Strange print behavior

[kd7eir]

Any idea what would be causing this?

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Nothing has changed in my printing process. The same gaps have appeared in several different files that I have tried printing.

[BLKKROW]

Is your bed level and the right distance away from the nozzle?

Are you using different filament? Is your extruder clicking?

[kd7eir]

Bed has been leveled manually, and then I use ABL before each print. No clicking from the extruder. Same filament as always.

[tugeagon]

Can your spool move freely?

[kd7eir]

Yes. That's why I'm so baffled - I cannot think of or see anything that could be causing it.

Belts are tight, all the nuts are tight, bed is clean, rods are straight, etc

[tugeagon]

I've had issues with the teeth on the hobbed bolt being clogged with old plastic. Maybe check that.

What material are you using?

It could also be a partial nozzle clog.

[kd7eir]

I'm using ESun PLA Pro. The hobbed bolt is nice and clean. Nozzle has been checked, and even replaced with a spare nozzle with no change.

[Roxy]

It looks to me like the nozzle needs to be a little bit close to the bed. It looks like those open areas did not get the filament pushed down and stuck to the bed.

If you are running a recent version of Marlin, the Z-BabyStepping is really nice for this kind of problem. You can lower (or raise) the nozzle a little bit while it is printing and get the filament squished just the right amount.

[tsteever]

Is there information around detailing this baby stepping?

[Roxy]

There isn't much to know... You just enable it, and rebuild the firmware. And then it is available from the LCD Tune menu. What it does is let you turn the Encoder wheel to shift the nozzle height by a little bit while it is printing. Typically, it is most useful to do this while the skirt is being printed on the first level. If you get the last part of the skirt at exactly the right height, the 1st layer of the print should also be at the correct height.