Advanced 3D Printing

Almost every 3D printing problem has a known cause and a reliable fix. We've put together a complete set of practical guides covering the issues makers actually run into — from a first print that won't stick, to dialling in a perfect filament profile. This page is the index: find your symptom, jump to the guide, fix the problem. Bookmark it. Start Here: New to 3D Printing If you're just getting started, begin with the fundamentals and work outward as problems come up. PLA Settings & Your First Print — the complete beginner's guide: settings, a pre-print checklist, and how to read your first layer. Best Print Settings for PETG, TPU & ASA — when you're ready to move beyond PLA. Bed Adhesion & First-Layer Problems The most common failure of all — and the foundation of every successful print. First Layer Not Sticking? Fix Bed Adhesion — Z-offset, levelling, bed temperature, cleaning, adhesives, and brims. Surface & Quality Defects Prints that stick but don't look right — strings, blobs, gaps, ripples. Fix Stringing & Oozing — those wispy threads between parts. Under-Extrusion — gaps, thin walls, and weak layers. Over-Extrusion, Blobs & Zits — rough, swollen, oversized prints. Layer Shifting & Ghosting — prints that jump sideways, or faint ripples near corners. Warping & Engineering Materials The challenges specific to ABS, ASA, and other high-shrinkage materials. How to Stop Warping (ABS & ASA) — curling corners and cracked layers, and how to prevent them. Calibration: From Good to Great Once your prints are reliable, calibration is what makes them excellent. These tests dial in your printer and filament. Orca Slicer & Orca-Flashforge Calibration — the full sequence: temperature, flow, pressure advance, retraction. Temperature Tower — find your filament's ideal temperature. Flow Test — get extrusion amount and dimensions accurate. Retraction Test — eliminate stringing at the source. Extruder Calibration — confirm your extruder pushes the right amount. Find Your Problem Fast What you're seeing Go to Print won't stick / first layer is a mess Bed adhesion Wispy threads between parts Stringing Gaps, thin or weak walls Under-extrusion Blobs, zits, oversized parts Over-extrusion Print jumped sideways / surface ripples Layer shifting & ghosting Corners curling up / cracking (ABS, ASA) Warping Prints OK but want them perfect Calibration Just getting started PLA & first print The Common Thread: Good Filament You'll notice a theme across these guides: a lot of "random" problems trace back to filament — damp, brittle, or inconsistent in diameter. Consistent filament removes those variables so the settings you calibrate actually hold. Our PLA, PETG, TPU, ABS, and ASA are made in Spain to tight ISO/REACH tolerances and sealed dry. Pair good material with the guides above and most problems simply don't appear. Still Stuck? If you've worked through the relevant guide and a problem persists, get in touch with your printer, material, and a photo of the issue — we're happy to help troubleshoot. And if you're starting to think the real fix is a better-suited printer, browse our Flashforge, Prusa, and Bambu Lab ranges or ask us for a recommendation.

Warping is the curse of engineering materials. You set up a print in ABS or ASA, come back hours later, and the corners have curled up off the bed — or worse, the whole part has cracked along a layer line. It's the number-one reason people give up on these otherwise excellent materials. The good news: warping is well understood and largely preventable once you know what's actually happening. Why Warping Happens Warping is a thermal problem, not a bed-adhesion problem (though it looks like one). As molten plastic cools, it shrinks. When lower layers have cooled and contracted while upper layers are still hot, the uneven shrinkage pulls the part — lifting corners off the bed and, in tall prints, splitting layers apart. Materials with high shrinkage, especially ABS and ASA, feel this most. PLA shrinks little and rarely warps; PETG is in between. The Core Principle: Keep It Warm and Even Every effective warping fix comes down to one idea — slow and even cooling. If the whole part stays at a stable, warm temperature until the print finishes, there's no uneven shrinkage and no warp. Everything below serves that goal. The Fixes, Most Important First 1. Use an Enclosure This is the single biggest factor for ABS and ASA. An enclosure traps heat around the print, keeping the whole part warm and cooling evenly. For anything beyond small ABS/ASA parts, an enclosure isn't optional — it's the difference between success and a cracked, curled mess. This is exactly why enclosed printers like the Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro or Bambu Lab P1S handle these materials so reliably — the warm chamber does the hard work for you. Larger enclosed machines like the Flashforge Guider 3 Ultra extend this to big industrial parts. 2. Turn Off (or Right Down) Part Cooling For ABS and ASA, the part cooling fan is the enemy — it forces the uneven cooling that causes warping. Run it off or very low. (This is the opposite of PLA, where you want full cooling.) Let the chamber heat, not the fan, control the temperature. 3. Eliminate Draughts A cold draught from an open window, a door, or air conditioning blowing across the printer causes localised rapid cooling and warping — even with an enclosure if it isn't sealed. Site the printer away from draughts and keep the enclosure closed during printing. 4. Get the Bed Hot Enough A hot bed keeps the lower layers soft and bonded so they don't contract and lift. ABS and ASA want 90–110 °C. Too cool and the base releases. See our material settings guide for full ranges. 5. Use a Strong Adhesion Aid Mechanical grip on the bed resists the warping force. A purpose-made adhesive like Magigoo Original holds the base down firmly while the print is hot and releases cleanly when cool — particularly effective for ABS and ASA. 6. Add a Brim and Design Out Sharp Corners A brim adds surface area at the base, giving corners more grip to resist lifting. In design, sharp 90° corners concentrate warping stress — rounding corners or adding fillets at the base helps. A raft is a stronger (if wasteful) option for badly warping parts. 7. Increase First-Layer and Chamber Temperature for Big Parts The larger and taller the part, the more warping force builds up. Big ABS/ASA prints benefit from an actively heated chamber (not just a passive enclosure) — machines like the Flashforge Creator 5 Pro hold an actively warmed chamber for exactly this reason. Quick Diagnostic Symptom Most likely cause First fix Corners lift off the bed Uneven cooling / no enclosure Enclosure, fan off, brim Part cracks along a layer line mid-print Chamber too cold (tall part) Enclosure / heated chamber Only happens on big parts Warping force scales with size Active chamber heat, brim Started after moving the printer New draught Block draughts, close enclosure Base releases entirely Bed too cool / no adhesive Raise bed temp, adhesive Material Choice Matters If you don't strictly need ABS, ASA is usually the better choice — it has the same strength and heat resistance but is more UV-stable and a little more forgiving to print, and our Spain-made ASA is engineered with reduced shrinkage versus standard ABS and enhanced interlayer adhesion, which directly helps with warping and cracking. For parts that don't need the heat resistance, PETG warps far less than either. Choosing the right material for the job is half the battle. The Right Printer Makes ABS/ASA Easy Most warping problems trace back to an open-frame printer trying to do an enclosed-printer's job. If you regularly print engineering materials, an enclosed machine pays for itself in saved failed prints. Browse our Flashforge range of enclosed printers, or tell us what you're making and we'll recommend the right tool. As an authorised Flashforge distributor, we can help you match printer to material.

If under-extrusion is too little plastic, over-extrusion is too much — and it brings its own set of problems: rough, bulging surfaces, parts that come out larger than designed, blobs and 'zits' on the walls, and elephant's foot at the base. The good news is that over-extrusion is one of the most directly fixable defects, because it almost always comes down to calibration. Here's how to dial it out. What Over-Extrusion Looks Like Watch for: walls that look swollen or rough rather than crisp, top surfaces that are bumpy or 'over-filled', dimensions coming out oversized, blobs and pimples (zits) on the surface, stringing combined with excess material, and elephant's foot — the bottom layers bulging out wider than the rest. Fix It in This Order 1. Calibrate Flow Rate (Extrusion Multiplier) The number-one cause. If flow is set too high, every line puts down too much plastic. Run a flow-rate calibration and reduce the multiplier until walls come out crisp and dimensions are accurate. This single step fixes most over-extrusion. Our flow test guide and the two-pass method in the Orca Slicer calibration guide walk through it. 2. Check Filament Diameter Setting Your slicer assumes a filament diameter (usually 1.75 mm). If that figure is wrong — or your filament is inconsistent and actually runs thicker — the printer pushes too much. Confirm your slicer's diameter matches your filament. Consistent filament matters here: our Spain-made filament holds ±0.05 mm tolerance, so the 1.75 mm setting is accurate spool to spool. 3. Lower the Temperature Printing too hot makes plastic runnier, so it oozes and spreads more than intended — contributing to blobs and rough surfaces. Drop the temperature in 5 °C steps; a temperature tower shows the cleanest setting. 4. Tune Pressure Advance / Linear Advance Blobs and zits often appear where the nozzle starts, stops, or changes direction — pressure builds in the nozzle and releases as a blob. Calibrating pressure advance (linear advance) evens out that pressure for clean corners and seams. The Orca Slicer calibration guide covers this step. 5. Enable Coasting and Wipe In your slicer, 'coasting' stops extrusion just before the end of a line to release pressure, and 'wipe' moves the nozzle over the printed line to clean off excess. Both reduce blobs and zits at the seam. 6. Fix Elephant's Foot Specifically If only the base bulges, it's a mix of over-extrusion and a bed that's too hot or a nozzle too close on the first layer. Lower the first-layer flow or bed temperature slightly, and use your slicer's 'elephant's foot compensation'. Our first-layer guide covers Z-offset, which interacts with this. Quick Diagnostic Symptom Most likely cause First fix Walls swollen, parts oversized Flow too high Calibrate flow rate Blobs/zits at corners and seams Pressure advance / coasting Tune PA, enable wipe Rough, over-filled top surface Flow too high / temp too high Lower flow, then temp Only the bottom bulges out Elephant's foot First-layer flow, compensation Dimensions consistently too big Flow or filament diameter Calibrate flow, check diameter Over vs Under: The Same Calibration Solves Both Over- and under-extrusion are two ends of the same dial. If you've read our under-extrusion guide, you'll recognise the tools — temperature tower, flow test, pressure advance — because dialling them in correctly is what keeps you in the sweet spot between the two. Get the calibration right once on consistent filament and both problems disappear. Start With Filament You Can Trust Accurate flow calibration depends on filament that's actually the diameter it claims. Our PLA, PETG, TPU, ABS, and ASA are made in Spain to tight tolerances, so once you calibrate flow, it stays correct. Fighting blobs or oversized parts you can't tune out? Get in touch and we'll help.

Under-extrusion is when your printer lays down less plastic than the model needs. You'll see it as gaps between lines, thin or missing top layers, weak walls that pull apart, and a generally starved, patchy surface. It's one of the most common print-quality problems — and because several different things cause it, the fix is about working through them in order. Here's how. How to Recognise It Under-extrusion shows up as: visible gaps between adjacent lines, layers that don't bond and split apart, holes or thin spots in the top surface, stringy or skipped infill, and parts that feel brittle. If walls look starved and you can see through to the infill, that's the signature. Fix It in This Order 1. Check for a Partial Clog The most common cause. A partially blocked nozzle restricts flow — the printer tries to push plastic but can't get enough through. Signs: clicking from the extruder, inconsistent flow, or it gradually worsening over a print. Do a few cold pulls (atomic pulls) to clear debris, or run a cleaning filament. If a nozzle is worn or stubbornly blocked, swap it — nozzles are consumables. Keeping filament dry and clean prevents most clogs. 2. Dry Your Filament Wet filament foams and spits at the nozzle, disrupting steady flow and mimicking under-extrusion. If the spool's been open a while, dry it (45–55 °C for several hours) and store it sealed with desiccant. Our Spain-made filament ships sealed and dry, with tight diameter tolerance — thin spots in cheap filament are themselves a cause of under-extrusion. 3. Raise the Temperature If the nozzle isn't hot enough, plastic can't melt fast enough to keep up with the flow rate — especially at speed. Raise the temperature in 5 °C steps. A temperature tower finds the point where flow becomes consistent. 4. Calibrate Flow Rate If flow is simply set too low, every line comes out thin. Run a flow-rate (extrusion-multiplier) calibration and set the correct value in your profile. Our flow test guide walks through it, and the Orca Slicer calibration guide shows the two-pass method. 5. Slow Down (or Lower Max Volumetric Speed) Every hotend has a limit to how fast it can melt plastic. Push past it and the printer physically can't extrude enough — under-extrusion at high speed even though slow prints are fine. Lower print speed, or calibrate Max Volumetric Speed to find your hotend's real ceiling. 6. Check the Extruder Itself A worn extruder gear, weak idler tension, or a slipping drive can fail to grip the filament. Look for chewed filament or gear marks. Check tension and that the gear teeth are clean. See our extruder calibration guide to confirm it's pushing the right amount. Quick Diagnostic Symptom Most likely cause First fix Gets worse over a print, clicking sound Partial clog Cold pull / clean nozzle Spitting, popping, inconsistent Wet filament Dry the filament Fine slow, bad fast Speed exceeds melt rate Slow down / Max Vol Speed Uniformly thin everywhere Flow rate too low Calibrate flow Chewed filament at extruder Extruder grip/tension Check gear & tension The Filament Factor Cheap filament with loose diameter tolerance causes intermittent under-extrusion that no amount of tuning fully fixes — thin spots simply deliver less plastic. Our PLA, PETG, TPU, ABS, and ASA are made in Spain to ±0.05 mm (±0.08 mm on TPU) and sealed dry, removing two of the biggest causes before you start. Once you've ruled out filament, the settings fixes above will hold. Still under-extruding? Tell us your printer and material and we'll help narrow it down.

Two of the most frustrating print defects look mechanical because they are: layer shifting, where the print suddenly jumps sideways and every layer above is offset, and ghosting (also called ringing or echoing), where you see faint repeating ripples next to sharp features like text or corners. Both come down to motion — what the printer's moving parts are doing — rather than the filament. Here's what causes each and how to fix them. Layer Shifting A layer shift is unmistakable: the print is fine up to a point, then the whole thing steps to one side and continues from the new position. It means the toolhead lost track of where it was on the X or Y axis — the motor was told to move but didn't, or moved when it shouldn't have. Common Causes and Fixes Printing too fast or too hard acceleration: The most common cause. If the motors are asked to move faster than they can manage, they skip steps. Lower print speed and acceleration and the shift often vanishes. This is especially likely if you've pushed speeds up chasing faster prints. Mechanical obstruction: The toolhead physically hit something — a warped corner that lifted off the bed, a stray clip, a blob of filament, or a tangled spool that snagged mid-print. Check the model isn't curling up into the nozzle's path (see our bed adhesion guide). Loose belts: A slack X or Y belt lets the toolhead drift. Belts should be firm with a low musical twang, not loose or slack. Most printers have a tensioner; tighten until firm. Loose pulley grub screws: The small set screws holding pulleys to motor shafts can vibrate loose, so the motor turns but the pulley slips. Check they're tight and seated on the flat of the shaft. Driver overheating or current too low: If stepper drivers run too hot they can skip; if motor current is set too low they lack torque. Usually only relevant after hardware tinkering. Modern enclosed CoreXY machines with well-tuned motion systems — like the Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro or Bambu Lab P1S — are far less prone to shifting because their belts, acceleration limits, and rigidity are engineered together. Ghosting (Ringing / Echoing) Ghosting is subtler: faint repeating echoes of a sharp feature, rippling across the surface just after it. It's caused by vibration. When the toolhead changes direction sharply, the printer's frame and toolhead oscillate slightly, and that wobble is printed into the surface. Common Causes and Fixes Speed and acceleration too high: The faster the direction changes, the more the machine rings. Lowering acceleration and jerk (or 'junction deviation') is the most direct fix. Outer-wall speed especially — slow just the outer wall and the visible surface improves while the rest stays fast. Insufficient rigidity: A printer on a wobbly table, or an open-frame machine printing tall, flexes more. Put the printer on a solid, heavy surface and make sure the frame is square and bolts are tight. Input shaping not calibrated: Most modern firmware (Klipper, and Marlin variants) offers input shaping / resonance compensation, which actively cancels these vibrations. Running the calibration lets you print fast and clean. Printers like the Adventurer 5M run this out of the box. Heavy or loose toolhead: A direct-drive head carries more mass; make sure nothing is loose and rattling. Telling Them Apart Symptom It's probably… First fix Whole print jumps sideways at one layer Layer shift Lower speed/accel; check belts & obstructions Faint ripples next to corners and text Ghosting Lower accel; slow outer wall; input shaping Print drifts gradually, not a clean jump Belt tension / mechanical Tension belts, check pulleys Gets worse the taller the print Rigidity / resonance Solid surface; input shaping The Calibration Connection Ghosting tuning overlaps with slicer calibration — once your motion is solid, dial in the rest with our Orca Slicer & Orca-Flashforge calibration guide. And since a layer shift can ruin an otherwise perfect filament profile, it's worth ruling out mechanics before blaming settings. Reliable Hardware Helps Many shifting and ghosting problems are designed out by good hardware — rigid frames, tuned belts, sensible acceleration limits, and built-in resonance compensation. If you're fighting these constantly on an older or budget machine, browse our Flashforge and Prusa ranges, or ask us which printer suits your speed and quality needs. As an authorised Flashforge distributor and Prusa reseller, we can help you choose.

If your print won't stick to the bed, lifts at the corners, or the first layer comes out as a tangle of loose lines, you're dealing with the most common 3D printing failure of all — and the good news is the first layer is also the easiest thing to get consistently right once you understand it. The first layer is the foundation: get it perfect and most prints succeed. Here's how to diagnose and fix bed-adhesion problems for good. The Golden Rule: It's Almost Always the Z-Offset Before anything else: the distance between nozzle and bed (the Z-offset, or 'first layer height') is the single biggest factor. Too high and the filament is laid down as round, loose strands that don't bond to the bed or each other. Too low and the nozzle scrapes, starves the flow, or refuses to extrude. A perfect first layer is slightly squished — the lines should be flat-topped and fused side to side, like neat ribbon, not round spaghetti. Most adhesion problems disappear the moment the Z-offset is right. Diagnose by Symptom What you see Most likely cause Fix Lines round and not touching; print pops off Nozzle too high Lower Z-offset Nozzle scrapes, gaps, no extrusion Nozzle too low Raise Z-offset Corners curl up mid-print Warping (cooling/temperature) Enclosure, brim, no draughts One area sticks, another doesn't Bed not level / not trammed Re-level / auto bed level Nothing sticks anywhere Dirty bed or wrong temp Clean bed, raise bed temp Sticks too well, tears the sheet Over-adhesion (often PETG) Release agent, raise nozzle slightly The Fixes, in Order 1. Clean the Bed Fingerprints leave grease, and grease kills adhesion. Wash a PEI or glass bed with warm water and dish soap, or wipe with isopropyl alcohol (IPA). Do this regularly — it's the cheapest, most effective fix, and handling the plate barehanded between prints is the most common reason adhesion suddenly fails. 2. Level the Bed / Set Z-Offset Run your printer's bed-levelling routine (manual tramming or automatic mesh levelling). Then fine-tune the Z-offset on a first-layer test print or a 'first layer patch', adjusting live until the lines look flat and fused. This is the step that fixes most problems. 3. Get the Bed Temperature Right Each material needs a minimum bed temperature to bond: PLA around 60 °C, PETG 70–90 °C, ASA/ABS 90–110 °C. Too cool and even a clean, level bed won't hold. See our material settings guide for the full ranges. 4. Use an Adhesion Aid A purpose-made adhesive removes adhesion as a variable entirely. Magigoo Original bonds when hot and releases when cool — strong hold during printing, easy removal after, and it doubles as a release barrier that stops sticky PETG from tearing the sheet. For flexible filaments, Magigoo Pro Flex is formulated for TPU and similar materials. 5. Add a Brim or Raft in the Slicer A brim (a flat skirt attached to the model's edge) adds surface area and fights corner-lifting — ideal for tall or small-footprint parts. A raft (a full base layer under the model) helps on stubborn warpers or uneven beds, at the cost of some filament and a rougher underside. 6. Stop Warping at the Source For ABS and ASA, corner-lifting is really a cooling problem: the plastic shrinks as it cools unevenly. The fix is environmental — an enclosure to hold chamber heat, no draughts from open windows or AC, and minimal part cooling. This is exactly why enclosed printers like the Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro handle these materials so much more reliably. Surface Matters Too Different build surfaces suit different materials: textured PEI is forgiving and grippy for PLA/PETG; smooth PEI gives glassy bottoms but can over-grip PETG; glass with adhesive is great for ABS/ASA. If you're constantly fighting one material on one surface, switching surfaces (or adding a release agent) is often the real fix. Consistent Filament, Consistent First Layers Inconsistent filament diameter shows up first in the first layer. Our filament is made in Spain to tight ISO/REACH diameter tolerances, so once your Z-offset and bed temp are dialled in, your first layers stay reliable spool after spool. Still can't get that first layer down? Tell us your printer, surface, and material and we'll help.

Those fine wispy threads stretched between the parts of your print — stringing (or oozing) — are one of the most common and most fixable 3D printing problems. They happen when molten plastic leaks from the nozzle while it travels across open space. The good news: it's almost always solved by tuning a handful of settings. Here's how to fix it, in the order that actually works. Why Stringing Happens Inside a hot nozzle, filament is molten and under slight pressure. When the print head moves between two points without printing (a 'travel move'), that pressure can push a little plastic out — it cools mid-air into a thin string. The fix is about controlling that leakage: pulling filament back before travel (retraction), not running hotter than necessary, and keeping moisture out of the filament. Fix It in This Order Work through these in sequence — each step removes a cause, and doing them in order stops you chasing the wrong fix. 1. Dry Your Filament First This is the most overlooked cause, and on PETG, TPU, and nylon it's often the whole problem. These materials absorb moisture from the air; when that water hits the hot nozzle it turns to steam, spitting and oozing plastic everywhere. If your filament has been open for weeks and you're getting sudden stringing with little popping sounds, dry it (a filament dryer or a low oven, 45–55 °C for several hours) before changing any other setting. Storing filament sealed with desiccant prevents the problem returning. 2. Lower the Nozzle Temperature Hotter plastic is runnier and oozes more. Drop your nozzle temperature in 5 °C steps and watch the strings shrink. The cleanest way to find the sweet spot is a temperature tower, which prints the same shape at several temperatures so you can see exactly where stringing stops without sacrificing layer strength. 3. Tune Retraction Retraction pulls filament back before a travel move, relieving nozzle pressure. The two settings are distance (how far) and speed (how fast): Direct-drive extruders: 1–2 mm distance, 25–45 mm/s speed. Bowden extruders: 4–6 mm distance (the long tube needs more), similar speeds. Increase distance gradually until strings disappear — too much causes jams and gaps. A retraction test print dials this in fast. 4. Enable Travel Optimisation In your slicer, turn on options like 'combing' / 'avoid crossing perimeters' (keeps travel moves inside the model so any ooze is hidden) and 'wipe before retract'. 'Z-hop' lifts the nozzle during travel and can help, though it slightly slows printing. 5. Increase Travel Speed The faster the head crosses open space, the less time plastic has to ooze and the less the string can form. Raising travel speed to 150–200 mm/s often visibly reduces fine stringing. Material-Specific Notes PETG is the classic stringer — it's naturally prone to it and very moisture-sensitive. Expect to dry it, run slightly cooler, and tune retraction carefully. See our PETG/TPU/ASA settings guide. TPU strings because it's flexible and hard to retract. Minimise retraction, print slow, and keep it dry — long retractions just snarl flexible filament. PLA rarely strings badly; if it does, it's usually temperature or moisture. ASA/ABS ooze less than PETG but still benefit from drying and tuned retraction. Quick Diagnostic Symptom Most likely cause First fix Sudden stringing on filament that printed fine before Moisture Dry the filament Popping/crackling sounds while printing Moisture Dry the filament Fine consistent strings everywhere Temperature too high / retraction too low Lower temp, tune retraction Blobs and zits on surface Retraction / coasting / wipe Enable wipe, tune retraction Strings only on flexible filament Over-retraction of TPU Reduce retraction, slow down Consistent Filament Makes This Easier A lot of "random" stringing is really moisture or inconsistent diameter. Our filament is made in Spain to tight ISO/REACH tolerances and sealed with desiccant, so it arrives dry and prints consistently. Once you've dialled in your settings on a good spool, they'll keep working. Still fighting strings after all this? Tell us your material and printer and we'll help you troubleshoot.