Thanks for these useful suggestions. I’m learning all about how retractions work now and surprised I never ran into issues like this before.
We are about 4.5 hours into another attempt (previous all failed around 1hr), now with the updated retraction length. It’s still going strong. Seems like this is the solution!
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions! I’ve cleaned the whole thing up and I changed the PrusaSlicer retraction length from 6mm to 2mm. Let’s see if this changes the result.
This printer is mostly stock Ender 5 Plus. I upgraded to an all metal extruder (original one broke) and capricorn bowden tube a while back. Usually the defaults have been OK and I print often.
My extruder gear leaves quite a track mark on the side of this filament and I wonder if this is contributing. I’m in a very hot and humid region and this spool is about a year old. I did have it in my filament dryer for about half a day right before this print, so it was more malleable than usual.
Oh, and this print is a print-in-place retractable cosplay katana, so there is a ton of intricate details which seems to result in a lot more retractions and tiny movements than usual.
Using the PrusaSlicer retraction defaults for my Ender 5 plus: 6mm retraction.
I’m going to try again with less. I’ve never had this type of jam before so I think it’s probably something unique to the print, but maybe this will let me finish it.
I love projects like this if only for the learning opportunity.
The process of building this, especially for someone thinking about entering a robotics/automation career, would be priceless. I’m sure this is an industry that will continue to see a ton of growth in the next few decades.
I’m not saying this kind of project will future proof your career or anything, but people who do projects like this for fun have future proof skills.
Octoprint has been great. For sending jobs to the printer, restarting them, and of course for monitoring things. And it can integrate with Telegram to send these images of print jobs to you after they finish.
I use a Logitech USB webcam, you can see it near the red arrow here: https://imgur.com/a/TWAse0h. It’s just zip tied to the frame for now. This printer is an Ender 5 Plus.
I was able to print these one by one with the same settings so I’m really not sure yet.
This filament has been giving me a lot of problems recently and I think it’s still wet even after a day in the dehydrator.
These 3P app developers have millions in their audience. Millions of people who’d love nothing more than to open that app as usual on July 1st and just keep doing the same thing they did the day before.
Coming back to say that I got it to print based on the suggestions in the thread.
I settled on a 3mm retraction length in PrusaSlicer which left a minimal amount of stringing. Printed flawlessly after that change.