Thanks @Phaedrux , good tips for the new guy. I have PID tuned both, but just pulled the magnetic part off (thought it might be contributing to the warping), so I'll re-do that. I think I've got enough to keep me busy for now, and things are looking better.

Thanks all for the help and feedback, it's much appreciated!

Thanks all. Things are looking better. I modified the M558 command, and I think that, along with slowing down to 20mm/s and upping the bed temp 5 deg. to 75, for the first layer) turned out pretty good:

It was stuck pretty good everywhere as well. However, measuring the thickness of the lines varies from .20 mm all the way to .10 mm. I would think the mesh compensation would help compensate for a more consistent .20 mm all across the bed. Is that how it should work?

I appreciate the other comments too. I do have a metal nozzle and clogging hasn't been too bad, it's usually when things don't go well that it makes a mess. I did notice that there was a nice coat on the nozzle after this print, maybe because it was a little too close to the bed in places...??? There does seem to be a "sweet" spot for the temp so that it's not too "oozy", and I might still be a little on the high side at this point...still tweaking some stuff. I have printed a temp tower, but those can be hard to decipher when it looks similar across a range. Anyway, I want to print out a new mount using PETG for a direct drive setup, so that should help...when I get that done.

I also double-checked the BLTouch mounting height and trigger height yesterday to make sure that was good, and that appears to be correct. I can position the nozzle in different places at a height of .2 mm and measure using a feeler gauge and it seems about right (this is when the bed is at temp, heated).

Getting closer, thanks!

@Phaedrux - thanks for the suggestions. A little background... As far as trying PLA goes, I went through a spool of Overture (red) and Creality (black) and those stuck pretty well to the bed. I was printing smaller stuff and just kind of dealt with the issues I'm mentioning. I then got a spool of Hatchbox (red) because I had read a lot of good things about it. However, for me it has been nothing but a pain to get the Hatchbox to stick to PEI (I did clean the PEI with soap/water and alcohol as you recommended, tried glue and blue tape as well...tried a bunch of stuff), it sticks better to the stock bed that comes with the Ender 3 Pro. I've kind of given up on that spool for now, since I really want to print out some things with PETG. The PETG actually sticks much better to the PEI bed than the Hatchbox PLA. I want to try to print some bigger things with PETG and really want to try to get the first layer dialed in. For some smaller test prints, using PETG, I seem to have things dialed in pretty good and they are pretty dimensionally accurate (I've calibrated the extruder and have some digital calipers I use to measure prints for accuracy). My biggest problem now is the first layer. Sure, I can "squish" it, but then I've got elephant's foot. I've played around with the first layer bed and nozzle temps and haven't had much luck so far. I think I even tried slowing down the speed at one point (it's currently 25mm/s). In short, I've already done a lot of tweaking and research and haven't had much luck, which led me to post this. I recently started 3D printing and thought I had an idea of what I was getting into, but I was wrong! I've spent a lot of time and frustration trying to figure things out, but I love a good challenge and I'm not about to give up (I'm not complaining either ). I'll continue to try tweaking these and making sure the bed is really clean. I'll also try the M558 command you recommended (I did see it mentioned in another post...I think ;-)).

@Phaedrux and @peter247 - I checked my X and Y offsets before I posted, and checked them again just now, just to make sure I'm not missing something, and they are correct. To calculate them I taped a piece of paper to the bed, dropped the nozzle down to zero (wrote down coordinates), pressed up on the bottom of the bed a little to make a mark on the paper, and then moved the Z-probe pin to that location (I'd move the pin up/down to make sure it was pretty exact) and subtracted the original nozzle coordinates from the probe coordinates. I use this mount for the BLTouch and it's mounted on the left side of the nozzle (if you are looking at the front of the printer). I did, a while ago, have the offsets incorrect, and they were positive numbers, not negative numbers, but after fixing that, it seemed to work better, but still now what I was expecting (they are correct for the examples I have above).

Thanks again for the help and suggestions! I'll have to play around some more with these ideas and get back. I feel like I'm so close to getting it dialed in and to the point I can actually have a lot of fun with it, rather than frustration. Oh what a journey this had been!

@Kolbi said in BLTouch and Mesh Compensation Issues:

Are you performing mesh with the bed heated?

Yes, I heat the bed up and let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes before I run the mesh compensation.

I've got an Ender 3 Pro with a BLTouch hooked up and the sensor seems to be working correctly. I followed the steps here and here to get it setup and working. I also reviewed this article. However, I'm not having much luck with the first layer adhering across the entire bed. I run the Mesh Compensation, and here's the resulting height map:

I realize it's not the greatest, but I figured the Mesh Compensation would help "level" it out. I guess this is one disadvantage of buying cheaper printers. Anyway, here's the result of trying to print a first layer test using PETG:

As you can see, it works fine in certain areas, but in others it doesn't want to stick (because it's not close enough to the bed). If I check the web console, it shows that Mesh compensation is in use, and I also have a G29 S1 in the G-Code that's exported from Cura, to make sure the height map gets loaded. If I mess with the Z Babystepping I can get it to stick, but then the first layer isn't uniform (0.2mm height).

Here's the Z-Probe section from my config.g:

; Z-Probe
M307 H3 A-1 C-1 D-1       
M307 H4 A-1 C-1 D-1       
M558 P9 H2.5 F120 T6000   
G31 P25 X-42.5 Y-16 Z0.957
M557 X5:245 Y40:210 S20   

Any ideas on what the issue might be? Or, is the bed too far out of level for it to work effectively?

Thanks!

Board: Duet WiFi 1.02 or later (duetwifi102)
Firmware: RepRapFirmware for Duet 2 WiFi/Ethernet 2.05.1 (2020-02-09b1)
Duet WiFi Server Version: 1.23
Duet Web Control 3.1.1

@Phaedrux said in M305 Thermistor Values for the Duet 2 WiFI on the Ender 3 Pro?:

Try M305 P0/P1 T100000 B3950 and see if it matches more closely to the previous temp tower performance.

@Phaedrux, thanks! That seems to work better and align with what would be acceptable temperatures.

I'm new to 3D printing and I'm probably in a little over my head, but I like a good challenge and this has been a fun one. I recently got an Ender 3 Pro and ran it for a couple weeks to get familiar with it. Everything seemed to work fine and prints at 200 C turned out just fine. I then installed an configured a Duet 2 WiFi board with a BLTouch sensor and everything is working...for the most part. I've followed documentation, guides and recommendations from the Duet sites (mostly from this article and links contained in it: Ender 3 Pro and Duet Maestro Guide (yes, I realize I have a WiFi, and adjusted accordingly, followed the entire guide, including auto tuning of heaters)). The problem I'm running into, is that it seems to print a lot hotter than the temp I set in the slicer (using Cura). I've printed out a temp tower, and currently I set the print temp in Cura to 175 C (it's the temp that looks the best on the temp tower). Prints seem to turn out fine. However, I'm worried that somethings not configured correctly for the thermistor, since I'm printing at such a low temperature (recommended low for the Creality black filament I'm using is 195, also tried it on some red Overture filament and it was the same). Unfortunately, I don't really have a way to check the temp other than the temp gauge that's used for our furnace (that's about 15 feet away from the printer). I'm not sure how accurate it is, but the nozzle/bed report 24.7 C, and the gauge on the wall reports ~26 C. My current config is as follows:

M305 P0 T100000 B4092 R4700
M143 H0 S125
M305 P1 T100000 B4092 R4700
M143 H1 S275

The above are the settings that were from the web configurator for the Ender 3 Pro. I have read through this forum post, and tried T98801 B4185 for the hot end and the bed, but those settings seemed to print even hotter, so I ended up going back to what I posted above. I admit, I'm not familiar with all the math that's going on to deal with these values, and I'm guessing the B value is correct (I couldn't really find that in the firmware I downloaded for the Ender 3 Pro). I'm wondering if others have this issue or if there could be something I've overlooked.

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

Board: Duet WiFi 1.02 or later (duetwifi102)
Firmware: RepRapFirmware for Duet 2 WiFi/Ethernet 2.05.1 (2020-02-09b1)
Duet WiFi Server Version: 1.23
Duet Web Control 3.1.1