Solved Bed Adhesion and Retraction Issues

Hi, I just recently replaced my filament since I ran out, and now the prints are having alot of trouble adhering to the platform as it begins printing. It says it is 1.75mm PLA filament, from the brand AMX3d....before I ordered the filament directly from robo 3D. I had tried different temperatures, from 200 to 220 C, and bed temperatures from 60-80. I always use hairspray on the glass platform and I even cleaned it completely and re-applied new layers of hairspray. I have also tried using blue painters tape, and nothing seems to work.

I watch it begin printing, and the lines it places are very very thin and don't adhere to each other. As it prints, I can tell it's not sticking well because some corners are rounded and some areas aren't completely flat. Eventually on one of the passes as it makes a slightly sharp corner, it picks up filament with it and everything goes wrong from there. I've read that playing with the z-axis could help, but I am sort of unsure how to change that, and I think it's wierd that it would have to be changed now afte I've had succesfull prints up until the filament change.


EDIT: I think I may have found a good number, but I can't be sure until a new problem is fixed, which is that now it is not retracting for some reason. I noticed it never retracts anymore even though it has retraction enabled in cura.....like when it would move to another spot to start printing that parts area, it would just drag a little filament across to the other area, rather than retracting during the move.

 

Ok thanks! I'll check that out

 

Nothing there really helped, and I still haven't been able to resolve the issue. I am trying to edit the g code where it says "M565 Z-1 ;" and I tried increasing and decreasing the number a tiny bit, but the extruder head doesn't seem to change at all, even when I drastically change the number. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Yup, the z offset is my issue, I just printed with mattercontrol with no issue, now I am trying to get cura to realize that I am changing the z offset code.

EDIT: EDIT: I thought I fixed the problem with fiddling with the z offset, but still having issues... maybe I have to find the exact right number? Ugh this is so frustrating.....Putting the offset at a lower number so that it's closer to the bed seemed to help, but some areas still mess up and then some spots don't stick and eventually it takes the filament for a ride with it since some didnt stick and it picks it up.

 

Ok, I may have found the magic number now yay! An offset of .87 seems to be working so far, I may try with .88 to see which is better.

 

Have you tried upping the first layer extrude percent? It helped me with bed adhesion on ABS. I use 200% on ABS and 150% on PLA.

 

Unfortunately I thought I had the number down lol, but still some minor issues, so I'm still fine tuning....but no I haven't tried fiddling with the percent for the first layer.

ANOTHER issue I am having now, is I noticed it never retracts anymore even though it has retraction enabled in cura.....like when it would move to another spot to start printing that parts area, it would just drag a little filament across to the other area, rather than retracting during the move.

 

I did not remember the exact setting but I just checked. It is the first layer width. It helped a lot with the adhesion.

 

Any suggestions on the retraction issue?

 

I don't know what to try anymore, I have fiddled with different gcode, each of which include auto-levelling and height adjustment, I have tried many many z offset numbers, tried 0mm, .5mm, and started at .8mm and worked up to 1mm offset in steps of .05mm with no avail... an offset of .87mm seemed to work decent for a little while but then failed after a few passes. I also tried different temperatures for the bed and extruder. Not sure what to try or if I just haven't found the right combination of settings.

 

Ok so I think I figured out after the fact that one area printed pretty perfectly, then when it moved to another part of the bed to print, it seemed too far away and fails, I feel as if the bed isn't actually level. I had an issue where the switch on the left side was moved so far down it no longer touched the carriage that the extruder slides on... so I moved that back up into place and now I need to make sure that x-axis carriage bar is level. Hopefully this will solve my issue!