I say having spent the last weekish frustrated that my printer seemed to just be awful at making prints with even loose tolerances all the sudden.
I was using filament that had been left out a month or two, so not long at all, so I thought. Killed the rest of the spool trying to tune things, prints worked perfectly when I got a new spool out.
Goddamnit.
If it makes you feel better, the very same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Got it loaded, adjusted flow rate, temps, loaded, and the filament proceeded to crack apart. Multiple places.
Checked date, two years old. Oops.
I have filament that is now more than 5 years old and it still prints fine. But I also had 5 year old filament that printed fine at the outside of the spool, but cracked at the inner 1/3 of the spool (just a day later)
Very true, could also try drying the filament as well.
Needed this. Thanks.
Does it also mean that even if I bought a prusa mk4 and used old filament, it would shit the bed?
I think that depends on how it was stored and if you have a way to dry it. I know some people will heat filament or use dessicant packs in an airtight container to restore old filament, but I’m not sure how effective those are since I haven’t tried any of them before.
Definitely would suggest getting new sealed filament for anything that requires tighter tolerances or parts that need to fit together though. The filament I had wasn’t breaking or making things look terrible, but it made the filament expand as the moisture boiled off in it, so the parts were all a tiny bit too big so no parts would fit together properly.
Get a plastic storage container that seals and some desiccant.
I literally would not be able to print TPU without it, and it really helps stringing and lines on my PLA prints too.
