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Terrible first layers.

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by TylerJones4292, Dec 21, 2013.

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  1. TylerJones4292

    TylerJones4292 New Member

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    My first layers on my prints are getting really bad textures. It looks like the filament is getting caught on the edge of the hotend and it's getting dragged around.

    I'm printing in PLA with 0.3mm layer height (100% first layer height).

    [​IMG]

    I'm not sure what caused this. My first few prints went well, then I started having these problems. I added the blue painters tape and tried leveling the z-axis more times than I want to count, but it's still giving me bad first layers.
     
  2. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    Thanks for supplying all the information you did it seems like you may have two issues going on one may be your retract settings the other is it looks like the bed may be tilted downward just a bit going backwards the skirt seems to print well but it is at a much slower speed so the filament has a good chance to get put sown well how ever at high speeds it may be not stick as well as you can see in the pic all the roughness seems to stop along the same point on the Y axis all along the x and s tells me the bed infront of that area is the right height but just behind it it starts a slight slope downward and the filament just is get a chance to stick well.

    You may want to look at some bed levelers to help make sure the bed is as level as possible
     
  3. TylerJones4292

    TylerJones4292 New Member

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    Soupaboy also recommended I change the retract settings, but I've set it at 1mm and 2mm and neither seem to help.

    How should I go about checking/leveling the bed? I'm still new at this.
     
  4. Melody Bliss

    Melody Bliss New Member

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    2 people like this.
  5. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    I actually ran mine at 0(zero ) for a long time and that work well but in teh last few weeks I have switched to .2 and .2 for lift and length and in some case taht worked better but it really related to the filament being used. the easiest way is with a dial indicator which can be attached to teh x rails and moved to the different points on the bed to check. unfortunately you need to print a dial indicator holder to have it work nicely in the meantime perhaps another way can be found to temporarily keep it secure
     
  6. ponwer

    ponwer New Member

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    Tess I meant to get back at you, but what worked for me was putting the flow rate lower I played around with it and 80 was good.
     
  7. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    if that is a consistant setting for you that is good you should probably add that as the extrusion multiplier is the equivalent so setting that to .8 (in your case) would allow you to move the slider back to 100. I would check it on a few prints and see if adjusting has other benefits or issues that are as of yet unknown. I personally use the flowrate as a guide for how plump something is like hotdogs "they plump when you cookem" so if you have say a nut and bolt you are printing or a rod and hole and things are dimensionally correct but just to tight I lower the flowrate and they fit. and it could be Tylers issues as well I would try all of the ideas presented so far.
     
  8. Matthias

    Matthias Member

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    I had to reduce it to 90-92% as well with the ootb hotend and lower quality (0.2). For the latest prints with E3D and 0.1mm, I had to go back to 100%. So the layer height may also play a role and may force you to have different flow rates for different layer heights.
     
  9. TylerJones4292

    TylerJones4292 New Member

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    Thanks for this! I'll be giving the whole thing a good read, but for starters it looks like I have a reversed Z axis home stop.
     
  10. TylerJones4292

    TylerJones4292 New Member

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