How to Fix PETG Warping
PETG sits in the comfortable middle of the warping scale: far tamer than ABS, slightly more demanding than PLA. When PETG corners lift anyway, the cause is almost always a bed below its happy window, an over-eager part fan, or grease — and all three are quick to fix.
How much PETG actually shrinks
PETG’s shrinkage is modest, and it stays rubbery well below its printing temperature — it softens around 60 °C (its vitrification point). Keep the bottom of the part above that temperature and the shrink forces stay too weak to lift a clean, properly heated plate. That is the entire game with PETG: warm base, moderate cooling.
Quick fixes
1. Bed to 70–80 °C. Bambu’s stock PETG profile runs 70 °C on textured PEI; if corners lift, go up ~5 °C toward 80. Vendor baselines across the industry agree on this window — Creality, Voron, RatRig and most others default PETG beds to 80 °C. On a SuperTack plate stay at 60 °C maximum — and note PETG is marked incompatible with the Cool Plate (bed temperature 0 in the profile means unsupported).
Filament settings → Filament (bed temperature row for your plate)2. Tame the fan. PETG wants gentle cooling: the stock window is 30–60 % with no fan for the first 3 layers. A PLA-style 100 % fan freezes each PETG layer into tension and will curl corners on an otherwise perfect setup. On machines with an auxiliary side fan, the PETG profile keeps it at 0 % — verify it really is off.
Filament settings → Cooling3. Wash the plate with dish soap. PETG grips PEI ferociously when the surface is clean and lets go embarrassingly easily when it is greasy. Warm water, dish soap, a clean towel — not just an IPA wipe, which smears the oil around.
If corners still lift
- Add a brim: outer brim only,
8 mm. PETG’s moderate shrink force rarely beats a brim on a clean 80 °C plate. - Kill drafts: PETG tolerates open printers happily, but a printer next to an open window or AC vent will warp on the draft side. Move it or shield it.
- Check the first layer: a corner that never bonded is an adhesion failure, not warping. If the lifted corner shows clean plate texture underneath, work through PETG bed adhesion instead.
- Slow the first layer to
20 mm/sso each line gets pressed into the plate rather than dragged over it.
Special case: tall, thin PETG parts
A tall vase or bracket in PETG can develop mid-height warp — the part bends away from the auxiliary fan side on enclosed CoreXY machines. That is uneven cooling, not bed adhesion: confirm the auxiliary fan is at 0 % for PETG and, if the geometry is extreme, drop the main fan toward the bottom of its window. The general mechanics of uneven-cooling warp are covered in the main warping guide; PETG’s complete value table lives in the PETG settings guide.
Frequently asked questions
Why do PETG corners lift off the bed?
Almost always one of three causes: a bed below PETG’s happy window, an over-eager part-cooling fan, or a greasy plate. PETG softens around 60 °C, and as long as the bottom of the part stays above that temperature the shrink forces are too weak to lift it off a clean, properly heated plate. Warm base plus moderate cooling is the entire game with PETG.
What settings stop PETG warping?
Bed at 70–80 °C — Bambu’s stock PETG profile runs 70 °C on textured PEI, and Creality, Voron, RatRig and most vendors default to 80 °C (SuperTack maximum 60 °C, Cool Plate unsupported). Fan in the 30–60 % window with no fan for the first 3 layers, auxiliary side fan at 0 %, first layer at 20 mm/s — and if corners still lift, an outer brim of 8 mm.
How do I tell PETG warping from an adhesion failure?
Look under the lifted corner. If it shows clean plate texture underneath, that corner never bonded — it’s a bed-adhesion failure, so wash the plate and work through PETG adhesion fixes instead. True warping pulls a previously bonded corner up as the part shrinks. Mid-height warp on tall, thin parts is uneven cooling: confirm the auxiliary fan is at 0 % for PETG.
Not sure which of these fixes applies to your print?
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- Printed Model Warping: Causes and Solutions — Bambu Lab Wiki
- Model Warping, Falling Off, or Collapsing — Bambu Lab Wiki
- OrcaSlicer vendor profiles — SoftFever/OrcaSlicer (GitHub)