u/ZakMcGwak

I’m brand new to 3D printing, having received an Ender 5 Pro as a gift from my brother after he bought it several years ago, set it up, and never used it once. I’ve been reading all I can and trying to get this thing tuned and calibrated, and I’m at a point where I can complete prints now but they all come out looking like this.
I’ve calibrated my extruder by marking 100mm on the filament roll and adjusting it as per this guide: https://youtu.be/wjCVdhlznHw?is=

As you can see in the 5th picture I also printed a temp tower and it seems like every temp it tried strings pretty badly.

Retraction is enabled, I have tried both 5 and 6 in Cura Ultimaker.

At this point I have to wonder if the issue is the filament- like I said earlier my brother bought this thing a few years ago and the filament has been sitting in his closet ever since. It was vacuum sealed in the packaging when I got it, but even still one has to wonder how that holds up against the forces of his Pacific Northwest Garage. I’m ordering some more and hoping it helps, but in the meantime I would like to use up the stuff that came with it instead of throwing it out, if at all possible. Anyone else got any ideas for tests I can do?

Edit: Forgot to clarify that I’m using PLA, which would probably have been assumed but just to be clear!

Halfway through a print my Ender 5 Pro’s Y axis froze, and cannot be moved through the interface at all. Attempting to manually push it with steppers disabled or when it’s turned off is met with great resistance. When I attempt to move it manually via the LCD screen or via auto home/auto Y I get that grinding sound in the video.

I’ve already checked the rails for debris, and I’m not finding anything blocking it. I’ve only had the thing for three days and the previous owner said he never used it once, so It’d be crazy if I burned that motor out with a few benchies and one Pokémon figurine right?

Edit: I fixed it, I think? Not intentionally, I just did some stuff and it started working. I made a comment below with a video showing what I did.

I'm brand new to 3D printing after being gifted an Ender 5 by a relative who bought it years ago but never used it. I've been learning like CRAZY over the last few days and, as expected of a newbie, have had a lot of kinks and problems to work out.

At this point I think my main problem is under extrusion, based on how all my prints are coming out. Gaps between layers, filament getting ground up on and flattened on retraction, some prints failing when the nozzle keeps moving but filament stops coming out, etc.... I've got lots of issues and they all seem tied to the extruder.

I found this guide for calibrating your extruder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjCVdhlznHw

And it seems useful except for one problem: My Ender 5 Pro is on a different firmware (latest and greatest from Creality as far as I'm aware) and the "Prepare" menu isn't there. I've managed to find a way to do most of the things from the old prepare menu like auto home, move my axis, etc... But I cannot find a way to extrude filament besides printing a file. Is this option hidden somewhere else, or was it fully removed?