Lowering the perimeter or wall acceleration settings in slicer has a huge effect on removing ghosting. Available at least in Slic3r (Print Settings -> Speed -> Acceleration control -> Perimaters) and Cura (Speed -> Print Acceleration -> Wall Accceleration -> Outer Wall Accceleration). I use 2000mm/s² as the default acceleration and have outer walls printed with 310mm/s² acceleration.

As another commenter mentioned, it’s the result of having too much acceleration for the rigidity of the machine. The belts used on low-cost 3D printers are kinda springy, resulting in the attached components vibrating when suddenly accelerated. If you can’t upgrade the rigidity of your machine, the only other parameter you can adjust is to turn down the acceleration. Adjusting the speed may seem to help, but what’s going on is that the ringing is still present, but it’s just been compressed into a smaller area because the head isn’t moving as fast. Turning the acceleration down will actually reduce the root problem; not just mask the effect. BTW, this is why CNC milling machines and lathes use ballscrews for driving their axes - they are much more rigid than belts.

Thanks for sharing, Angus. I print lots of miniatures & terrain for tabletop gaming, and lowering speed is what has worked best for me. Will share with others who get ringing as well. Cheers!

A 4 year old video!!! still completely relevant today! I’m new to 3D printing, and Angus has all the answers... plus I love his challenges and test prints

Thanks Angus. It always helps to be pointed in several directions when troubleshooting complex problems.

You could also try adjusting the timing belt tension. The direction change isn't transferred as quickly to a loose belt, so the ghosting is at a lower frequency but more pronounced. A tighter belt will help transfer vibration to the frame faster and hence dampen it.

Angus, Thank you so mich for these videos! Your channel has saved me alot of time and trial and error. Keep up the good work!

I think you mean momentum instead of moment of inertia which is related but really a different thing. Doesn't detract from your excellent video.

Ghosting can also be reduced by fixing your printer down to a rigid base. I screwed mine down to a 3/4" plywood base and saw an instant improvement. I still get ghosting when printing fast, but generally it's acceptable. Also it reduces the frequency I need to re-level my print bed. I'll look at improving the rigidity of the X-Z axis next with braces

The belt tension can also make a big difference. If your 3D printer is belt driven you kinda have to find a good balance in belt tension. A loose belt dampens vibration quite well, but may result in higher tolerances. While a tight belt decreases the tolerances but also increases the springiness of the belt, potentially 'causing things to bounce back and forth a little after a sudden change in speed. Similar to a weight hanging on a rubber band when the other end of the rubber band is suddenly moved up or down slightly.

I really like the idea of putting the paper onto the printer to show the vibration. Great visual aid. Thanks Angus.

Great video! I just experienced this after sorting out my tpu setting to the point where I have drastically increased my printing speeds.

Thanks, you helped me confirm that careful assembly with strict tolerances will eliminate yet another 'common' problem. That and a double Z screw. Like others, I want to switch all belts to drive screws. Get them within 10,000/in in the XYZ and never have any of these common issues that stem from 'minimum engineered products'.

Great video Angus! You're explaining some pretty advanced concepts in your video and know they are not always the easiest to distill down to just a few words or phrases. Just a subtle correction: Changes is acceleration and deceleration as well as speed DOES NOT result in moments of inertia. Moment of inertia is a geometric property. Nothing to do with the material or forces/accelerations acting on the object.

Just the other day I did a basic search for Ghosting tips. Everyone was arguing about settings. Then Angus swings in and explains things better. I'd rather go with things everyone can agree on and easily understand. Thanks Angus. You're such a good resource for people that just want to know without having to take a master class or sift through all the internet arguing

Cool. Small imperfections aren't usually a concern since my prints get post-processed but it's good to know exactly what's going on and ideas to fix it if necessary. Thanks for the info.

Great walk through of the issue easy to understand and learn from great job as always , will have to try these tips now on my ender 2

+Maker's Muse what if I have a slight offset on the horizontal axis. Its shows some lines clearly more inwards or outwards. I've a Prusa Mk2, can you please tell me how to fix it? Edit:I'm not quite sure, but maybe at around 5:00, you can see this on your mk3 print as well. Some layers are clearly more outwards than others.

Great video Angus. Clear and concise. A great help 👍

Thanks you do a great job. Cheers and have a happy new year.

Also, if you change the orientation of your printed part by 90degrees in the slicer, this may help reduce ringing further after all hardware optimisations you can realistically achieve have been performed.

Very informative. Great video Angus!

HypnoToad !!!! Great channel Agus, I love your explanations and opninions. Cheers from Québec City Canada !

when I was building my ender-3, with the assembly guide of another youtube channel, I noticed that the v-slot bearings came pressing too hard on the aluminum frame, so as the video told me to also manually set the offset screw I made adjustment so that the gantries can move more effortlessly but not wobble. can these resistance caused by too much pressure on the bearings also causing ghosting? I sort of reckon that it will, but I never had any ringing right from the first print.

when you print a horizontal line (e.g. g01 x54) where does the proposed resonance come from? the defect appears to be intermittent and associated with a particular x range (and maybe direction of travel?). i'm suspecting this is chatter of the x axis rails/rods that can be remedied with a drop of oil. what do you think?

Love these reviews, especially when you use the Cetus, since it's the only printer i own so far and I love this printer.

Have you considered using a tuned mass damper fixed on the head to reduce vibrations? Such as a small weight mounted on a flexible wire or a spring for example. This is commonly used on tall buildings to mitigate the effect of wind or earthquakes.

Would accelerometers mounted on the moving axes be able to measure ring and provide feedback for auto-tuning jerk and acceleration (and possibly correct belt tension)?

I tried your ghosting test on my TEVO Michelangelo. It came out nearly perfect, with only slight ghosting around the text and Makers Muse symbol. I was using WYZ white PLA 1.75mm filament. The Gcode had the default printer settings. It might help that my printer is on a sturdy wood desk.

great, explaining printing issues is much more helpful, than reviewing printers ;-)

You could also get a bowden setup. I have a cantilever design and don't have this issue at all.

Hey @MakersMuse Could you do a video about TL-Smoothers? I bought some and am planning on installing them in a few days, but really would love to know more about them.

Small correction: moment of inertia is an object's resistance to changes in angular acceleration. The moment of inertia is just a property that comes from the mass and geometry. It's not 'caused' by the motion, but is rather the property of the object that makes it more difficult to make quick changes in direction. The moment of inertia of the extruder is constant regardless of whether it is moving or not.

THIS WAS VERY HELPFUL!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Should I disable the speed reduction for the short layers for that test?

Great video and cool desing! My problem right now is retraction. i cant find a way to fix underextrusion in parts like you're tolerance test. i have tried small amounts slow , fast, big amounts fast, slow etc. this leaves practically unuseable parts.

Would you say it's a ... Ghost in the Shell?

Good info as always Angus. Cheers

I already put my mk2s on 2cm thick rubber plate but I noticed this ghost effect on a print. Does the concrete above the rubber doing a big difference? Also I thought that I have ghost effect because I put the motors in silent mode instead of power mode . what do you think?

I was really hoping for more information in this video, about how to tweak jerk and acceleration settings. The defaults in Marlin firmware are really not right for my printer, and i end up having to print excessively slow as a result (I have no Idea what my printer's original factory settings would have been, because upgrading Marlin changed them)

Excellent teaching video. Thanks, Angus

Angus do you know how to cure scaring on outer layers, where it leaves a gap on the start of a new layer until it primes more filament....Using a wanhao i3 with a micro swiss all metal hotend 1mm of retraction, PLA @ 200c bed @ 60c and cura as slicer....Thanks chris

Should I also make the table rigid (to the wall for instance) or let it be loose as some form of dampening?

Hi Angus love all your vids! Can you please do a video on z seams, they are very annoying and I would love to know how to make it less visible, thanks.

Interesting - I thought I'd had just about every 3D printing fault but I've never seen this one! Perhaps because I'm always printing in slow motion! Thanks, very interesting.

What about ringing on the side of a curved object, e.g. the side of a sphere/ back of a marvin? I always thought that it was due to the step resolution of the motor. Is that the case or is there another way that it can be fixed?

What kind of foam should I use to minimize those vibrations?

Would love to see more troubleshooting videos like this :)

Tks A. I have learnt so much from your channel.

The surface reflections contributes as well to the visibility of the ghosting. With Glossy filament it's much more visible than with a matt finish.

i noticed some ghosting on a reprap model 3d printer. which happens when you put support between prints (overhang) this only happens on a few layers tough. the layer where the support layers start and where they end. the file is a really simple file with no text and less than 15 sides with 1 half circle.

Angus, would it be fair to infer from what you showed here that the delta type 3D printers should exhibit less ghosting than the cartesian/gantry style 3D printers since the print head is the vertex of a tetrahedron, and is therefore thoroughly braced by default?

hi I did a print of it no Ghosting at my normal print speed, so I up the print speed till I started getting ghosting,eg 15mm/s to 25mm/s so now print at 20mm/s with no ghosting, THANKS MAKERS MUSE

Angus I was actually going to ask you if you had a video like this and you went and made one before I had the chance to ask. I really appreciate the videos dude, thanks a bunch. :{J

Could you a video on printing nylon on the Cetus? And quality printed upgrades for it? Loving mine.

Thank you so much I’ve had a big problem with this

Can it be effective to convert printer from belts to screws to reduce ghosting?

I found putting a couple of kilos of filament on top of the lid ( Flashforge Dreamer) improved print quality a lot.

Also: check belts are properly tensioned if you get ringing

Wasn't the Mk3 review coming soon in the Clearance/Tolerance video that was 2 months ago?

Hello , I am happy to found your video for how to fix the problem on 3D printing , here I got a problem hope you can help , my problem is when I start printing every thing is OK , but after around 50% then the print head will cooling down , I have use a new set of heat sensor , but same problem got .so hope you can sharing your experience , thank you very much , regards John

I downloaded this stl, sliced it in Ideamaker for my Flsun Q5. It is printing now but the print head is moving so slowly you have to touch it as to make sure it is printing. Is this test only for Cartesian style printers?

Would it be possible to use a normal 3D Printer in some sort of non-conductive oil (Like the stuff LinusTechTips used to dunk an entire PC into) And if it is possible at all, would it be able to prevent the need for putting Supports on your prints since the oil might provide the support it needs.

Spooky scary vibrations send shivers through your print...

Could you add a damped mass to the end of the Cetus's arm?

Thank you, that will be useful without any doubt!

Thanks for the what's what on 3D printer Ghosting Angus... Was new to me.

Wouldn't it be possible to set the settings to slow down before changing directions? That way you can still print straight or smooth lines at a decent speed while not getting the ghosting from the sharp turns

What video editing software do you use? Can you recommend any free versions?

Don't have issues with ghosting but the meshing of GT2 belts and pulleys causes tiny ripples every 2mm. How to fix that??

Stiffening and reducing mass both have the effect of raising the natural frequency, and dampening like with shock absorbers as you mention has the effect or reducing the amplitude but widening the range of that response. Likewise slowing down the print speed lowers the working frequencies of the system. The goal is to push the systems resonance response high enough that it's outside of the working range. This method can of course reduce resonance but it can also introduce new resonances that weren't there before. There is an alternative in that you can increase mass and attempt to push the resonance outside of the working frequencies by decreasing the resonance frequency substantially. This isn't necessarily a good fit for 3d printing but it does well with someapplications. Ultimately though no simple solution like this will do as well with as little as a control system in the firmware with proper resonance compensation. Traditionally for mechanical systems you use a a state observer (a low order Luenberger observer) to inform a feed forward controller which deliberately offsets the resonance peak from the control signal. This is part of why higher end 3d printers despite similar construction standards to other cheaper printers, can at times get better results. A lot of thought is given to system rigidity, resonance, and the control logic itself.

My ghosting problem with my creatility cr-10 s5 is from the absolutely massive weight of the bed. 500mm square aluminum plate with the frame underneath and same size glass plate, the heater and the aluminum plate for leveling screws. The whole thing probobly weighed over 10 lbs. I modified it to only weight about half as much.

Does this happen on sla/sls printers as well?

thanks a lot dude! really objective and helpful!!

one of the quick ways to sometimes get rid of ghosting is to change the orientation of your print and try to have the widest parts lowest when possible and have the print head print less and less per layer as it travels up. Doesn't always help, but some times it does.

Do anyone try to make a jerk compensate part or device which attach to printbed?

I've had a problem recently where the bottom layers are all squished. No idea how to fix it

Could I send you a picture of a print problem I have been having and get your opinion? It may be moisture, but I cannot figure it out and it is driving me crazy constantly changing settings to try and fix it.

Dude, love your videos, but do you know what moment of inertia is?

it's weird for me. i get nice outer walls on my prints (i print molds for casting), but when it prints the inner "bowl" part, i get some layers that stick out, and some that are ok. imagine printing a box with a half sphere cut out of the middle. layers 1-40 are fine, layers 41 through 59 stick out like a band, layers 60 through 82 are perfect, then 83-100 are sticking out like there is a band again. it really messes up my casting, since those details show up in the casted object.

Useful info. Appreciated.

i am new at 3d print. please make a tutorial video . inside ender 3 menu . like inside the tune and option what does it do .

I "upgraded" my lower tray (the structural one below the heated one) on mine to a metal one and I guess it increased the weight because it ghosts horribly now. Need to change it back.

Why would you change jerk and acceleration in the firmware rather than in the slicer?

I was in the middle of building something and then when I woke up the next day I noticed the printer stopped printing but it was going through the motions in the air like it was trying to print. Would you have any idea what could cause this? Hopefully I’m making sense. If not I apologize.

to fix my issues with blobs and ghosting i just lowered my jerk and accel settings. i worked my way down from stock. im not at home but i have done this on all of my printers and leave my print speed set to 100mm/s on the ft5. i believe i am set to 1100 and 8

Thanks for the video. Subscribed.

One thing I never see mentioned and I see a lot of people doing is mounting the filament spool onto the top of the printer. Putting all that weight high up is just exaggerating the swaying that the printer is doing and increasing the ghosting.

I've been having this problem on my ender3s1 and ender3v2 for a few days and I can't find a solution. Everything I change doesn't change the result for worse or for better. I do not know what else to do.

how to make straight corners? or less round

I've been watching you a lot and I love your videos. I hope I can get my own 3d printer someday :)

Thanks dude, I recently noticed some ringing on my cheapo machine, now I can fix it!! 😜

One tip: Putting your printer onto a foam board or put it on springs for vibration Isolation does not reduce the ghosting. It just changes the eigenfrequencies of the whole system so the ghosting will appear at different movement speeds / changes of speeds. Putting the printer on a vibration isolation only reduces the vibration that the printer gives to the surface it stands of. In general the printer on it's own will "wobble" more.

Thank you!!! Subscribed!

Also spring tensioners can allow bouncing. Replace them with solid tensioners

Thanxs man! It helped a loooot

increasing rigidity could avoid layer shifting ?

You can also rotate the print +/-90° and use the other axis.

On your Prusa print I see the infill looking through the outer wall. I have the same problem on the MK2s with linear advance (latest firmware). What is causing this and why is only the Prusa showing that problem?

please!!! someony try archery dampening gear on his 3d printer, thats a question i need an answer (quality dampening gear is to expensive on my country to try)