Every day is a learning day
Hi all
Have had my printer for a while now and apart from the general learning that you have to do, and little adjustments here and there I think I have been pretty successful so far. I have levelled my bed, set up filament settings for my different filaments and printed a lot of stuff with the odd failure here and there as is expected.
I printed a dinosaur skull for my daughter this morning and had a little trouble with the first layer, but got it printing and all was good. I was using a new Prusa Ivory coloured PLA. I went to print another print and the first layer just completely and utterly failed to stick to the bed. Checking it over it looked as if the Head was too high and made some adjustments.. and some more and then went back to the V2 Calibration Gcode. This failed to stick no matter how I adjusted, so re-ran the Z Calibration.. after resetting the Z Adjust to 0, and all my bed levelling settings. In short, no matter how close to the bed I got it either squashed it flat or appeared round. Every time I cleaned the bed with IPA that I have used since getting the printer to make sure it was fully clean.
In short, nothing worked and could not make the print stick. I sat there pretty sure that everything I had learned since getting the printer was now wrong.. amazing what not printing does to your self confidence.
In desperation, and certain that I was right about setting my printer up, I grabbed some acetone I brought for smoothing ABS that I never got round to and cleaned the bed with Acetone. First test print afterwards, had 80% of the print stick, little Z adjustment to Z and perfect.
Anyone else had anything similar? I keep learning this stuff but I keep finding new stuff to give me the non printing grumps.
Nick
Re: Every day is a learning day
Nick
One thing I found recently is that it really does matter where the probe is located when you heat the bed...
I now ensure that the probe is at lease 100mm away from the bed during pre-heat otherwise the 9-point calibration is incorrect and the first layer is way too high.
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: Every day is a learning day
Thats handy to add to my ever growing check list...along with every filament extrudes differently, looks better with different heat and everything else. I know I didn't ever think it would be click and print for everything, although for me any issues are always first layer based with PLA, once I get past the first layer, she is a good printer and finishes the rest off without many issues. I did find that brim and support for small items can be a pain, print clicked off the board twice because the support couldn't hold it properly, so slowed it down and went with just Brim and finished the print, just a little bit messy on the underneath but worked...
Re: Every day is a learning day
Nicholas
I have never had any first layer issues with the Mk2 and PLA, since I "dialled it in" properly. For me, the biggest thing was to get the probe precisely adjusted, so my Live Z Adjust is very small (-0.025mm).
Then preheating (as above) with the nozzle to 170 degrees and only raise to print temp after the 9-poing calibration.
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: Every day is a learning day
Peter,
re: "and only raise to print temp after the 9-poing calibration."
How do we do that? In my case, the printer waits for the hotend to reach the first layer temp chosen in Slic3r before initiating the 9 point calibration?
Thanks,
_
gabriel
Re: Every day is a learning day
I tend to raise the extruder to the top of it's travel at the end of a print, because it makes print removal a little easier for a clumsy person like me.
this has the side effect of making sure that the probe is away from the bed whilst heating.
regards Joan
I try to make safe suggestions,You should understand the context and ensure you are happy that they are safe before attempting to apply my suggestions, what you do, is YOUR responsibility. Location Halifax UK
Re: Every day is a learning day
Gabriel
It is all handled by the "Start GCode". This is what I have set up:
G21 ; [mm] mode
G90 ; absolute mode
M201 X1500 Y1500 E900 ; set default acceleration
M301 P24.24 I1.93 D75.95 ; set PID for extruder heater with sock
M304 P81.33 I3.91 D423.05 ; set PID for bed heater
M92 E175.5 ; Set Extruder Steps
M140 S60 ; Heat the bed + 5 degrees for Mk2
M104 S170 ; Warm it up to calib temp
M190 S60 ; Heat the bed and wait
G28 W ; Home all (no calbration)
M109 S170 ; Warm it up to calib temp, and wait till it's warm
G80 ; mesh bed levelling
M109 S215 ; Warm it up to print temp, and wait till it's warm
M83 ; Relative extruder
G1 Y-3.0 X50.0 F1000.0 ; go outside print area
G1 X100.0 E5 F1000.0 ; intro line
G1 E-0.5 Z2 F1000 ; Retract a bit and lift nozzle
G92 E0.0 ; Zero extruder
Certain settings above will be different for your printer, but you should be able to see which ones...
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: Every day is a learning day
Thanks Peter, that helped! I'll experiment with the idea, and I'll try to understand what the first 6 lines of your code does 😉
gabriel