Articulated Models won"t Flex

I have an Ender 3 Pro and I am using Cura 4.12 and have had this setup for quite some time but… When I first started printing months ago I did some articulated animals for the grandkids and everything was fine, nice and loose and floppy. I must have tweaked some setting in Cura without knowing what I was doing now my animals are rigid and won’t move. What setting should I look at or change to get back to loose joints. I am using Pla with a bed temp of 60 and nozzle temp of 205 my prints are sticking to the bed nicely and seem to be working its just that my joints are too tight.
Help me Please!!!
Jack

From what I’ve learned over the past 18 months, several things could be responsible. I might be tempted to reduce Flow Rate 1st, to see effect it has. Also, I would pick a very small model for tests, so I could get more tests done per hour.

It is usually the elephant foot on the first layer. Usually one start to push more plastic out and reduce the first layer height to get it stick properly. This is helping a lot for normal prints, but when it comes to “print in place” models the first layer must be perfect without any slicer tricks.

So no over extruding and of course no brim. If the first layer is perfect, then you need to ensure the others are not over extruding. So check the e-steps and adjust the printer or hinges will be fused.

I usually use glue stick on my glass beds, when printing “print in place” stuff. This has no side effects, when the rest it correct and avoids lifting, which also can fuse PiP models.

Recalibrate the extruder flow rate (slight differences between rolls can cause this problem), or try scaling the print slightly larger.

Cheers

When I first started printing months ago…

Are you still on your first nozzle? It may be time to change it.
As it wears, it’s diameter gets larger an basically everything upstream of it seems to go out of adjustment.