Odd dotting when printing a line I tried printing a "improved" calibration cube and noticed that the printer was laying down dots instead of a solid line. This was right after switching out my extruder motor and tweaking retraction settings. I believe my first setting was 0.3&nbsp;mm, then I tried 0.1&nbsp;mm. I didn't get a picture of the first setting, but shown below is when retraction was set to 0.1&nbsp;mm. I think the print was at layer 3 roughly. The difference is 0.1&nbsp;mm had a higher frequency of dotting, ie more dots that were closer together.

This was only present in the first couple of layers. The dots weren't occurring in the same spot so the picture shows dots overlapping each other making a sort of "twisted" or braided look. This also happened on both the x-axis movements and the right side of the y-axis movements. The rest of the cube came out relatively well.

Settings


Printer: Creality CR-10S
Temp: 205&nbsp;°C at nozzle; 60&nbsp;°C on bed
Retraction: 0.3&nbsp;mm initially, 0.1&nbsp;mm (pictured)
Bed Distance: ~0.1&nbsp;mm
Nozzle Diameter: 0.4&nbsp;mm
Layer Height: 0.2&nbsp;mm. I usually do 0.4, but I was lazy with slicer presets (AstroPrint)
Hotend: e3D Hemera direct, e3D v6 heater and nozzle
Filament: Hatchbox PLA white


I never saw this issue before on my printer nor have I seen it mentioned in various articles/videos online.
I have seen this a lot of times on my tronXY-X1 with an e3d-v6 via Bowden tube. It is not related to retraction but a different settin: Your first layer is set too thin or not leveled to the right height. 

Having the first layer too thin, means that with a tiny error, the calculated correct extrusion becomes either a massive overextrusion or a barely sticking underextrusion. For example, the repeatability of the probing is the biggest error source. A well calibrated probing might varry about 0.05 mm between extremes, so would be written as (layer thickness)+-0.025 mm. On a 0.1 mm layer, that is a 25 % over- or underextrusion; overextrusion of that degree is well known to create such ripples.

Setting it to 0.2 mm for the first layer in Cura, Slic3r and PrusaSlic3r (look in your advanced settings!) did eliminate such rippling for me. My understanding is, that the extra distance gives the filament better ability to flow and stick on this first layer. Also, remember to set your line width to ca. 10 % wider than the nozzle - 0.45 mm is my typical setting.