3D Printer Bed Adhesion Fixed

[Robert Schultz]

Greetings

I've done a few things to try and fix the adhesion issues on the 3D printer. Here is what I did (#3 was likely the primary cause):

#1: Updated to latest Cura

#2: Installed latest printer firmware

Note: When switching printer heads (flexy/standard) you no longer install custom firmware, you instead choose to install the default firmware.

#3: Adjusted Z-Index Offset

Critical to adhesion is how close the first layer is to the print bed. If it's too far away prints won't adhere correctly. I noticed during printing a test poker chip that it was way too far away. This likely happened because after we squared the printer a month or so ago, I never re-calibrated the z-index offset. I've done a few test prints and adjusted the z-index offset to a place that I feel is much better now.

I've left the blue poker chips that I printed during this process and labeled them Top1, Top2, Top3. If you flip them over to the bottom you can feel and see how the first one has lots of gaps on the bottom where as #2 and #3 are much more smooth. It's supposed to be super smooth.

#4: Replaced Felt

When the printer cleans it's extruder, it's extruder head is heated, and gunk on the felt can then melt onto the extruder and then when it tries to make contact with the bed leveling washers, the gunk intereres with the electrical contact and that causes auto-leveling to be inaccurate and that can cause adhesion issues due to the first layer not being printed accurately.

#5: Tightened bed leveling washers

If any of them are not tightened down properly then that causes auto-leveling to be inaccurate.

#6: Increased initial layer width to 125% (was 100%) for all profiles

The original default profiles had 125% width for the first layer, but I changed this a long time ago to 100% as there wasn't any bed adhesion issues at that point and it made the first layer a little cleaner in terms of matching the model dimensions. If you need a super accurate part, you may want to change back to 100% or due to the other things I did, using 100% might be fine as a default. For now I'd say keep it at 125% and see how things go.

#7: Print bed temperature

I did not make any changes here, however increasing the bed temperature can help get things to adhere better. I'm hoping we won't really need to do this though since making the changes above.

Time will tell if the adhesion issues have been fixed by any of the above changes, but initial test prints are quite promising.

Lastly, we had talked about potentially changing the PEI surface for a new one. I'd hold off on doing that for now. Changing the PEI is a pain in the ass and adhesion issues may be fixed now with the above changes.

[Zak Smolen]

Awesome thanks! I think the sanding I did cleaned the PEI surface well enough for now. It was noticeably smoother and less gunky after, so hopefully we can hold off on that for a while. 

Sent from my iPhone

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