I have this PETG; its Kingroon Blue PETG. I can’t get it to print nicely no matter what I do. Been testing with benchy over and over.
The filament is as dry as I can make it. It’s been in the dryer for at least 12 hours before each print. I even have tried snipping the part of the filament not in the dryer to start from a dried state. The Relative Humidity doesn’t drop anymore at this point (from 19ish).
I’ve tried different temperatures from 220 to 260. I’ve tried different retraction lengths and speeds. I’ve tried with the cooling fan on/off and at a couple middling percentages. Also different speeds from 30mm/s to 45 to 60.
I tried printing a retraction tower and it fell apart after the first level.
The first layer prints more/less fine, then eventually it either just falls apart (most of the time) or produces something in awful quality.
I’ve attached images of everything I can think of from the way it looks on the first layer, to the case where its a benchy out of a horror film, to when it just fails miserably.
Printer Elegoo Neptune 3 Plus. .4mm nozzle (i’ve tried both copper and hardened steel). Besides the nozzle its stock. If I swap to PLA it prints generally fine.
I feel like I’m missing something obvious. Everyone says dry the filament, but I can’t dry it anymore 😢 .
Thanks folks (and if you celebrate: Happy Turkey Day!)
To do process of elimination, I’d recommend trying a different brand of filament and a different type of filament (i.e. PLA), preferably freshly opened rolls. I’d also generally be wary of AliExpress, but that’s just been my experience of seeing multiple people be disappointed with what they get. If you’re looking for discounts on filament, there are a bunch of Black Friday deals going on right now.
That testing will at least tell you if it’s the brand or the type of filament that’s causing the issue. If you eliminate those by seeing no change, then you know it’s the printer itself and can start troubleshooting that next.
Interestingly, I tried the Kingroon green PETG and it looked ok at first then seemed to clog-ish.
https://imgur.com/a/tXUg2fA
I’ve printed kilos and kilos of Geeetech PLA, and that’s some of the cheapest on AliExpress (although I used to get it directly from their website before I realised doing that was normally more expensive). It arrives wet, but other than that, there’s (nearly) nothing to complain about (although years ago, I had a roll with two lumps of grit in it that caused clogs). I’ve had mixed success with their other materials - their ABS+ started burning in the nozzle while still being cold enough that layer adhesion was bad and their high-speed PLA has ridiculous oozing that causes ridiculous stringing, but their PETG and TPU seem fine. I’m pretty confident that their basic materials are absolutely worth £7/kg.