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Common Causes of Over-Extrusion in 3D Printing

3D printing is time-saving technology, but it’s not without flaws, errors, and hiccups. When they occur, it might be aggravating. They might cause a delay in your timetable and waste supplies and energy. One such issue is excessive extrusion. When your printer spits out materials with little regard for your blueprints, you can’t generate beautiful 3D prints. Typically, you’ll end up with a model with geometrical/dimensional flaws, falling components, and weak structural links. Here are some of the common causes of over-extrusion in 3D printing!

What Is Over-Extrusion?

Over-extrusion is when a 3D printer splotches out too much material. It often ruins your prints’ design quality. Your projects will be vulnerable to dimensional inaccuracies, leaking blobs, layer drooping, and stringing if you don’t solve this problem. If you notice these symptoms in your final prints, you’ll need to take action to prevent over-extrusion. When attempting to attach two elements of a model, the problem will often become even more pronounced. An uneven surface will arise from an over-extruded top layer, preventing a precise connection between the two components.

Cause 1: High Print Temp

More filament melts faster when the print temperature is too high. The result is obvious: the overheated thread rushes out of your printer’s nozzle uncontrollably, compromising the design quality of your final print. The filament spits out more material as it heats up. Printing at a lower temperature allows you to better manage the amount of print material used, resulting in more exact layers and curves. However, you should avoid lowering the temperature too low. This would result in under-extrusion, causing 3D layers to not adhere. The melted thermoplastics coming out of the nozzle will not be hot enough to bind with the previous layer if the extruder temperature drops too low.

Cause 2: Flow Rate Set Too High

Your flow rate settings are likely the cause of too much filament pouring out of the nozzle. A high flow rate can wreak havoc on your prints’ dimensional precision. The dimensions of the upper layers will be larger than those of the lower layers. More heated filament can flow out of the nozzle with a high flow rate. While this can result in strong relationships between layers, too much can be harmful. To stabilize the level of extrusion, turn it down a notch.

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the common causes of over-extrusion in 3D printing! If you still have a problem with over-extrusion, there is likely another smaller problem you must address. Now that you learned about over-extrusion, you can fix it.

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Written by Logan Voss

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