Ten failures, three causes: debugging an FDM 3D print
A failed 3D print doesn't throw. The printer runs to completion, the fan spins down, and as far as the machine is concerned everything went fine. The only artifact you get is the object, and the object is wrong. That's a hostile debugging position by software standards. No logs, no stack trace, no exit code, and a test cycle measured in hours rather than seconds. It's also why searching a symptom…
Three main causes can explain why an FDM 3D print fails: first-layer adhesion issues, extrusion problems, and layer separation. To debug these failures, start by examining the height of the defect on the Z axis, as it directly maps to when the machine went wrong. This approach is more informative than searching through logs, which provide no logs, stack traces, or exit codes.
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