www.3dprintersforum.co.uk | 3D Printer Forum UK

hi

i have attempted to print a print 3 times now and each time a section comes out looking terrible.
does anyone have any idea hopw i can get this to print nice please.
it being print in the orientation shown in the photo as i assume this would be best. its being sliced in orca with creality hi 0.4 nozzle and a preset of0.2 standard









i am unsure how to get the nice clean and sharp line any help would be great thanks

I told you when you started out this wasn't going to be as simple as you expected.

I can see warping, and those spaghetti areas are where the features are too fine to print properly.

A complex build like this needs to be designed with printability in mind. Nothing can print into open space, so we have to have sacrificial structures to provide a build platform "in air"... but if the feature being printed is too fine, it has very little to stick to even with the support of the platform. And then there will be problems detaching it from the support.

Frankly, those hollow rectangles need to be solid rectangles in this print orientation. The only way you might make them work as they are is to orient the model with them in the print plane. If you can't reorient the entire model, or that causes problems elsewhere, print in parts with each part in its optimum orientation for printing.

Mod's Note:

I have edited your post so the images display in the post, readers don't want to be clicking through to the hosting site for each one. Anyone posting images should attach them directly to the post, or if that's not possible (because of file size) paste in the hosting site's "BBCode" link not the direct URL.

hi

thank you for the reply, i originally printed it with supports to these structures but the supports caused just as much of a mess when they was removed.
i downloaded the design as an stl but while slicing it in orca im struggling to get a good clean print, the areas im having the issue with are on the top and botto of the model so even if i changed the model postion is would have the same issue of the other side,

Sut1576 wrote: Sun Nov 30, 2025 8:09 pm i originally printed it with supports to these structures but the supports caused just as much of a mess when they was removed.

Yes. Have you tried tree supports?

i downloaded the design as an stl

That does not mean the design is optimised to be printable, .stl is also used for visualisation. Take the owls I printed – the download page showed examples of the finished prints, so they had a high confidence.

but while slicing it in orca im struggling to get a good clean print

Look for an option to turn on "print thin lines" (or whatever that setting might be called). This forces thin features to be printed at the full standard line width. Another issue is "trailing" (I have no better way to describe it): when a thin feature gets printed and the nozzle then has to move to another location, a small defect is introduced which then gets added to and added to... You can combat this by tuning the retraction and coasting settings and/or turning on "combing" (which forces the nozzle to move only within the outline of the model, so it does not introduce surface defects).

I recommend you isolate the troublesome areas and run trial prints rather than waste time and filament on the complete thing, while you tune. Those rectangular "ports" for example – isolate that block by cropping away the rest of the model, and experiment with the best orientation and settings for them.

the areas im having the issue with are on the top and botto of the model so even if i changed the model postion is would have the same issue of the other side,

Not sure where you mean in your photos, but for example the wavy defects look like resonance, which suggests you're trying to print way too fast. To detect printer mechanical faults print a cube and see what that looks like. If you want to push the print speed you need to look into resonance calibration.

I don't print anything with the amount of detail you are attempting, but if I was I wouldn't be trying to do it all in one piece. Undersides are never good, they need the minimum possible detail and preferably dead flat. I would, at the very least, slice a top half and an upside-down bottom half, to glue together after printing. This is easy in the slicer: one the right way up and given a negative Z so half of it is below the build plate, and ditto with the model turned upside down (you have to make sure the two splits line up of course).

Very little to add to CrazyIvan's recommendations, but when I usually post a problem into FB group, the most common reply is short and pointless 'Dry your filament'. But sometimes that can be a problem too. And, annoyingly enough, even with brand new, factory sealed filament.

If supports are difficult to remove, I'd advice adjusting the support top Z distance. I normally use 0.3mm, and I have very little issues in removing supports, with most filaments.

Other than that, my vote would go to speed. And too much of it, to be precise.

Oxalainen wrote: Tue Dec 02, 2025 7:59 am but when I usually post a problem into FB group, the most common reply is short and pointless 'Dry your filament'.

Too much noise, not enough signal (FB groups, that is).

This seems like a good explanation of resonance (but note it will be much worse with the cantilever X axis gantry shown in the video):



Sean Aranda (book '3D Printing Failures') makes the following observation:

The main reason ghosting occurs is having your acceleration and jerk settings too high. This is extremely common since many printer manufacturers will auto set the default value for these numbers too high because it allows them to advertise faster printing times.

A part with some minor ghosting is still entirely useable, so printer manufacturers with calling something a successful print that we as makers would not.

Very useful tutorial on tuning:

I wish I was more a spreadsheet guy than I actually am, as I could also use a bit of quality tune-up with my Adventurer 5M. Especially when eliminating ringing.

However, with my Sovol SV-05 I actually got noticeably less ringing by placing plastic foam pads under the machine's own rubber foot pads. Not super soft mattress or pillow plastic foam, but for example the same stuff most 3D printers are packaged in during shipping. Pads approx. 13mm/half an inch thick are just fine. Not sure how this mod might work with modern Klipper printers, which usually do the vibration compensation calibration during the initial start-up process...

Oxalainen wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 6:58 am However, with my Sovol SV-05 I actually got noticeably less ringing by placing plastic foam pads under the machine's own rubber foot pads.

Really? You would have thought anything to make the machine less firm would make it worse! The general wisdom is to stand a printer on a paving slab rather than polystyrene.