load the new material. Check the filament reel for loading in another reel if there is no material at all.

Nozzle Is Too Close to the Print Bed

The Problem

You’ve loaded the filament perfectly, and nothing seems to be wrong with the print head, but there’s no filament on the print surface (Figure 8.5).

FIGURE 8.4 Filament.

FIGURE 8.5 Nozzle too close to the print bed.

The Cause

Simply put, the nozzle and the print bed may be too close to each other. You may have accidentally turned your print bed a little away from your nozzle opening, thereby giving the melted filament little room to exit. The best case ideal situation with this issue is that your print will possibly miss its first few layers and the opportunities of it not sticking when the filament does not extrude will be high. In case of worst situation, the printer’s hot-end will have a buffer of a molten filament which will certainly increase the chances of a blockage.

The Solution

There are two main ways to do this with 3D-printing troubleshooting:

i. The Z-axis offset: This technique involves raising the nozzle a little bit. Most 3D printers have Z-axis offset settings in their system settings. With this setting, you can raise your nozzle a little high from the printing bed by setting a positive value to the Z-axis. Putting a negative value in the Z-axis offset setting will help you to resolve sticking issues, that is, if your prints don’t stick to the print bed. Therefore, you need to make sure that when you set a value, it’s not too high for your prints to stick to the bed.

ii. Lower the bed: This is an alternative solution, as not all 3D printers allow the printing bed to be lowered. If printer allows this to happen, you can do it to fix this problem. It’s a more upsetting fix, though, given that you’re going to have to level and recalibrate your bed.