Folks, I am doing some additional testing of the best approaches for reducing stringing with different filaments and printers. If you have any ideas that work well for you I will include them in the video and give you a shout out.
Irv
Obviously retraction is the first thing everybody brings up, and that’s still the best starting point I’m aware of. The other big one is the “avoid crossing perimeters” setting in your slicer, so travel moves won’t drag an oozing nozzle through a wall. Apparently this is most important for Bowden types.
I used default retraction settings until I tried PETG and had tons of stringing. So at that point I believe I ended up recalibrating the extruder steps, and then doing a “progressive retraction” stringing test. Just printed one of the 4-spike stringing tests with retraction starting from 0, gradually stepping it up until it improved. I think I was following an article on ALL3DP.
I was also using Cura back then, but I moved to Slic3r and then PrusaSlicer. I like the layout of the latter two much more once I got used to it, makes it easy to set “filament overrides” for different materials. So with PETG I typically use 7mm retraction, wiping, and definitely avoid crossing perimeters. With PLA I use 6mm retraction, while wiping and perimeters are less of a concern.
I still get a little bit of stringing with PETG but it’s very light and wispy, easy to rub off. Will end up doing more to combat it eventually, but for now I’m alright with the results I’m getting.
(Using an Anycubic i3 Mega.)
Here is a picture of just some of the tests I am running to produce the DrVax video about stringing.
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What is your extruder setup direct drive? Or Boden style?
I found with my cr10 boden style turning on retraction and coasting greatly improved my prints as well as saving my filament from being chewed up by the extruder constantly retracting in areas of the print. There was one of my failed print recall actually broke the filament in two from I assume retracting alot in a space