The Ultimate Guide to Perfect 3D Prints 

Also, check your nozzles people. The brass ones will wear, and the hole will widen over time. A fresh good nozzle also works wonders. Even diff material nozzles such as stainless steel or ruby nozzle.

Great video. Thanks for including my CHEPCube.

I hope you realize how valuable you are to the 3d community, it's people like you who share knowledge in a easy to understand way that make 3d printing available to so many more who don't have you knowledge, time and patience, thank you :)

I'm sitting here at 4 in the morning by our wonderful wood stove with fresh snow on the ground outside watching RU-vid on the big screen for 3d printing tutorials, and thought to myself, I need to stop for just a bit, and take the time to let you know just how influential you have been to my journey in 3d printing. I built my anet a8 back in 2017 and I am still using it. Over time I did all the upgrades so it is a pretty respectable printer now for an A8, lol, hopefully some day I'll add a newer more modern printer to the office, but for now it's what I have and still enjoy making things on it. I'm an old guy who's retired after decades under a welding hood and have always been a maker of all kinds of things. I would like you to know that of all the people on RU-vid in the 3d printer relm, you are one of only a very very few people that I take the time to actually watch and enjoy your content! Your knowledge base is just amazing and you are very much like me in your willingness to share your knowledge with others. Thanks from the bottom of my heart to you for all you've done to help me along this 3d journey. Wishing you the very best in all your pursuits. You are just a stand out Teacher of all things 3D!! Thank You!😊

So much better than just someone saying "make sure your bed is level". Obviously that matters but there's way more and this concise and knowledgeable info was great.

Fantastic video. Already shared with a handful of people. And I need to go adjust my retraction settings on my Prusa mini to kill off that stringing

This is, for me, the best 3D printer channel on youtube. You explain things SO much clearer and explain the nitty gritties instead of glossing over them!!

"Nothing in the real world, is actually perfect" - Muse Thank you, you got a new subscriber

Wow, I think this is the first 3D printing video I've commented on. And I certainly wish I had seen this a while back because it is so helpful and explaining What issues are affected by what factors and settings. Thanks for making this video!

The link to this video should be included in every 3D Printer manual!

After 3 years of 3D printing experience and into several hundred hours of videos on 3D printing (including all of Angus) and I still heard new tips in here! Thank you for what you are doing!

Always appreciate your willingness to admit that even you, as an expert, make mistakes, and that you keep moving forwards and share your determination and problem solving skills with the broader community out there. Perfecting the state of the art in this inclusive way, allows community creativity to flourish.

Your videos are fantastic. I think the best thing about your videos is the fact that you come across as a very honest and sincere person. I fully trust what you have to say and never feel like you are trying to sell us anything. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us

Excellent video. I've been a robotics/control systems programmer for my entire career. I have become interested in 3D printing and find your videos a great place to get started. I love tweaking parameters, and this video might have sold me on the idea of getting a printer. Thanks for all you do so well in bringing the hobby to us!

Seriously great content. Love your personality, love that you aren’t trying too hard to be cool or like other RU-vidrs, and love the clarity of how you present the information. It’s not easy to to create content that’s super clear for others to follow, so while the work involved is often hidden, I can see how much time would have been put into make these videos great. Thank you!

Over 1,000 prints on my Ender 3 v2. Going back and re-tightening the rollers was critical to solving small detail issues like text. That and not using discount filament anymore. As a woman I love that you guys are so passionate in this hobby, your tips and tricks have pushed me to get better and strive for new skills. In less than a year went from making widgets for the fun of it to parts as strong and useful as any injection molded consumer item.

With a wide nozzle, like 1mm, you might need an extra high retraction to stop stringing, but then a negative retraction after each move is needed to not have a gap in the perimeter as the filament makes its way back to the tip of the nozzle. This negative retraction is pumping filament out rather than pulling back in. I think that might be called "extra length on restart" in your settings screenshot at 07:40.

Holy crap. I have been struggling dialing in this LK1 I got and all the questions I've been fighting to answer, you are answering and I understand you. Amazing content. 10/10

This guide is amazing. My prints are spot on! Thank you so much! You were so right about the cooling. I had been using my machine in the ender tent since I got it and was never able to print in mid air like in the clearance castle part of this video. After watching this I opened up the from door if the tent during a print and you could see it going from drooping to perfect as soon as the air was flowing in. You know your stuff my dude! Thank you again.

this video is awesome, and super helpful. Just slow enough to fully digest but your still talking at a fast enough pace that im engaged. 10/10

Great video. I could have used this about two days ago when I started calibrating my first 3D printer. The biggest improvement was fixing the temperature. Printing a temperature tower really simplified the process of selecting the temperature. I recommend doing this quite early in the process. Probably the first thing after calibrating E steps and X/Y.

This is by faaaaaaar the best 3D printing guide for a beginner like me that I've seen until now. Great quality!

Thank you for taking the time to break this down for us, I would be so lost without your channel walking me through this. Wish there was a 3D printer clinic close buy you could take your 3d printers to get a tune up and bring back home :)

Your videos are some of the best on the TUBE. I always learn something useful from them. Thank you for being one of the most informative and least biased guru's on the tube. YOU ROCK!!!! Hope things get better soon down under. It has to end someday. Hopefully sooner than later. Happy printing.

This was some great information. I was just having issues with overhangs not working out like they used to on the bow of the 3D Benchy and couldn't figure out why. I have ample cooling, but even that wasn't enough. With your explanation of stepover (obvious now in hindsight), I understand how changing my layer width and height has likely caused the issue. Thank you!

Hands down the most informative 3D printing video I’ve watched. That helped a bunch. Thank you

Great video, stringing was happening on one of my ender 3s. Increased the retraction by .5mm, problem solved, differences even between the same printers.

Dude, you´re my number one source when it comes to 3D printing knowledge! Thx a bunch and keep up the good work!

I bought the castle files and dived straight in and printed it first. I forgot about reading the slicer settings. I was stunned at how well the print turned out, especially the bridging. OMG, that turret, getting that draw bridge down and that gate up was difficult but done. Every once and a while I get amazed by what a 3d printer can do and today was one of those. Thank you, Angus. Your files were worth twice the price, with fantastic workmanship.

Just watched this video. Did a few changes and wow. Everything is just running smoothly. Im quite new too this not even a month yet. Thanks man

The moment I saw you bend the lead screw, I subscribed. I truly appreciate your efforts in this channel

Fantastic video. Just want to add regarding the bridging it's kind of a function of tension within the molten filament. Which changes per filament type. But generally going fast and under extruding during the initial bridge moves will help avoid the drooping by pulling the molten filament tight. Too much tension and the filament stream might break, or simply fail to provide a good foundation for the rest of the bridge, so finding the sweet spot for each filament and temperature is key.

Very nice of you to do these kinds of videos. Getting back to basics. I´ll buy the castle ... and cry over the results I´m sure :)

You are simply amazing, instead of wobbling on like others do you are not only straight to the point you are also relaying your message in the clear and understandable way. You are simply a star, never before have I taken in so much information and not have my brain explode. Plus, you seem like a supernice dude! Take care and be sure to know you've helped a lot of ppl! ;)

this video is perfect, i have been looking for this exact step by step trouble shooting for months and finally this video poped up, now i can look for details on each troubleshooting step and get better prints, after this i hope i have setings dialed in enough so i can print some of your fantastic torture tests. greetings from Colombia

Thank you so much for this video. Now I have all the calibration info I need in one video. I just got the nerve to buy a bunch of upgrades for my ended 3 v2. Needless to say, my machine’s calibration is way out of whack. This video has been my saving grace. I really enjoy your channel. Thanks for everything you’re contributing to this space. You’ve helped a lot of noobs like me 🙏.

AWESOME! Thanks for the checklist, It's GREATLY appreciated. And, the advice you gave at the end was aces, in regards to taking things step-by-step. Cheers!!!

Oh man. What a blast from the past, thanks for reminding me that I wasn't just "rubbish at 3d printing" for the first while owning my hand-me-down Rep2x, there was a bunch of tuning required (much of which was eventually replaced by using/adapting the great FFCP profiles for prusaslicer from DrLex), and that I didn't get to "send job to octoprint, printer turns on, squirts out model, and turns off when cool down complete" level of usability for a long time.

The Greatest collection of parameters for proper production ever presented.

Been printing for 3 years and I still found all of this informative

Great video! You touched on just about everything, but I just wanted to mention that you should check the diameter of your filament with calipers and adjust your slicer settings accordingly. Sometimes failed or ugly prints can be caused by this. For instance, I just checked a cheap roll of 1.75mm PLA+ and it ranged from 1.68-1.70 over the first meter or so. I changed my settings to 1.70mm and I'm printing fine so far. at 1.75mm I would probably be under extruding.

Mate I got into 3d printing about 3 years ago,i have learned so much from you, i just would like to say a big big Thanks . i have a geeetech A20 and i love it

Great video with valuable hints. Thanks Angus.

Thanks for being so generous and open with your time and knowledge this information makes my life way easier, much appreciated.

Wish I had this video when I started out two years ago, I fixed most of the issues on my own and almost always have perfect prints, but the time it took me to get there can be greatly reduced simply by watching this video, it covers like 70% of the issues I had in the past, in fact when the holidays are over I might try the clearance castle, maybe I still have some issues I do not know about, another good one is the foldable Katana, never got that one right so I gave up on it like 6 months ago, due to other things I needed to print, but there is allways room for improvement.

Awesome video with majority of crutial information included all in one place, great work

Brilliant Video - Thanx for covering all the factors that can go wrong. It helps alot with where to start troubleshooting.

Great vid Mae. Good see a troubleshooting video that doesn’t just show the problem but give a remedy or what to look for

This tips are pure gold. And here is a fact that shows it: Shipping my printer from Spain to NL, my creality arrived completely messed up. Two supports with the wheels unaligned, one cable of the extruder cutted off, and the elevation screw... Of course... Bent. I fought repairing everything by myself, correcting deviations, welding and bending again... And printed zillion times. Well, guess what? The elevation screw wasn't rectified enough... And now I am ordering a new one cause I cannot print a damn cube smoothly enough...😆

You've now given me a lot of do this weekend. I'm literally working on my 3rd print. I'm brand new.

I ordered a Prusa mini plus and I am a total noob to 3D printer. I think this video will be hard to beat. Lot of information, nice touch to everything. I will dig deeper to be prepared to play with the printer when it arrives, your material looks like a strong headstart

Hello, its been three years almost four now, since I first came across one of your videos, and you here you are still strong - will I just wanted to say, thank you very very much.L.A.Cal-U.S.A.

This guide is amazing. Thank you so much for this information. I just started printing yesterday and I've just been struggling with trying to figure out what settings I need to clean up the prints and I got my machine used. I'm having fun but I don't know anyone else that has a printer in person so this is a difficult learning curve

Great video, man. This was so in depth and incredibly helpful.

Thank you so much for this! I'm just starting to get into the 3d printing game and this information is fantastic to know. I have heard that this hobby can be tricky because of things going wrong and having a single video to help with all of that is amazing. Sub from me my man.

You are the reason I jumped into 3d printing. Keep up the videos, thanks!!!!

I completely missed the intro because I was drooling over your synthesizers! Great collection!

Great Video! New to 3d Printing but learning fast. Your videos help tons! Ran the string test and cube test with standard settings on my Ender 5 Plus. Now for the castle!

Angus this is amazing. I've had my snapmaker for a year and was always too afraid to really dial it in. This Christmas holidays that is going to change!

Sub'd, ordered the clearance castle, will be printimg and tuning tomorrow! Well done, informative content. Thank you!

Thanks for making this. For whatever reason I have a hard time convincing people what's causing problems in their prints, so this helps. A lot of these I figured out a while ago and I often seem to be ahead of the curve on these tips. So for your consideration, I'm going to suggest that the next wisdom in 3d printing is that we shouldn't bother changing our print speed while trying to improve quality or time. Since print speed only affects the maximum print speed; whether the printer actually gets to that speed is determined by the acceleration setting. Further more, I suspect most of the stresses at the point of deposition are going to caused by speed changes. I posit that best practice should be to determine the max speed at which a given nozzle and hot end can lay down a given filament AND adequately cool it, the printer should then be set to run at that speed (with a conservative margin) and left at that setting for the given profile. From then on for that profile all adjustments for time/quality should then be made to acceleration and jerk, with the speed left alone. As a rule, rather than think about how fast we print, we should instead be thinking about how aggressively we print. I'm currently upgrading my printer though, so I've yet to test this theory.

Thank you so much! I was just about to do some serious recalibration on my printer, so this is perfect timing!

Uni-directional cooling causing problems with overhangs: THANK YOU! That is the one cooling problem I've observed on my Ender 3v2, and until now didn't know what it was!

Thank you for making this Angus.

This is as good a video as any to say, thank you so much Angus for the videos that you make. I’ve had the same tiny printer for years and your videos have helped me troubleshoot, experiment, and have fun with 3D printing. 3D printing has been such a useful tool for me and it’s largely in part thanks to your content. I’m replacing the bearings on my printer that have started making uncomfy noises and have been causing some print irregularities and after that is set up I’m going to work on printing your castle test just right. Really excited for this one. Again, I can’t thank you enough :)

Thanks Angus. I'm sure this video will come in handy many times.

One of my favorite parts about this particular video was all the pointing at other creators vids as a good source for tips and instructions.

10 years ago they said every home would have a 3d printer. This is why that didn't happen :D Great video! Thanks!

Definitely would love to see a synth jam video! Your setup is awesome!

I've been printing for a number of years and this stuff is still super helpful! (and humbling lol)

I just recently set up my ender 3 pro, your video was really good, you’ve earned a subscriber and I’ll be sure to recommend you to anyone!

Always good to review and reaffirm what to do when you see a condition. I generally just get by and clean up a part after the fact. But now I am moving from my own R&D to trying to make parts that others want and will pay money for them. I want to make the best parts I can with the machine I have. Review like this helps push me to rethink what I do and how I am doing it. I see more clearly where I have made mistakes in reacting to certain things. Too much retraction, clogs, layer height Variables, Too hot, too cold, not enough cooling fast enough and it goes on. My two main issues are: 1 making round holes really round and 2 sagging bridges. I have put off Direct Drive Extrusion too long, based on input its heavy and the Y Axis will sag??? I think I need to dig deeper, take the time to print test parts and really address all the calibration tools available and finally learn to set feeds in the firmware. Always afraid to go too deep in and change things. Creality 10s Pro V1/ Micro Swiss Hot-end / PLA & PETG (some C.F. PETG) / Model Train Parts, Chassis, Adaptors. Thank You very much, Dennis in Virginia

Exactly the video i was looking for so long! Thank you!

Lots of good information- all in one video. Thanks for this.

Brilliant videos. Thank you so much. Helped me out immensely 👍👍👍

Great video. Extra points for including timestamps!

Thank you. A lot of info towards making my 3D printer more useful. Much appreciated.

Thank you for the great content! Please keep up the great work, because it's greatly appreciated.

Brilliant work, Angus!

I just recently printed this on my Bambu X1C and WOW is that an amazing print - (and printer too ;) ) Thanks for a great way to test things.

Awesome video full of great information! Thank you.

I almost forgot I wanted to do the castle. good reminder, thanks

Angus, your awesome!!! Thanks for all the great content, your input is really appreciated…

I'm not into 3D printing yet, but I learned already so much of this one video. 👍👍

Fantastic, need to watch this a couple of times

Great video! Love those tips! Thanks for helping people reduce the bulge ;) Cooling is such a pain on stock printers. We would love to do a fan showdown for 3d printers.. The temp issues are WAY more obvious on printers not running PID, but Bang Bang instead.

👍 Great stuff Angus. Thanks heaps🙏. So _Many_ Variables indeed. As if dealing just with the printer is not enough, I have also discovered within a specific material type like PA nylon there are _again_ - sooo many variables and characteristics just between brands! Together they make for some tough troubleshooting - especially when forced to source new suppliers during disruptions. this video was very helpful. Cheers mate 🍺🇦🇺🎄

Did the clearance castle perfectly on a stock CR-10 Smart! :) The slicer settings you recommended were perfect. :)

Excellent video, especially for a beginner like me! Only issue I've had is moderate stringing on some jobs, but I really need to check my vertical calibration to see if that's an issue, or if the design is a bit off. Thank you!

Just got my first printer (Ender 3 v2) for Christmas, so this is gonna be super useful! Thank you for sharing your wisdom!

I learn so much more from you than almost anyone else. Thanks!

love your videos bro, I could listen to you for hours haha

This was useful and explained a lot. Thanks for sharing this information.

Thank you Angus, very helpfully.

Huge amount of useful information especially to the blower fan didn't even cross my mind but ifigured out that I had a bent lead screw when I upgraded to dual z motor replaced it huge improvement in layers

This…is a massively convenient resource. I just fired up my first test print on an Anycubic Vyper, I’ll be keeping an eye on problems described here!

Excellent tutorial! Thx so much

Excellent video Angus, luckily my 2 FDM units are working nicely. Sadly my resin printer seems to be suffering from layer accuracy issues. I guess it's time to rip it apart, clean it up, check and rebuild it over the holidays. All the best to you and yours.

This was such a useful video. Thank you

Great video as always! Happy to be amongst the 3! ;)