Pretty much at my wit's end

Kweakui

Thanks a lot guys, I'm going through re-calibrating the printer. I have 2 rolls of PLA, but they're pretty brittle (probably because I just let them out in the open for the last year or so), so I'm going to figure out if I can fix it, if not, I'll have to order some more. Either way, I'll update this when I have a chance.

Thanks again!

dc42

@Kweakui said in Pretty much at my wit's end:

Thanks a lot guys, I'm going through re-calibrating the printer. I have 2 rolls of PLA, but they're pretty brittle (probably because I just let them out in the open for the last year or so), so I'm going to figure out if I can fix it, if not, I'll have to order some more. Either way, I'll update this when I have a chance.

Thanks again!

I find that if I throw away the first few metres of filament, after that it stops being brittle and can be used.

deckingman

@dc42 said in Pretty much at my wit's end:

@Kweakui said in Pretty much at my wit's end:

Thanks a lot guys, I'm going through re-calibrating the printer. I have 2 rolls of PLA, but they're pretty brittle (probably because I just let them out in the open for the last year or so), so I'm going to figure out if I can fix it, if not, I'll have to order some more. Either way, I'll update this when I have a chance.

Thanks again!

I find that if I throw away the first few metres of filament, after that it stops being brittle and can be used.

I read somewhere that it's exposure to sunlight (probably UV) that causes that to happen. I've noticed that transparent PLA is much more prone to becoming brittle than solid colour. And since I've moved my printer out of my study which has a window, into my garage which does not have windows, I haven't noticed any brittle PLA, despite it being left on the machine for months. So maybe there is something in that theory about UV light.

Kweakui

It appears that putting the filament in a freezer bag with a couple of silica gel packs for a few days fixed the brittleness.

So I went through the calibration steps at https://duet3d.dozuki.com/Guide/Ender+3+Pro+and+Duet+Maestro+Guide+Part+4:+Calibration/40 and the BLtouch part. I got to the part of printing the test cube, the first layer still isn't sticking properly and I'm not sure the compensation is working, if I look at the first layer it's trying to put down, some of the areas are laying down ok but others look like the nozzle is too close to the bed. I don't see the Z axis screw moving at all when printing, it gets most of the way through the layer, but then a part of it either doesn't stick or comes unstuck and gets pulled by the nozzle and takes the rest of the layer with it.

I ran the mesh bed compensation to generate the height map and it looks ok I think, I did all the flow rate and esteps calibrations, the bed is as level as I can get it.

I tried Baby steps and it doesn't seem to be helping, I'll keep messing around with it, but some help would be good. Let me know if you need me to post settings or anything.

I'm prinintg PLA at 210 with a bed temp of 60 at the moment, the first lines that get printed on the side from Cura seem to go down fine, but when it starts printing on the bed is when things start to degrade, this is on the creality glass bed as well.

Phaedrux

Clean your bed with warm water and then IPA and try again.

Are you running G29 before the print or loading a saved heightmap before the print with G29 S1? What does the height map look like?

Kweakui

I'm calling G29 S1 in the start code of the slicer

I ran G29 to generate the heightmap manually just before starting the print.

Here's a screengrab of the heightmap, that back corner looks a bit high, the back corner of the print is where the nozzle looks too close to the bed, Maybe a re-levelling is in order? But the printer should be compensating for that unless I don't have enough data points?

Kweakui

@Kweakui @Phaedrux Ok, cleaning definitely helped (should have tried that first), it still doesn't look like it's trying to compensate though as the part close to that back corner is definitely too close to the bed.

Kweakui

I'm a heck of a lot farther now thanks to your help guys, it printed out the test cube, there's still some dialing in for me to do I think, I'm still not convinced it's properly compensating, but I'm going to re-level the bed again and get that back corner in line as much as I can.

In the 21 mm of the test cube (box?) that it printed, the front looks pretty great but the sides have a bit of wobble to them and the back has these weird artifacts, here's a picture.

I think those might be down to Slicer settings, it looks like it does some sort of wipe at those points.

I'm going to try printing a few other things and see how to dial in all the settings.

If you guys have any suggestions, I'd welcome them.

Thanks for all your help!

Phaedrux

Thin prints like that with short layer times are going to have artifacts like that, so don't worry about it too much.

It looks like you could level the bed a bit more, but it could also be some skew in the axis itself, which you can't really level out. You can try upping the number of points to get some more detail.

You can also reduce the first layer speed and increase the bed and nozzle temp a bit to help adhesion. Your extruder should be well calibrated as well.

Kweakui

I'll try lowering the speed of the first layer, I tried printing a benchy, the brim seemed to print fine, but the actual benchy wouldn't stick in the middle of the bed. I'll also try upping the bed temp and nozzle a bit.

I did go through the bed and nozzle calibration while doing the rest, I think they're well calibrated now.

I'll get this eventually...

Phaedrux

To help with baby stepping adjustments you can set your M208 Z axis minima value slightly negative like -1 so that you can go below what the firmware assumes is the bed surface, but be careful because it will also allow you to go below what the firmware thinks is the bed surface.

Kweakui

So I lowered the first layer speed (down to 15mm) I also bumped up the temp of the plate by 5 degrees (65 now) and the only way I was able to get it to stick was using a layer of glue stick, it's printing a benchy now, I'll see what it looks like after..

Phaedrux

I found that glass has to be perfectly clean to stick well without using some adhesive. Try giving it a wash with some warm soapy water and then a wipe with IPA.

65c may be the heater temp, but the actual surface may be substantially lower, so don't worry so much about the number, use whatever value works. So try 70, or even 75.

baird1fa

I personally like glue stick as it give a release agent also. You can wash the glue stick away from between the part and the bed.

Kweakui

So The benchy printed, I still need to do some tweaking to get it printing perfectly, but it's printing now which is important, in celebration, I did a 14 hour print, a little planter with multiple compartments.

It printed out almost perfectly.

Thanks so much guys, your help was what got me back up and running.

Kweakui

@Phaedrux I'm using the official creality glass bed, it has some coating on it that's supposed to help prints stick when hot and release when cool, but it still has issues some times, I'll try a cleaning before each print and see if that helps any. In the beginning, I don't remember having to clean the bed every time and it was sticking great.

I'll try to bump it up a bit to see what happens (I can also measure the temp at the surface of the bed, so I can base the setting on that when I do).

Phaedrux

@Kweakui said in Pretty much at my wit's end:

In the beginning, I don't remember having to clean the bed every time and it was sticking great.

Many moons ago I could run a mile without breaking a sweat, but no longer. We all decline with age in some ways.

Kweakui

@Phaedrux True.

baird1fa

that is a common complaint on a facebook group for the ender 5's. I just use regular borosilicate glass with the glue.

hayseed_byte

@Kweakui said in Pretty much at my wit's end:

@Phaedrux I'm using the official creality glass bed, it has some coating on it that's supposed to help prints stick when hot and release when cool, but it still has issues some times, I'll try a cleaning before each print and see if that helps any. In the beginning, I don't remember having to clean the bed every time and it was sticking great.

I've tried those Creality glass beds on a couple of my Ender 3's and they work great for a little while but after 20 prints or so things don't want to stick. I just applied a sheet of PEI to the opposite side and print on that. Glass+PEI is the print surface on nine of my ten printers. The tenth one is the printer I built myself and it has Mic-6 aluminum with a sheet of PEI.

TLDR: Get a sheet of PEI for your glass and forget about adhesion problems.