After printing nice skirts, new lines come out poorly [Solved]

Thanks Steve, yes I'm using glue stick. I'll give the hairspray a try. I actually haven't tried any other colors since I got my printer running properly, so I can't really answer that question yet. I have robo3d red, blue, and the sample blue that came with the printer, all PLA.

The reason I havent used hairspray was to try and avoid having any overspray cake on to the nearby components over time. I was also worried about controlling the amount, not knowing if I was spraying too little or too much. I went with a method that was much easier to quantify.

 

I'm fairly confident my first layer is super low because after I apply glue stick, and my printer goes through bed leveling, there is always a tiny line in the glue where the nozzle moved to get to the spot to start the print. Yet its not touching the glass at all.

It's an issue I think I could fix if I had manual control over the toolpaths on the first layer. It's really only a problem when the direction changes much more than a 90 degree turn. I think if it stopped for a second at the tip of each point it might be ok too.

I'm considering Simplify 3D because changing things and getting them to stay changed in Matter Control has been a nightmare. I feel like I have no control over anything.

 

This is what I have posted before about overspray:

To prevent overspray I use one half a shirt box with a rectangle cut out in the shape of the bed. The 2 1/2" sides of the box catch the overspray. You can even tape on an extra piece of cardboard near the X carriage side for good measure. I have been using the same shirt box since last November and I don't see any residue higher than 1/4" (edit - probably close to 1/2") up the sides of the box.​

 

The LCD with baby stepping is the best way to deal with it. I'm sure you're super low, but like I said PLA is very tricky to stick. You want it just past the jamming point of getting filament out of the nozzle.

 

I'm going to attempt a few of the hairspray/hairgel suggestions and go from there. It seems weird to me that my skirts stick fine and large prints work great, only for small objects to fail catastrophically on the first layer.

Is there a way to prevent any pieces of the plastic that are sticking up from sticking to the nozzle when it makes another pass? Or is that just the nature of the beast?

I've heard about the LCD screens and seen them in some photos, do you have any current info on them?

 

Printed solid sells them. http://www.printedsolid.com/shop/printer-parts/smart-lcd-controller-xxl/

It's a direct plug in w/ no other mods needed

 

Do a post search and you will see a bunch of ways that they can be attached to the printer. My scheme requires an extension of the ribbon cables.
http://forums.robo3dprinter.com/index.php?threads/reprap-xxl-control.2956/#post-29905 but it is pretty clean looking and gets it away from the table top.

 

Ok guys, huge improvement here. I've managed to almost completely solve the problem by using hair gel instead of a glue stick. It appears that while the glue stick was working well, there is a massive difference in the adhesive property of the hair gel, and its enough to solve the problem about 90% of the time. I think slowing the speed on the first 2 layers could fix that additional 10% . I've been able to print some VERY small snap pins that don't have much room for error on the tolerances.

Thanks again to all of you for your help in getting me one step closer to excellent prints! I've had my printer for almost a month now and I feel like I'm almost out of the woods!

 

Good news. What type of hair gel did you use? How did you apply it? Did you also try Aquanet?

 

I used hair gel from the dollar store. I looked at the ingredients and it had the mythical copolymer ingredient. I haven't tried aquanet yet because I had the hair gel on hand already. Next time I see some I'll give it a try.

To apply the hair gel i just put some on my finger and swiped it across the surface until it was as thin as possible. Once the bed heated to 55 it was dry but incredibly tacky. Usually when my printer does the auto bed leveling, it leaves tiny pieces of PLA where it touches the bed. With glue stick those came right off. With the hair gel I had to just leave them there.

Here is the exact stuff I used.

http://www.dollaritem.com/store/product/141293/C12908/HAIR-STYLING-GEL-16Z-WET-LOOK-LUCKY.cfm

 

Thanks for the details.

 

Thanks everyone for the input. A combination of the hair gel and reducing the printing speed on the first layer ended up being the solution to this problem. @Mike Kelly I think this one can be marked as solved too!

 

Hi, i have a problem with the edge of the pieces, becouse the edge is always like "z" (see image), can you help me?

 

That looks like Z wobble to me. Check out this thread and post there if you need more help: http://forums.robo3dprinter.com/ind...facts-known-issues-and-fixes.2576/#post-21295

 

me paso igual me di Cuenta Que le pega coloque Para hojas pega stic y se pega muy bien a la cama