Does the PTFE tube length on your 3d printer affect the stringing or the
retraction settings on your 3d printer I'm going to test it today and find out
right here at Filament Friday Filament Friday is brought to you by these
patreon supporters I've had a few people tell me that they're getting stringing
with my profiles now I don't get it very often but when I do it's usually related
to the filament or the temperature settings are off but on this particular
machine I was seeing stringing and it was getting worse now this machine had
the original PTFE tube I left it on I wanted to see how long it would last and
when the ends of it would burn I would just pull it out clip the little burnt
part off and stick it back in so the PTFE tube kept getting shorter and
shorter and the stringing was getting worse so I wondered if length of the
PTFE tube had an effect on the stringing so I took the file put it in another
Ender three same file same SD card but in a different Ender three with longer
PTFE printed beautifully no strings so I said there must be something here
so my plan was to try a new PTFE tube and cut it to the different lengths and
see what the effects were let me show you what happened here's the original
setup you can see this PTFE tube is incredibly short barely reaches it
measures 320 millimeters of PTFE and this is the print I got off it actually
this isn't even as bad as what I got later you can see the stringing in this
test print here's the other machine that has a much longer PTFE tube it does have
a different extruder but it has 400 millimeters of PTFE and when I printed
that same file on it perfectly clean so I was happy with the results so this is
where I wanted to try the longer PTFE tubing so here's the original 320
millimeters I went and got a new piece and this one is 460 millimeters
I took a ruler and I marked 20 millimeters on the PTFE tube this is
where I'm going to cut it so I started out with the 460 millimeters and the
print came out beautiful no stringing no issues
so then I cut 20 millimeters off put it back in place and 440 millimeters again
no stringing but at 420 I noticed a real fine line of stringing so maybe it was
working so then I went to 400 and again I saw one string across it very minor
but it was there but then at 380 it disappeared
no stringing 360 no stringing 340 no stringing this is incredible and back to
320 which the original PTFE tubing was no stringing so at that point I decided
to reinstall that original PTFE tube and look at this it was actually worse than
the first print this PTFE tube was giving me terrible terrible stringing so
in the end I conclude it's not the length the length really doesn't matter
if your PTFE tube is good now because I put a new piece of PTFE tube the
lubrication that a PTFE tube has naturally inside of it does wear out the new one
had it so I wasn't getting any resistance I was getting great
retraction and no stringing so if you're getting stringing with my profiles the
first thing I suggest you do is maybe put on a new PTFE tube and see if it
goes away this may also help explain why some people take a little piece of
sponge put a drop of cooking oil on it clamp it over the filament and then the
filament gets oiled down to the hot end and they say they're stringing goes away
while their PTFE tubing probably is wore out so they're oiling the inside of the
PTFE tubing I've done this sponge trick in the past I've had it in previous
videos but I noticed you get a buildup inside the hotend so I don't do it any
longer but if that oiling trick works for you maybe you just need new PTFE -
I've also had people ask me what length of PTFE tubing should they use on their
Ender three because they're replacing it with Capricorn or some other brand or
just the original well based on these tests I'd say that four hundred to four
hundred forty millimeters is a good range but it doesn't look like you can
screw up by going a little too long or a little bit too short
as long as PTFE tubing is good I hope this helps you out and if
you are seeing stringing with my profiles please let me know if this