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Ok so I’m having a slight problem, or a few problems printing today on my Flashforge Creator Pro. The printer has been caking PLA all over the place; in drive belts, cooling fans, and over axis sensors. Its been an interesting Christmas to say the least. So after tearing it apart a few times I starting to think I may be operating it in too cold of an environment.

I’m operating in a Garage that sits at about 15C. Could this be my problem?

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I’m printing in my basement at

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I dont see how pla could get on the belts. I run my printer in the house. Its usually 22 degrees. How can the pla get anywhere but the platform?

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This sound extremely bizarre to me. The plastic is only melted in the heater block hot ends near they extruder nozzles. I’ve seen PLA get melted on the nozzle and the heater block but never into the fans and belts. There is something majorly wrong with your print head assembly if it is spraying molten plastic about like that.

Okay so question time for you.

  1. What temperatures are you printing at? PLA should be printing at around 190 to 210 degrees C but no higher than 210 otherwise you’re going to start burning your PLA and gunk up your extruders. (ABS and other materials print at a bit higher but always within in a set safe range.) This could cause strings or ribbons of excess of filament on the build plate or in the bottom of the printer.
  2. What temperature is your buildplate during your prints? For PLA it should be off, but if you have adhesion problems, warping or curling, etc, you can set it as high as 60 degrees (45 to 50 should be optimal though.) Again ABS and other materials may need a higher temperature (ABS needs 110 for example to minimize warping.) If you are using RepG as your slicer it defaults the buildplate heat at 110… set the gcode line “M109 S110 T1” to “M109 S0[or S50 or S whatever temp you want] T1”. If your build plate is too hot the plastic won’t cool properly between layers, but this should cause plastic to spew about inside you printer.This could cause small strings of filament around your print bed and in the bottom of the printer…
  3. Are you printing with the plexi-glass enclosure on top and the door closed? PLA doesn’t need to be kept evenly heated in the same way ABS needs. In fact a bit of extra circulation can help your print quality… but again it don’t see how printing with the enclosures on would cause molten plastic to spew about into the fans and belt.
  4. Have you reassembled your print head recently? If didn’t put it back together right, or cracked something like a nozzle or the aluminium heater block plastic MIGHT spray out… if this is the problem then you’ll need new nozzles at the least and worst case a whole new print head assembly.

I hope this helps some… post a few video’s or pictures of it printing and what is happening, it may help find the problem.

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Are you using a slicer that is not callibrated with your printer? That is the only thing I can think of that would cause such an uncontrolled movement and filament extrusion other than a broken stepper motor or leaky extruder assembly as mentioned in an earlier post. I do not think that a cool environment could affect a printer that much.

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I never had problems with residue from PLA, but I do have dust issues with ABS. Do you have a fan cooling the nozzle when you print PLA? I am not sure about the ambient temp as it rarely gets below 20 degrees in my house…

Is your printer fully enclosed? When I print PLA I print with the door open and without the acrylic cover on the top.

Cheers

Ash

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Sorry I must have misunderstood your problem. Disregard.

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One other thing… if the PLA is “caking” on the nozzle and heating block (it still can’t understand it getting anywhere else without a major issues with your print head assembly,) I would check your print bed preparation… Are you printing on kapton tape, glass, or blue painters tape? If a layer doesn’t stick the plastic does tend to get caught on the nozzle and build up there… I suppose if you leave it unattended long enough it could get really built up on the heater block (I always check my long prints about every 15-30 minutes it helps avoid damaging your printer if something fails.) SO maybe check that and make sure you level the bed too… but that goes without saying.

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Post some pics? Could be your other nozzle “shaving off” microbits.

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Don’t worry about it, moving the printer to somewhere warmer seemed to help, a bit.

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Well lets do this in Order :slight_smile:

1. PLA is 200C - 210 C, normally settles on 203C when set to 200C. ABS I have cooking between 220-240.

2. For build plate temps; PLA is off but drops down to 15C and ABS I have it set to 105C.

3. For PLA I open it up to the environment and make sure there is a good deal of airflow (area clear of objects). ABS all of the Plexiglas is on.

4. Yes, had to de-gunk the right nozzle.

After that I tried to go round two but it caked it all over the nozzle and forced it up into the insulation and the covered the wires on the back of the heater block. I didn’t see it (CNC broke a tool, had to work on that), my Dad walked up and asked why I had the printer folding its plastic. So what I’m thinking is it broke it off the base and started to fold it under the print head.

So after killing the print I had one heating block with its isolation filled with PLA. I already cleaned it out, (New insulation is on order).

I did move the printer to a warmer environment, and it seems to have improved a bit. I’m using a blue tape as a base too.

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I use the poor man’s blue tape method. A CNC needing some TLC had my attention for about an hour…

Bed is level and true.

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I don’t think 15C is abnormally cold. Do you print with it completely enclosed? And do you print with the heated build plate?