<blockquote>
<p>Other than stringing, what would the potential consequences be of setting the retraction to 0?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You're right to ask this, because there's inherently a dual problem. Whatever material ends up outside the model as strings wasn't conjured out of thin air; it's material that was <strong>supposed to be somewhere else and didn't make it there</strong> because it oozed out too early. As such, you will have corresponding underextrusion right after the stringing, and thus poor bonding, reduced part strength, possibly holes in the model that make it not watertight, etc.</p>
<p>If your printer firmware has Linear Advance (I'm not sure if it's enabled in the stock Creality firmware nowadays), tuning it will reduced the extent of the oozing when you omit retraction, and will also let you get string-free printing with a much shorter retraction length, which might be enough to solve the clogging.</p>
<p>The root cause of your problem is not the number of retractions itself, or the filament gear in the extruder. Well-tuned printers do prints with tens of thousands of retractions with no problem. Most likely it's a consequence of the Creality extruder having very poor grip on the filament, such that, once there's any resistance to pushing the filament, the gear slips on the filament. After that starts, it grinds, and it's game-over; it's very difficult to get it moving properly again, much like when your car gets stuck with its tire spinning in mud.</p>
<p>If this is the problem in your case, increasing the spring tension on the idler arm may help avoid it. Also, you can try to address the cause of increased resistance to pushing the filament. Normally what happens is that, after the material is retracted, it starts to solidify in a somewhat deformed shape that doesn't push as well through the hotend again. Reducing the retraction length helps, but slowing down the retraction can actually make it worse by giving it more time to cool. Increasing travel speed and travel acceleration (increase them <strong>a lot</strong>! like to at least 3000-4000 mm/s² acceleration and at least 300 mm/s speed) will greatly reduce the time the filament is held in the retracted state, leaving it ready to flow again as soon as you unretract.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-09-16T19:53:16.363Z
2022-09-16T19:53:16.363Z
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
<p>I have a moderately sized model that includes 4 thin towers off approximately 6 inches each in height as its final element, each tower is less than 1/4 inch in diameter.</p>
<p>These towers consistently fail to print. They begin printing normally but after about 4-5 inches the filament begins to deform in the extruder (Stock ender 5, no modifications), and to slip. It appears have been chewed up by the constant movement back and forward during retraction (which is particularly intense on these towers).</p>
<p>I've tired reducing the speed and the extrusion level, but it hasn't resolved my problem.</p>
<p>Other than stringing, what would the potential consequences be of setting the retraction to 0?</p>
<p>I ultimately printed my model in several pieces to avoid retraction between the towers, but I'm looking for future reference.</p>

<creality-ender-5><retraction>
What are the potential continuances to a print of setting the retraction to 0 in a slicer?
Aaargh Zombies
# What are the potential continuances to a print of setting the retraction to 0 in a slicer?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-09-16)

I have a moderately sized model that includes 4 thin towers off approximately 6 inches each in height as its final element, each tower is less than 1/4 inch in diameter.

These towers consistently fail to print. They begin printing normally but after about 4-5 inches the filament begins to deform in the extruder (Stock ender 5, no modifications), and to slip. It appears have been chewed up by the constant movement back and forward during retraction (which is particularly intense on these towers).

I've tired reducing the speed and the extrusion level, but it hasn't resolved my problem.

Other than stringing, what would the potential consequences be of setting the retraction to 0?

I ultimately printed my model in several pieces to avoid retraction between the towers, but I'm looking for future reference.

**Tags:** creality-ender-5, retraction

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2022-09-16. Score: 1

> Other than stringing, what would the potential consequences be of setting the retraction to 0?

You're right to ask this, because there's inherently a dual problem. Whatever material ends up outside the model as strings wasn't conjured out of thin air; it's material that was **supposed to be somewhere else and didn't make it there** because it oozed out too early. As such, you will have corresponding underextrusion right after the stringing, and thus poor bonding, reduced part strength, possibly holes in the model that make it not watertight, etc.

If your printer firmware has Linear Advance (I'm not sure if it's enabled in the stock Creality firmware nowadays), tuning it will reduced the extent of the oozing when you omit retraction, and will also let you get string-free printing with a much shorter retraction length, which might be enough to solve the clogging.

The root cause of your problem is not the number of retractions itself, or the filament gear in the extruder. Well-tuned printers do prints with tens of thousands of retractions with no problem. Most likely it's a consequence of the Creality extruder having very poor grip on the filament, such that, once there's any resistance to pushing the filament, the gear slips on the filament. After that starts, it grinds, and it's game-over; it's very difficult to get it moving properly again, much like when your car gets stuck with its tire spinning in mud.

If this is the problem in your case, increasing the spring tension on the idler arm may help avoid it. Also, you can try to address the cause of increased resistance to pushing the filament. Normally what happens is that, after the material is retracted, it starts to solidify in a somewhat deformed shape that doesn't push as well through the hotend again. Reducing the retraction length helps, but slowing down the retraction can actually make it worse by giving it more time to cool. Increasing travel speed and travel acceleration (increase them **a lot**! like to at least 3000-4000 mm/s² acceleration and at least 300 mm/s speed) will greatly reduce the time the filament is held in the retracted state, leaving it ready to flow again as soon as you unretract.


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