Symptom: the whole model looks correct, but its first two or three layers are noticeably wider than the rest and stick out beyond the outline of the wall. The base has a rounded, spread-out edge, the print does not stand square on a flat plate, and parts that were meant to fit into a hole or into each other suddenly do not.
Elephant's foot (also known as a splayed base) appears when the bottom layers are soft and squeezed at the same time. Plastic just above the plate stays above its softening temperature for a long while, and the weight of the layers above acts like a press. The material spreads sideways because there is nothing to stop it. The mechanism is therefore the mirror image of the first layer that will not stick: there the material was too little and too high, here it is too much and too low.
The most common causes and their fixes
1. The nozzle is too close to the bed
The most common scenario is overcorrecting after a fight with a first layer that would not stick. The Z-offset gets lowered "for good measure", adhesion becomes superb, but every line is squeezed out sideways instead of settling into a rectangular cross-section.
How to check: look at the first layer against the light. If you can see raised ridges where the lines meet, and the outer edge has a ruffle spilling past the outline, the nozzle is sitting too low. The second sign is dull, scuffed streaks where the nozzle has been dragging over material already laid down.
What to do: raise the Z-offset by 0.02 mm and repeat the test. Aim for the state where neighbouring lines touch with no gaps but do not overlap. Always calibrate on a hot bed and after levelling — a Z-offset chosen cold will shift once everything heats up.
2. The bed is too hot
A high plate temperature keeps the base of the model in a plastic state for the whole print. It shows most clearly with PLA, because the temperature resistance declared by the manufacturer for this material is 60 °C, and many users set the bed to exactly 60 °C — the bottom layers then never fully harden.
What to do: drop to the lower part of the range. PLA holds onto a clean PEI sheet at a few dozen degrees, and on many machines even on a cold plate. If you are worried about losing adhesion, keep the high temperature for the first layer and lower it from the second onwards — most slicers let you set a separate value for the starting layer.
| Porima material | Bed temperature | Temperature resistance | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLA | 0–60 °C | 60 °C | The top of the bed range equals the material's resistance — print lower |
| Tough PLA | 0–60 °C | 60 °C | Same as PLA |
| Hyper PLA+ | 0–60 °C | 60 °C | Same as PLA |
| PLA/CF | 50–70 °C | 70 °C | The fibre stiffens the base, so the foot appears less often |
| PETG | 60–80 °C | 85 °C | Spreads at the top of the bed range |
| HT PETG | 100–120 °C | 125 °C | A hot bed is essential — compensate in the slicer, not with temperature |
| ABS | 80–110 °C | 100 °C | Lowering the bed risks warping, use compensation instead |
| ASA | 90–120 °C | 110 °C | Same as ABS |
| PA (nylon) | 90–120 °C | 150 °C | Plenty of headroom to the resistance figure, so the foot is usually a Z-offset issue |
| TPU Flex 98A | 40–60 °C | 70 °C | A soft material is easily flattened by excessive pressure |
Source: the official FDM technical data table from the manufacturer, Porima. Temperature resistance is a figure declared by the manufacturer, not the result of testing to a standard. The full set: print temperature table.
3. The first layer is over-extruded
Factory profiles often push first-layer flow up to 105–120% to improve adhesion. If an inflated extrusion multiplier for the whole model or badly calibrated e-steps is added on top of that, the excess material has nowhere to go and comes out at the sides.
How to check: measure the wall width on a test cube with callipers — once at the base, once at half height. A difference of more than a few tenths of a millimetre means a problem with the amount of material, not with temperature.
What to do: set first-layer flow to 100% and calibrate the extruder steps. Only then go back to playing with flow. Check the first-layer line width too — values above 120% of the nozzle diameter almost always end in a spread base.
4. Elephant foot compensation is switched off in the slicer
Every popular slicer has a function that narrows the outline of the bottom layers by a set amount, getting ahead of the material spreading. It is often off by default, because too aggressive a setting hurts adhesion.
What to do: in PrusaSlicer and OrcaSlicer look for Elephant foot compensation, in Cura for Initial Layer Horizontal Expansion with a negative value. Start at 0.1–0.2 mm and increase gradually. Treat it as a final correction rather than a substitute for a correct Z-offset, though — compensation hides the symptom, it does not remove the cause.
5. Too little cooling on the opening layers
Having the fan off for the first layers is a standard and sensible setting — it protects against warping. The trouble starts when it stays off too long, for five or ten layers. The base has no chance to set before several millimetres of material are laid on top of it.
What to do: with PLA and PETG turn the cooling on from the second layer and ramp up to full speed over two or three layers. With ABS and ASA you do not have that margin, because the manufacturer limits the fan to 40% and 30% — there the answer is slicer compensation, not cooling. With nylon the first five layers are meant to be printed without cooling, and you should not change that.
Quick checklist
- Raise the Z-offset by 0.02 mm and look at the first layer against the light.
- Lower the bed temperature to the bottom part of the material's range.
- Set a separate, lower bed temperature from the second layer upwards.
- Level first-layer flow back to 100% and calibrate the e-steps.
- Turn on elephant foot compensation, starting at 0.1 mm.
- Turn the cooling on earlier, as far as the material allows.
The overriding rule: change one parameter at a time. Correcting the Z-offset and the compensation together gives you an undercut base instead of a straight one.
When elephant's foot really matters
On decorative models a spread base is often unnoticeable and not worth sacrificing adhesion for. The situation changes completely on assembly parts: pegs, locating pins, housings that fit inside one another and anything meant to go into a hole stop fitting once the deviation reaches a couple of tenths of a millimetre. The simplest safeguard is to design a chamfer in CAD, roughly the height of the first two layers, around the bottom edge — the spread material then has somewhere to go and the part stays dimensionally correct despite imperfect calibration.
It is also worth remembering that elephant's foot and general dimensional accuracy are two different matters. If the whole print is oversized rather than just its base, look for the cause in the extrusion multiplier, the nozzle temperature and material shrinkage, not in the Z-offset.
Related problems
Calibrating the first layer only makes sense if the filament is consistent. Porima filaments are produced to a ±0.03 mm diameter tolerance, and we publish the manufacturer's full official print data — you don't have to guess it. Our warehouse is near Poznań, in Swarzędz.
See Porima filaments · Print temperature table · All 3D printing problems