3D Printing help — Hark Tech

Klipper vs stock vendor firmware — which should you use on your 3D printer?

Klipper genuinely makes printers faster and more accurate — but it's not the right answer for every user. Here's the plain-English comparison, including cases where stock firmware is actually the better choice.

How to ship a 3D printer safely for mail-in repair or tuning

A 3D printer is the most fragile thing you'll ever post. Gantries bend, extruders shear, beds crack. Thirty minutes spent packing properly is the difference between a fixable printer and a write-off. Here's how to do it.

3D print first layer won't stick? The complete fix list

A first layer that won't stick is the single most common print failure across every FDM printer. Nine times out of ten the fix is in one of four places — and none of them is 'buy a better printer'.

3D print layer shifted halfway through — causes and fixes

Layer shift — where the print suddenly jumps sideways partway through — is almost always mechanical. Loose belts, a stalling stepper, or the toolhead hitting something mid-print. Here's how to find out which.

3D print under-extrusion — gaps, missing lines, weak walls

Under-extrusion shows up as gaps between lines, pin-holes in top layers, and walls that crack apart easily. It has maybe six causes total, and most of them are in the last metre of filament path.

Creality K2 extruder clicking, skipping or filament jam — how to fix

A clicking noise from the extruder on a Creality K2 or K2 Plus almost always means the drive gear is slipping on the filament. Here's how to find out why and fix it without tearing the whole toolhead apart.

Creality K2 retraction settings — stop PLA and PETG stringing

The K2's direct-drive extruder needs shorter retractions than older Bowden Creality printers — if you've copied settings across from an Ender, you'll get jams or grinding. Here are the numbers we use, and what to change when strings still appear.

Creality K2 bed leveling & first layer problems — a practical fix list

Almost every first-layer problem on the K2 traces back to one of four things: a contaminated bed, a wrong Z-offset, a failed auto-level run, or a residual blob on the nozzle before homing. This guide walks through each in the order we check them in the workshop.