1.   What is Retraction?

Retraction is a feature used to prevent stringing by pulling back (retracting) filament when the nozzle is moving over a non-printed area.

When the nozzle travels from one printed part to another during printing, the heat of the nozzle combined with the gravity will lead to the over extrusion of filament. By enabling retraction, filament leakage during nozzle travel can be counteracted, and therefore produce a print with a cleaner surface.

2.   Why Do We Migrate Retract & Z Hop to Material Settings?

Retraction settings are mainly related to the distance and speed at which your filament is pulled back.

Depending on the properties and other configurations of the material, decide whether to enable retraction or not. If you enable retraction, it is necessary to properly configure Retract & Z Hop for each material.

For example, for flexible materials such as TPU, you should disable retraction or set relatively small values for retraction distance and speed. Otherwise, it may lead to grinding of the filament.

3.   How Can I Find the Historical Data of Retract & Z Hop Configurations?

The historical data of Retract & Z Hop configurations you set for your previous prints are backed up and stored on your computer. You can find the historical data by taking the following steps:

(1) Click snapmaker-recover on the pop-up Parameter Position Change window. Or open the File Explorer on your computer, and enter the following path:

• Windows OS: C:\Users\admin\AppData\Roaming\snapmaker-luban\snapmaker-recover
• macOS: /Users/admin/Library/Application\ Support/snapmaker-luban/ snapmaker-recover

Replace admin with your username.

(2) Open the file folder whose name contains the latest timestamp.

(3) Open the file folder named “printing”.

(4) Open the corresponding file folder based on your machine model.

(5) The historical data of Retract & Z Hop configurations you used before the latest Luban update is stored in the files whose names start with “quality”. You can open the files directly to view historical data or import the files to Luban and view previous Retract & Z Hop configurations in Material Settings.