Had to replace hot end. Still not happy with print quality.
Ended up having to replace entire hotend. Got it installed. Re calibrated. On the Z axis. I had it set to -.640 seemed to be the best. Anything different either was crooked lines or no filament at all.
Bottle opener and Batman went off with out a hitch. Tried the dragon and it got screwed up on the feet. It seems like my nozzle kind of leaks. So when it does the test right before a print it might build up a little ball of filament that. I have to make sure is gone or it’ll ruin the first layer.
Even if there is no extra leaky fillament and first layer seems great it might get stringy and ruin layers.
Like this one one right now seems pretty goofy. It’s the first one I tried in splic3r. Added a color change it’s all sorts of goofy.
Any ideas?
RE: Had to replace hot end. Still not happy with print quality.
Your images show classic bed adhesion problems - which normally are due to two things: poor Layer 1 calibration, and bed contamination (mostly finger prints on the PEI surface).
You images look like a good soap and water wash will help, a lot. Do the Hot Water wash ... and do not touch the bed with your hands. Ever. Finger oils, hand lotions, etc. Nasty stuff in 3d printing. Even use extreme care when loading and unloading filament. A finger print on the spool will kill a print as much as poor adhesion from a dirty print bed.
Hot Water wash: often, as needed
Handle the bed only by the edges.
Wash the bed in hot water, use a fresh paper towel as a wash cloth, with a few drops of plain dish soap (Dawn, unscented, no anti-bacterial, etc.). Rinse well in hot water - if you have very soft water, rinse a bit longer.
Dry the bed with a fresh paper towel.
Handle the bed only by the edges.
Place bed on printer.
Alcohol rinse: every few prints
Once in a while, an alcohol rinse is helpful to remove PLA residue. It does not remove finger oils.
Pour a 5 cm puddle of 91%+ alcohol in the middle of the bed, with clean hands use a fresh paper towel to scrub the bed. Wipe up all the alcohol.
Streak test: when contamination is suspected
With a fresh piece of paper towel, and very clean fingers, dampen the towel with 91%+ alcohol, and wipe the bed side to side moving back to front, like you're painting it with alcohol. The alcohol should be thin enough on the towel it quickly evaporates. If you see any streaks, the bed is dirty and needs a wash.
Acetone wash: infrequent
Pour a 2 cm puddle of acetone on the bed, scrub it around with a fresh paper towel. It will evaporate fast as you clean. This step removes PEI oxides that form over time and with heat, and improves PLA adhesion to a like new state.
RE: Had to replace hot end. Still not happy with print quality.
Awesome thanks for this! I noticed my bed might have been damaged from troubleshooting the first jam, there is a permanent scratch in the middle. This has been a fun expensive fast good learning experiment. So I was trying at the top right with this print since it looked to be unscratched. Everything was great until I switched colors. Nozzle was clean, went back to the model and it droped a cm of fillament before it hit the start of the layer. I'll give it a good clean and use the undamaged side (it's a dual side sheet right?). The nozzle is brand new so no worries about that being damaged.
I might have to just grab a box of gloves. I live in the desert, and there's no handwash station in my little workshop. I'll never have perfectly good hands. The idea of the fingerprint on a spool really tells me how important it is.
What about the leaky nozzle, would that be from a bad layer1 or dirty sheet?
RE: Had to replace hot end. Still not happy with print quality.
Just use care handling things. I use pliers, tweezers, and plastic spatulas for anything that contacts the bed mid surface. And bare fingers to flex from the unused side when removing parts. So I leave prints around the edges, but any print left in the middle gets washed before the next print.
Here's an example of a finger print from loading filament: look for the FAT section of this pile: that's where oil from holding the filament boiled inside the nozzle. Most of the coil is 0.4mm, but that fat section is almost double that, and no way would it have stuck to the bed.
RE: Had to replace hot end. Still not happy with print quality.
I'm not seeing evidence of a leaky nozzle in your photos. But your assembly could have issues if you didn't follow the E3D assembly instructions to the letter. Two key points sometimes missed: the nozzle must not bottom out in the heater block; and the nozzle must be torqued while hot (285c). The issue is the nozzle must fit against the heat break so they form a tight seal. If the nozzle bottoms out, the heat break will be loose, and leak around the threads. If the nozzle and heat break aren't torqued hot, the assembly will leak when it warms up.