come on I dare ya put me down again

OK I think I have a way to describe what is happening with all the prints coming off the bed. First of all, 98% of the time it has very little to do with what you put on the bed surface to help make it stick the more in this case is not better least is better. I find hairspray alone on the bed surface with some heat for ABS and NO HEAT for PLA works best and had teh least impact on the part being printed.

The benefits are as follows the hairspray adds only a negligible amount of height to the bed surface so fine tuning the z height becomes easier and the application process is simple with tape and every other method the surface height becomes unknown and the z height has to be adjusted often reducing the repeatability of the successful prints. the single disadvantage to hairspray is that not all brands work here in the US aquanet is by far the favorite else where I am not sure but one brand will work I am pretty sure you may have to experiment.

OK now the real most likely reason prints are having trouble staying in place is:

The nozzle is simply too far from the bed at the inital or first layer


Thats it.

It may look good to you but I can almost guarantee that is the issue

The use of the business card does exactly two things.
Sadly, most people think it does the wrong two things.

The PRIMARY purpose of that process is NOT to get the height right it is to level the x axis to the bed surface.

The distant SECONDARY purpose is to get the height close to where it should be it will not be correct

The reason a business card is used is because the secondary purpose get it close but the business card always seems to get it close on the high side so the fine adjustments that remain to be made are generally in one direction downward. Using paper could get you higher or lower than where you need to be so it just becomes a bit more tricky both will work one is less work.

Now the supporting information
When the nozzle is too far from the bed the filament is simply down set there, it is not securely put down on the bed surface. You see how I said PUT DOWN instead of set down many novice printer think once the filament hits the bed surface it is done. That is far from the case and is what you are seeing when prints get dragged around or the filament loosely slides on the bed.

It is simply laying on the surface. Any lateral pressure such as the extruder putting down subsequent layers the directional lateral movement is enough to cause the print to simply start sliding around behind the extruder. What appears to have happened is that the extruder itself was the cause but it was not, the first layer was not PUT DOWN...

Take piece of play-doh and set it on a plate of glass tip the glass and it falls right off now take that same piece of play-doh and push it down onto the glass surface and then tip the glass nothing it stays right there, turn the glass over nothing it stays right there, even shake it lightly nothing is still sticks because it was put down. That is what you have to do to the filament in order to get it to stick.

With the nozzle too high on the first layer the filament is being set down not PUT DOWN there is a big difference and you can easily see it every time you see a print come loose.


The single caveat has to do with ABS. ABS has a high tendency to warp doe to thermal coefficients being radically different between layers (ABS cools quickly PLA does not) the difference can actually cause parts of the print to warp and actually peel form the bed. PLA can also do this much to a much lesser degree. This warping that can pull the print off the bed should not be confused with the issue I just described they are completely separate issues.

This post is long enough now but hopefully you understand why some prints do not stick contact me if you need help getting the z height adjusted properly as it really needs to be explained.