# ABS Suddenly printing badly.

**URL:** <https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/abs-suddenly-printing-badly/5059>\
**Category:** Filament\
**Created:** [July 15, 2017, 4:36am UTC](https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/abs-suddenly-printing-badly/5059 "2017-07-15T04:36:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AustBots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@AustBots](https://forum.lulzbot.com/u/AustBots)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2017, 4:36am UTC](https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/abs-suddenly-printing-badly/5059/1 "2017-07-15T04:36:22Z")

</div>

Hi All,

Not sure what is going on here. This is ABS on my Taz 4. It was printing really nicely in black ABS then I changed to blue ABS and quality went to rubbish. Any ideas what is going on?  
 ![IMG_0367.JPG](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/lulzbot/original/2X/9/9f84173ab2f6ae6ae9b53b3d6b69f66078ad4c7a.jpeg)  
 ![IMG_0366.JPG](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/lulzbot/original/2X/9/939904688ddee8183e9a473c401b485dfb7f8563.jpeg)  
 ![IMG_0365.JPG](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/lulzbot/original/2X/d/d688f0a3b239d49377c7a75b8f2b9f9eb7f08434.jpeg)  
 ![IMG_0364.JPG](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/lulzbot/original/2X/3/33b4af4be128671b88cf75479ad372a3f01e2f8b.jpeg)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![piercet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.lulzbot.com/piercet/32/12_2.png) [@piercet](https://forum.lulzbot.com/u/piercet)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2017, 4:45am UTC](https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/abs-suddenly-printing-badly/5059/2 "2017-07-15T04:45:46Z")

</div>

You are overextruding badly. The blue filament is either larger in diameter than the black and you need to adjust the filament diameter size, it is formulated weird and needs a different temperature, or it’s crap fillament.  
After adjusting the filament diameter setting, print calibration cubes until they are dimensionally accurate.  
Also try adjusting the idler arm tension tighter.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AustBots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@AustBots](https://forum.lulzbot.com/u/AustBots)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2017, 12:10am UTC](https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/abs-suddenly-printing-badly/5059/3 "2017-07-17T00:10:11Z")

</div>

Thank’s so much for that advice. I measured the filament and it averaged 2.87mm. I had the print settings on 2.87mm, so I changed it to 3 to reduce the amount of filament.

See photo for the result - much better, but am I still over extruding?  
 ![IMG_0370.JPG](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/lulzbot/original/2X/b/b3b61f4ab01a00e43161763c1d82180f3a25de4a.jpeg)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![piercet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.lulzbot.com/piercet/32/12_2.png) [@piercet](https://forum.lulzbot.com/u/piercet)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2017, 2:49am UTC](https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/abs-suddenly-printing-badly/5059/4 "2017-07-17T02:49:10Z")

</div>

You are a bit under now, try 2.95mm or maybe 2.93