<p>I just got my first 3D printer (Creality Ender 3) on Friday, 2 days ago. It works great, but for some reason I'm getting a lot of stringing on my prints, especially the ones where the extruder head has to move a long distance between columns/posts, etc.</p>

<p>I'm using Hatchbox "True White" PLA, which has a recommended temperature range of 180-210&nbsp;&deg;C. I've tried printing at 200, 190, and 185&nbsp;&deg;C and didn't see much improvement. I've also made sure I've enabled the 'retract' setting in the slicer (4.5&nbsp;mm) and verified the printer is retracting when it should.</p>

<p>I'm not sure what else I can try... any suggestions?</p>

[{'answer_id': 10788, 'author': 'R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE', 'author_id': 11157, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/11157', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>4.5 mm is a low retraction distance. Cura\'s default is 6.5 mm, and the Ender 3 profile provided with Cura sets it to 6 mm. The first thing you should try is increasing the retraction amount up to at least 6 mm. Also, make sure you actually enabled retraction. I saw one question here where a Cura user had enabled "Retract at layer change", which <strong>does not</strong> enable retraction (but of course it shows the options like retraction amount since you need to be able to select it for this too).</p>\n\n<p>Your low nozzle temperature of 185&nbsp;°C is also a problem. You\'ll have very low flow at that temperature, resulting in under-extrusion and pressure building up in the nozzle instead of extruding the material. That in turn will make it so, even after retracting, there\'s still material (and pressure) at the nozzle and it will keep oozing, unless you set a <strong>really</strong> high retraction amount (and even then problems will build up over time during the print, but you might get lucky and not see them). The only way to print PLA at 185&nbsp;°C is really, <strong>really</strong> slowly.</p>\n\n<p>In general, some people would also recommend trying a different filament, based on reports that some vendors\' PLA oozes and strings badly, but I don\'t think that\'s an issue for you. I use Hatchbox filament on my Ender 3 all the time and never have a problem with stringing from it. And even if the filament is prone to stringing, you can almost surely avoid it with proper settings. Even very soft flex filaments can be printed on this printer without stringing as long as your retraction, temperature, and speed are tuned to avoid having pressure at the nozzle during travel moves.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 11173, 'author': 'PATTOOo', 'author_id': 18832, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/18832', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>decrease retraction speed to 25-30mm/sec</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 18070, 'author': 'Joshua Balduck', 'author_id': 31154, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/31154', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Try changing retraction to 6\xa0mm but slow it down to 25\xa0mm.  Stopped all of my stringing issues with Hatchbox.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 18167, 'author': 'Luis de Mexico', 'author_id': 31420, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/31420', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>Something strange happened to me (Ender 3 with CR Touch), changed my firmware and stringing happened. I was slicing with Cura and went through three days of breaking my head. You know how I fixed it? Simple, I looked for a pre-made retraction temp. And guess what? It was the slicer all along. I changed to Simplify3D and all of my stringing disappeared. I can't explain what happened, but Cura decided to flop on me. maybe look for pre-sliced G-code tests online, hope you can fix your problem.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 18169, 'author': 'FarO', 'author_id': 2338, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/2338', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>The way to optimise retraction is to use <a href="http://retractioncalibration.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this retraction optimisation tool</a>, which tests various retraction distances and speeds.</p>\n<p>Remember to perform this calibration AFTER you set pressure or linear advance, which has a higher priority.</p>\n<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/4D6Gr.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/4D6Gr.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>\n<p>You will be able to pick the settings which work the best for that filament brand and type. You will have to do it again if you switch material or brand.</p>\n'}]
['https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/10785', 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com', 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/17270/']