I just changed my stock Ender 3 hotend to a Volcano to get back to a more durable printhead after wrecking my Creality Spider head and have gotten it to where I can print something monolythic (like a brick or boot dryer type thing that doesn’t have much actual detail) without much issue, but printing something with any detail, such as a character piece for DnD results in an absolute whispy disaster. I’m still trying to print stock recommended speeds and stock temperatures (PLA at 200C, PETG at 240C, etc at 50 to 75mm/s) and retract from none to 9mm trying to find something that works. Nothing does so far, even when I go to playing with temps (PETG 200-260C, PLA 180-240C) Where should I set my baseline settings to be able to get close to the CR-10 head that I started with? I originally upgraded to the Spider, which is now discontinued, because of printing ASA and the CR-10 creating a lot of jams as the bowden tube degrades inside. I have also heard good things about the Volcano and was curious about them. I’m still running the stock extruder, btw. I’m betting my problem is simply that I don’t know how to use this head yet, though I guess I could have gotten a dud.
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To be honest the Volcano HE is the wrong thing for printing small detail like a DnD character. If you do all the calibrations it can print quite well but will never have the control thats needed for high detail prints. Your best bet is to have an extruder setup that makes it easy to change out the HE. I run both the volcano and normal E3D v6 and swop them out when needed with a EVA extruder.
Your wispy problem probably isn’t a hardware one, it’s more likely your filament is wet. Dry it out and try again.