PLA Adhesion to MK3 smooth plate
Well excited opening my Prusa MK3. This is my first ever 3d printer. The printer arrived with an already printed Prusa Logo on the plate; to show it works.
But for the life of me I cant get my initial layers of printing to stick.
I have the silver basic PLA provide by Prusa with the assembled kit.
Room temp is 13 Deg C (I had to point my room heater fan over the printer to get the kit to work (needs to be 16 deg C))
I have tried adjusting the live z a little (-0.3)
I have tried glue; I smeared some on the surface, once.
The plate has been cleaned with IPA.
Anyone with similar experience, any help with getting my first printer out?
Andy
Re: PLA Adhesion to MK3 smooth plate
maybe the ambient temperature in the room is too cold? did you try to turn the heated bed on for better adhesion?
Re: PLA Adhesion to MK3 smooth plate
Thank you for your suggestion.
I have warmed up the room; atleast locally to the printer but i think the ambient temp issue only gets one over the MINTEMP error. I will however crank up the heating and see what that does.
It is very frustrating as I bought assembled to be able to get straight into printing and designing. ( I have little very time).
Re: PLA Adhesion to MK3 smooth plate
Did you calibrate it ? Run Calibration wizard - it will, among others, print "V2 calibration" file which will help you set Live adjust Z. It seems that you have head placed too high still. Look in 3D printing handbook under calibration. On my MK2 i've had Live Z set to -0,6 on PLA and -0,9 on ABS.
Even if you got assembled printer it's absolutely necesarry to do calibration procedure before printing. Shipping caused printer to wiggle so it's definitely somewhat off. Prusa even says that it's advisable to calibrate each time you move printer, too.
Re: PLA Adhesion to MK3 smooth plate
I would run z calibration again, as suggested, and then do first layer calibration. How did you arrive at -0.3 live z? Was -0.3 sticking and -0.4 was sticking too well and smeared into the bed too much?
Re: PLA Adhesion to MK3 smooth plate
I would run z calibration again, as suggested, and then do first layer calibration. How did you arrive at -0.3 live z? Was -0.3 sticking and -0.4 was sticking too well and smeared into the bed too much?
Each machine should be unique, that number is simply an indicator for reference.
Mine calibrated ~ -0.525 once , and ~0.495 for different color of the exact same material.
As well as each willl be up to the user to determine what is right and helpful.
IMO, they could perhaps do better in describing that function in the handbook.
I suspect a fairly experienced person at 3D printing is writing the manual, as there's are many nuances that are glossed over and not explained thoroughly to get the important details and ideas across or define the need for the calibrations and settings.
You will need background to
Re: PLA Adhesion to MK3 smooth plate
Personally I do "Life Z Adjust My Way" prior to each print. Takes only about 15 minutes each time and lets me double check my settings and look the bed over while printing. Haven't worked my way up to "Hyperfine Bed Leveling" yet.
The reason for it is because while you can control nozzle and bed temps you can't control ambient as much. I work in a garage and ambient from different times of the day and night can vary greatly. We work with tolerances, while printing, where even the expansion and contraction of the frame can be seen in print quality if it changes too much from morning, noon, and night.
Neal
Re: PLA Adhesion to MK3 smooth plate
Hi,
I had issues with adhesion as well. No matter how i tuned the live-z, PLA just would not stick. Turned out that the IPA that I was using probably had some additives that were not mentioned and it actually reduced adhesion. I cleaned the bed with acetone and then tried tuning the live-z again --> success. I also upped the nominal bed temps slightly compared to my previous printer as the temperature sensor seems to report ~5C lower values than the bed actually is. I read from somewhere that PEI activates better at higher temps and that seems to be true - at least to some degree. Still I need to print the first layer rather slow if I have small parts (20mm/s) but no more issues. I have to admit that Buildtak was easier surface but needed periodical replacement as it was really easy to damage.
I actually had small issues getting ASA off the bed 🙂