Occasionally I Torture Myself With Textured Steel Sheets
What are the cheat codes for making these textured sheets work consistently with PETG? Everything is inconsistent.
Background: mk3, mk2.5, both running prusaslicer with updated configs. 0.2 layer height profiles used. Latest firmware. Yes, I understand z height and that, but I am just not getting the hang of the textured sheets.
Specific issues: even with wave spring style bed leveling and 0.02 MAX tolerance on bed leveling, some places print fine (sometimes) and others produce crappy results. To get adhesion I really have to smash it down, and I know it is too far when I do that because single lines clearly show the bed texture through them and the top is not smooth. A series of 9 test squares roughly located in the nine calibration points... some come out better than others. Others look like the nozzle ripped them to shreds. Almost none look acceptable. These results occur no matter what I do, it seems. Currently trying to get some love out of a txt sheet on my mk2.5, which is such a beautiful workhorse of a printer with a smooth sheet! Ugh. All real tests are petg
RE: Occasionally I Torture Myself With Textured Steel Sheets
Read my post here:
There's no "magic". A properly clean sheet works just the same for PETG as it does for PLA.
RE: Occasionally I Torture Myself With Textured Steel Sheets
There is magic, you can't fool me. I followed your link and I'll try washing the bed as you suggested. To be clear, your suggestion is to go to the kitchen sink and wash it with water and dish soap, despite the recommendation against that by Prusa. Immediately drying it out on the printer afterwards.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
RE: Occasionally I Torture Myself With Textured Steel Sheets
Clearly I've unknowingly made offerings to the correct 3d printing deities to have had it just work for both PLA and PETG, then... 🙂
The reason PR recommends against it is fears the sheet will rust, but that's a non issue if you take care to dry it thoroughly afterwards with heat, and don't do it every day. (Not like there isn't water in IPA as well...) I washed my sheet once to remove the factory residue when I got it back in June and it's still going fine with the occasional IPA wipe. I'll likely wash it again if I start having adhesion issues.
RE: Occasionally I Torture Myself With Textured Steel Sheets
I think this procedure fixed my issue. New textured sheets need to be washed and dried according to your suggestion before use. I hadn't even opened one of them, so I tried it and got the same bad results as before. The one I washed works great now. And all that frustration trying to follow all the rules...
Thanks again for answering this question yet again.
RE: Occasionally I Torture Myself With Textured Steel Sheets
Clearly I've unknowingly made offerings to the correct 3d printing deities to have had it just work for both PLA and PETG, then... 🙂
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RE: Occasionally I Torture Myself With Textured Steel Sheets
I'll tell you what, the thing that happens to me is this... I'll get things dialed in and get comfortable sending print jobs of most any variety without any issues whatsoever and develop a false sense of security... and forget half of the crap I learned getting to that point... then when something falls out of line, I have to go through this painful learning curve again. It's time induced technomechanical dementia. I think part of my brain just starts to assume something is physically broken rather than assuming, say, the bed is dirty. It's a testament to the relative high quality of these printers. People occasionally complain that they are expensive (because they compare them to $200 clones which, in most cases probably require so much extra spend to correct for cheap parts that the real cost is probably similar) but the truth is, these are almost illogically reliable machines.
Anyway, I digress. I appreciate the way there are people here who genuinely get this stuff like... you know... professionals... And that they'll help out here. THANKS!