Poor bed adhesion, have tried everything
I'm having bed adhesion issues on the Prusa i3 mk3. I'm using the smooth PEI sheet (stock) that came with my Prusa.
I've done the following to attempt to fix bed adhesion problems:
-Cleaned with Windex and clean microfiber cloth
-Scrubbed with dish soap + brand new sponge.
-Bought acetone 100% and applied it and wiped it clean.
-Scratched with ultra fine sand paper 2000grit and it worked for 1-2 prints but then adhesion stopped working again.
-Used isopropyl 99% alcohol + microfiber cloth between every print.
My only solution is to use a glue stick, but it sucks to have to clean glue residue off the parts and bed afterwards. Is there anything else I can do at this point?
RE: Poor bed adhesion, have tried everything
Clean your bed with dish soap, and hot water, rinse clean, and then print the 1 layer Z cal print here:
(make sure your dish soap has NO additives - hand lotions, scents, whatever - and use a fresh sheet of paper towel to scrub)
Post a picture of the results with it still on the sheet. More than likely the problem will be visible in the picture for folks to help you - but if we can't see it we can only guess.
RE: Poor bed adhesion, have tried everything
I am having the same issue with PLA (Hatchbox). No exotic filaments, but the PEI is like teflon. A print will lay down and stick for 100+ layers, but then comes free and I have spaghetti. As the original poster pointed out a glue stick helps, but it does not guarantee success. If it does, by luck finish the print, a slight tap of the finger and it comes free from the bed. So like no adhesion. I am about to put frog tape and glue on the PEI steel plate. It works great on my old MP Mini, but I was kind of hoping using the technology bundled with an i3, adhesion was not going to be a problem. If the print does complete, it is gorgeous. But the last 2 prints were ruined after 40 minutes of print time. Frustrating. And I have tried Dawn and alcohol. I do not want to sand the PEI.
RE: Poor bed adhesion, have tried everything
If a print breaks away when glue stick is used, the first thing I would check is the Z calibration. Glue normally holds the PLA quite firmly to the build plate.
Another thing to try is to use a brim to get a larger surface on the build plate, or even some sacrificial break-away pieces.
RE: Poor bed adhesion, have tried everything
It is a newly assembled i3 and I performed the Z calibration. It looked great. Plus, wouldn't a bad Z calibration cause the first layer to not adhere properly? Or drag the filament, so you would not have good right angles? When the prints don't fail, they are strong and, as I said, gorgeous. I ended up putting Frogtape on the PEI and then glue stick. 20+ prints and not a single failure. It isn't as pretty as printing on a smooth PEI, and I have to wash off the glue, but I needed to get a couple projects done and using the PEI was a losing battle. I used to use brims and found it annoying having to use an X-acto knife to clean up all the edges. I don't know what the problem is. My altitude is just over 5000', so maybe that makes a difference. My wife suggested I research it. Thank you for the suggestions!
RE: Poor bed adhesion, have tried everything
About a month or so after I posted this, I resolved the issue. I thought the calibration looked good, but with a tiny adjustment, it got even better and no longer needs Frog tape or glue. The prints come off the bed looking like glass. The printer is awesome and I talked a friend into buying one recently. Sorry it took so long to mark this resolved.