Part keeps lifting up off of build plate

[Sam Ferguson]

Hello, I am trying to print a relatively simple part but am having issues with the part lifting off of the printbed.  The part I am printing is basically a tray with a sort of nozzle on one end.  I have tried printing in several different orientations to no avail.  What ends up happening is after a raft is laid down, one corner of the part keeps lifting off the print bed and eventually drags the whole thing off.  I have tried without a raft and that doesn't work either.  I have no modifications to this printer as it is barely a month in use.  I am using PLA with the "magic glue" to stick the part to the bed.  Any tips?

Thanks!

[Peter Gregory]

Is it really cold where you are printing? If it gets below 70 degrees, the bed will cool the part quickly and cause lifting.
Is it really dry where you are printing? If the glue dries quickly due to low humidity, the part will not stick well.
Is the Z-Gap set right? If the Z-Gap is not close enough, the part will lift. The first layer needs to be pretty flat into the platform. If the first layer does not appear solid and looks like lines of filament instead of a solid piece the you will need to get the Z-Gap closer.

[gimungus]

I almost never use a raft since it's so hard to cleanly remove.  I have had issues like you have though and I've found two useful things to prevent it.

PLA is less fussy than ABS but these help with both.

First, with the magic glue.  I apply a thin coat, let it dry (about a minute or so) and then add a second coat.  I then add a drop or two of water (no more) to the print surface and spread it around liberally mixing with the applied glue.  The water thins and reactivates the glue keeping it sticky for much longer than the glue alone.  This gives you a longer window in which to start your print.  Peeling usually occurs for me when the glue has dried before the base layer goes down.  The really nice part about this is that if you can pry up your print without cleaning your print bed you can apply a couple drops of water and using the scraper to spread it around I can often reuse the same application of glue 4-5 times.

Second, if that doesn't do the whole trick I've been adding little dime size discs about a 1-2mm thick to any right angle corners on the base of my build.  these little feet keeps the corners from cooling significantly faster than the edges which often causes peeling.

Good luck, and I hope this helps.

Chris

[Sam Ferguson]

Thanks for the tips.  I had a problem with the timing of the glue drying and my z-gap being to high.  It looked like the filament was just sitting on top of the platen rather than a solid piece like Peter said.  After making those adjustments I was at least able to get the print going.  It made it 8 out of 22 hours (see pic).  Sometime during the night however, the print lifted off the build platen and slid off.  The room I am keeping it in has poor insulation and the temp can vary from 66 F during the day to 59 F at night.  I'm thinking that has something to do with it.  What do you do to counteract this?  The building is centrally controlled heat so turning it up during the night isn't really an option.  Maybe a blanket?  Also I will try the discs next and see if I get any further.

[Peter Gregory]

I bought a small electric oil heater for the room with my cubex.

I keep it at about 70 degrees.

I found the following accesories very useful:

Heater for the room when it gets really cold outside so I don't have to heat up the whole house

UPS power backup (We get power fluctuations here from time to time, it will stop a build dead when that happens)

Heated print bed from GRM products (works great - no more glue and parts stick great)

 

[Sam Ferguson]

Okay I'll pick one of those up and give it a try.  Plus the heated bad sounds like it's more of a requirement then an option.  Thanks for the help.

[bikejunky98]

I run into that issue periodically. This video shows how I keep the build temp more regulated. I stole the enclosure idea from JAndre.

http://youtu.be/bT3blsZ_b6k

[Sam Ferguson]

Nice, keeping the part warm is key it sounds like. I put a space heater next to my machine and set the temp to 70 F. Also I added some disk-shaped material on the 90 degree corners and leveled the machine as much as humanly possible.  The tip looked to me almost like it was dragging through the glue layer at first when it started laying down supports.  That seems to be the correct distance however because my part didn't lift of at all.

[rej...@hotmail.com]

I had the same problem and could not get a large part to print without the part lifting from the print bed. I did a lot of research and found out that the only real solution was to use a heated bed like other 3D printers. I bought one from GRM Products. It was easy to install. My test print part was perfect except that I need to loosen the Z-Gap a bit.

The heated bed was expensive but without it, I had a $3000.00 paperweight.

[Sam Ferguson]

I picked up a GRM heated bed a few months ago. It has definitely helped to keep the parts from lifting up as badly as without. Unfortunately I am on my third heated base from GRM because they keep burning out. I think it's just a bad batch of heaters though as I don't hear about too many other people having the same problem.

I also picked up some thin acrylic and cut out panels to enclose the CubeX to protect from drafts in the room. All these things I find are necessary to print with ABS. When I can, I print with PLA, it cuts down on warping significantly.

[giovanni...@gmail.com]

Hi, it's also better to use another slicer, because the Cubex software makes always the same path on each layer and this adds constraint over constraint.
A smart slicer like Kisslicer crosses the paths and cuts the constraint on the previous layer resulting on lower deformations.