Octolapse Retraction and Stringing

Plugins Octolapse
1

I'm using Octolapse for timelapses with an Ender 3 Pro and having generally great results, but I'm getting a lot of stringing artifacts where the nozzle jumps away to pose for a snapshot. I'm using the "back left" setting.

I understand a certain amount is unavoidable, but I've noticed that it's only the Octolapse snapshot jumpoff point where I'm getting these artifacts. This suggests that retraction and travel is working fine elsewhere in the print.

For example, here's a print with two identical parts:

Screen Shot 2021-04-23 at 12.47.20 PM
Screen Shot 2021-04-23 at 12.47.20 PM1242×1876 429 KB

The nearer part is perfect, while the farther one has a bunch of stringy stuff where the nozzle jumps off. But only where it jumps off for the snapshot; there's no stringy stuff between the two parts at all, even though the nozzle has to travel back and forth there at least once each layer.

I'm slicing with Cura 4.9.0 and having Octolapse import the settings automatically (using the gcode start script by tjjfvi that Octolapse suggests). When I switch "Slicer Type" from "Automatic Configuration" to "Cura V4.2 and Above", all the settings look correct (as set in Cura). So I think it's working.

I would expect that if the retraction settings are working well for the rest of the print, they would work for Octolapse too. So either that's not the case (due to something different about the way Octolapse moves) or it is the case, but Octolapse isn't actually using those settings for some reason.

Is anyone else having a similar issue? How can I further diagnose and mitigate this?

Thanks.

1 Like
2

Have a read of V0.4 Troubleshooting Print Quality Issues · FormerLurker/Octolapse Wiki · GitHub it might help tune the settings.

1 Like
3

Thank you for the link to the documentation.

4

Try Retract at Layer in Cura. I'm using the Classic Every Layer trigger, seems to help with the ooz while it's going back to the corner.

4 Likes
5

This sounds like a good plan, I'll give it a try.

What I've been doing is adding a tower the same height as my model to every print, in the corner near where the head parks for photos. Octolapse's smart trigger moves makes it depart and return from the tower for every photo, so there's a build-up of goo there but not on my model.

4 Likes
6

I tried this and it helped a little, but still have stringing. Any more advice?

1 Like
7

It looks like you're getting stringing artifacts from Octolapse because the retraction settings are not being applied correctly for the snapshot jumpoff points. This could be due to a number of factors, including:

  • Incorrect retraction settings in Octolapse.

  • Octolapse is not using the correct retraction settings.

  • There is a problem with the Octolapse gcode start script