I just sent this email over to elegoo official, so either way I'll update this post with their response for a community reference point:
"Hello, I'm having issues with my Elegoo Neptune Pro 4. I've tried following the official documentation and other resources to help fix my issue to no avail, so I am reaching out as a last ditch effort.
My issue mainly pertains to PLA prints consistently being ruined partway during printing after a few months of use and operation.
Specifically, my print will successfully complete the first few layers. Then, at some point, the print will somehow 'grab' or 'catch' the print base and drag it around the print bed, ruining the print and causing a large build up of filament at my hotend. This then requires cleaning.
From what I have seen, this can be caused by issues with the print bed not being clean or the temperature of the bed in relation to the fan speed. For example, having a low fan utilization at the beginning, then ramping up later in the print is supposed to help this issue. However any fixes I tried returned null results.
Some background info, I purchased the printer on preorder and received it in September 2023. I have kept up with maintenance. Namely, keeping stepper motor tracks cleaned and greased properly, belts tightened, the print bed is wiped down with 90% ISO alcohol between prints. I have replaced the hot-end when I first started experiencing print issues, and again during the troubleshooting process to further diagnose the problem. My Z offset seemingly is "correct". I followed the mfg instructions closely, and before this issue, my prints were coming out beautifully.
Print Settings: Using Elegoo brand PLA 1kg filament rolls. Default Elegoo Cura print settings applied for temperature, speed, fan speed, nozzle size, etc. Supports or No supports didn't make a difference during my troubleshooting. Brim printing mode is my default.
For the 4-5 months that I've had the Neptune Pro 4 has been absolutely amazing. Fantastic quality, consistent, very easy to use and maintain. The issues I'm experiencing are beyond annoying and I can't seem to figure it out myself.
Is this issue known? What are the recommended solutions?"
- Let me know if any of you have experienced something similar to this and how you addressed it!
EDIT: This is likely solved. There are many issues that can contribute to this issue but TLDR quadrouple check your z offsets. Read the thread for other good info.
Hmm. I don't have a specific filament dryer. I saw that this was recommended, but I wasn't having any perceiveable issues with wet filament before this problem.
To troubleshoot I tried ordering 'fresh' filament from 3 total brands. Some seemed to print longer than others but still would ruin the print eventually by catching on the base print. This was heartbreaking because I really thought this could have bene the fix.
Will look into improving my storage long term so this can be crossed out as a potential issue.
The humidity issue IMO is often overblown. It's really environment specific. In my old place my relative humidity was 35% so wet filament was never a problem. It'd be good to get a hygrometer to see where you're at before you start buying fancy filament dryers or accidentally melting your spools in the oven. If your area is generally high humidity then it can help. With PLA though it's not going to make a huge difference.
My humidity in my little printing enclosure is sitting at 21%, so it seems like this probably isn't the major issue. Thanks for the info, the other perspectives definitely help.