WITS END

[Ebygum]

Gday guys,
To cut a long story short carnt get it to stick.
Iv tried
1 . Glue stick
2 . ABS juice.
3 . Hair spray
4 . Glue stick and ABS juice

I just get a mass at the hot end.
I am using MatterControl.
Hot end temp 215 - 225
Bed temp 50 - 90
I have levelled the bed , re-calibrated the Z axis , homed the system.
I just don't know where to go.
Must add I am a complete 3d printer virgin so be gentle with me.
Any advise would be appreciated.
I reside in Perth Western australia.

HELP.

cheers

Ebygum

[Captain Starfish]

Forgot to mention in the email boss, if you can't get any joy out of the much more experienced, knowledgeable minds on here than my noobliness then you can bring it round to mine and we can have a play with it one weekend.

[guanu]

sounds like you are trying to print with abs, so I'll direct toward that..
few things to check, when slicing make sure you are not using the layer fan, but since you said even the first layer isnt sticking, that shouldnt be the issue off the bat.
what hair spray are you trying? I pretty much only use hair spray, but have found lots of types (even some unscented ones) wont stick, so I only use unscented aqua net in the purple can... its the best I've found.. dont apply a thick spray of it, just a light misting, this gives you a little more textured surface for the plastic to grab to..
for glue stick, make sure you apply it when the bed is cold...

also check in your slicer for the first layer height, I typically print with a .2 layer, but my first layer is .35 just to get a fatter thicker first layer to help it stick

just a few things off the top of my head

Guanu

[McSlappy]

Do you have shots of your first layer? Getting a look at what's happening will greatly help.

Don't feel nooby, I know your pain!

[guanu]

Do you have shots of your first layer? Getting a look at what's happening will greatly help.

Don't feel nooby, I know your pain!

from what he's saying there is no first layer... I've seen it a couple times myself, the filament just balls into a mass at the nozzle

Guanu

[Brian]

Do you have shots of your first layer? Getting a look at what's happening will greatly help.

Don't feel nooby, I know your pain!

from what he's saying there is no first layer... I've seen it a couple times myself, the filament just balls into a mass at the nozzle

Guanu

Perhaps this is a case of bad filament?
First layer thickness setting is too big? There's some settings I recall where you can force the first layer to be thicker in Z height by some percentage. There was another setting where you could make it fatter in width too, if I recall. Perhaps a combination of these is causing a weird extruder Z height or speed.

If the issue is that the parts come off the bed during print, then the best solution I found was to enable the "Brim" option. I've had great luck with that.

[Ebygum]

Eyup Guys,
Thanks for your comments keep em coming Ill try anything.
I am trying to print ABS.
The filament is the roll I got with the Orion.
I have printed 2 items other than the sample files.
Now everything seems to have gone amiss.

cheers

Ebygum

[nitewatchman]

I went through the same thing where after printing first parts that I thought were great, I suddenly could not get a first layer. As you said all I got was a snarled mess of rolled up filament. I started trying hairsprays and other stuff and nothing helped.

I stopped and went back to the setup. Recalibrating, I found that while the level was still very close, Z=0 had moved up by 0.2mm. No explanation, no apparent reason. So the extruded filament was just being laid or dropped on the glass and not compacted by the nozzle hence the round cross section of the mess. Reset Z=0 and all has been good since.

Have know idea why Z=0 moved up, all I can figure is there was a meteor shower that night and it may have been hit by a micro meteorite or some other event. In truth I really don't care, I just know how to fix it now.

So after it was reset, glue stick works, hairspray works better and I am moving to PEI with a copper heat spreader in a few days. Machine is a Rostock MAX V2 but the mechanics are the same.

nitewatchman

[Polygonhell]

generally if you can't get any first layer, it's one of two issues, 0 position of the head to low or 0 position of the head to high.
If it's too low, the filament is extruded very flat and basically it curls up behind the hotend, this is usually the issue IME because people don't do the Z=0 calibration when everything is hot and that can easily make 0.2-0.3mm of difference.
If it's too high, the filament is extruded round and just doesn't stick to the bed.
A short video of the first layer failing would probably help with the diagnosis.

[guanu]

if its the spool that came with the orion, what color is it... if its the 1 pound spool of blue, thats pla.. if its natural, its abs... if its the blue, you will want to go to a 60-65 bed, and a 205 hotend... all the orions for the past few months have been shipped with blue PLA...

Guanu

[626Pilot]

If using glue, apply when the bed is cold and then warm it. If using hairspray, apply when the bed is warm. In either case, you have to wait a little bit for the moisture in the adhesive to evaporate. Touch the bed to make sure it isn't still moist. Otherwise, it acts like grease instead of adhesive.

Make sure you did your Z=0 calibration with both the heated bed AND hot end heated up all the way to operating temperature. Both the hot end and bed will expand at operating temperature, so if you calibrate with either turned off, you'll get a bad calibration.

For ABS, people seem to suggest temps between 60-110C. I used unscented Aquanet hairspray with it and it seemed to work well. (Perfumed flowery smelling hair spray probably has ingredients that make it less suitable.) Someone told me the glue sticks DON'T work with ABS. I never tried so I couldn't say, but I don't see why glue wouldn't. Don't use the part cooling fan - ABS needs the previous layer to still be hot for the new one to bond.

For PLA, DON'T USE BED HEAT! It doesn't help. In fact, plenty of "PLA-only" printers are sold WITHOUT bed heat. If you're printing something with fine features and/or overhangs, bed heat will just cause uneven curling and the print will come out looking gross. This is why the Orion has a part cooling fan! If I ever used bed heat with PLA, it was at about 40C, and only so that the glue/hairspray would dry quicker. I'd turn it off after the first layer was down, because I knew it would hurt print quality. I also had to use it with Kapton tape on the build surface, but I abandoned that in short order. Kapton is a nuisance compared to glue sticks and it's always getting gouged.

If you haven't figured out the issue by now, get us a photo of the print in action. It's difficult to see without that.

[Ebygum]

Eyup Guys,
The spool is ABS natural.
Tried to post a video but got message MOV files not accepted ?
Will try the calibrations once again.

cheers

Ebygum

[626Pilot]

You can upload the video to Youtube and link it from here. I think there's a way to make it embed the link directly into the post.

[elwooddbeauchamp]

If using glue, apply when the bed is cold and then warm it. If using hairspray, apply when the bed is warm. In either case, you have to wait a little bit for the moisture in the adhesive to evaporate. Touch the bed to make sure it isn't still moist. Otherwise, it acts like grease instead of adhesive.

Make sure you did your Z=0 calibration with both the heated bed AND hot end heated up all the way to operating temperature. Both the hot end and bed will expand at operating temperature, so if you calibrate with either turned off, you'll get a bad calibration.

For PLA, DON'T USE BED HEAT! It doesn't help. In fact, plenty of "PLA-only" printers are sold WITHOUT bed heat. If you're printing something with fine features and/or overhangs, bed heat will just cause uneven curling and the print will come out looking gross. This is why the Orion has a part cooling fan! If I ever used bed heat with PLA, it was at about 40C, and only so that the glue/hairspray would dry quicker. I'd turn it off after the first layer was down, because I knew it would hurt print quality.

I have the narrow ends of my PLA part curling up from the bed after somewhere around 16 hours of printing using BED HEAT. The part takes 24 hours to print, so I want to get the procedure straight in my head.

I like hairspray best, so with the Z=0 Calibration done with both BED and Hot End heat on, start at 40C BED heat and turn it off after layer one...correct? (This seems like the best thing to do to ensure better material lay-down as the bed cools)

Also, how much hairspray do you think best?

I don't know what the gap between the nozzle and bed glass is cool, but I do know it is between 2 and 4 folds of paper. That being said, will the first layer apply nicely on a BED without heat turned on, without adjusting Z=0 distance?

[Brian]

2 and 4 folds of paper for the gap between the glass and the nozzle when everything is at operating temperature is way too much. The directions call for 1 sheet of paper to barely fit in the gap.

[elwooddbeauchamp]

2 and 4 folds of paper for the gap between the glass and the nozzle when everything is at operating temperature is way too much. The directions call for 1 sheet of paper to barely fit in the gap.

Well, I said:

I don't know what the gap between the nozzle and bed glass is cool, but I do know it is between 2 and 4 folds of paper. That being said, will the first layer apply nicely on a BED without heat turned on, without adjusting Z=0 distance?

It is just where the paper is barely pinched and can be moved back and forth...when the Hot End and Bed are Hot.

When Cool, the gap is more

[Brian]

I don't believe it makes any sense to take measurements while the hot end and bed are cold, so all of my calibration and adjustments were done at operating temperature. I calibrated so that I could barely get a sheet of paper to slide under the nozzle, and there was a bit of drag on the paper if I moved it around under the nozzle. Enough drag so I could easily tell by feel that all 3 positions under each tower were the same friction as the center position. With all that the same I could be sure my z=0 was good and the build surface was parallel to the extruder and the curve was calibrated properly.

With all that done< I can see my first layer is adhering well and is the same thickness across the build surface.

[elwooddbeauchamp]

If using glue, apply when the bed is cold and then warm it. If using hairspray, apply when the bed is warm. In either case, you have to wait a little bit for the moisture in the adhesive to evaporate. Touch the bed to make sure it isn't still moist. Otherwise, it acts like grease instead of adhesive.

Make sure you did your Z=0 calibration with both the heated bed AND hot end heated up all the way to operating temperature. Both the hot end and bed will expand at operating temperature, so if you calibrate with either turned off, you'll get a bad calibration.

For ABS, people seem to suggest temps between 60-110C. I used unscented Aquanet hairspray with it and it seemed to work well. (Perfumed flowery smelling hair spray probably has ingredients that make it less suitable.) Someone told me the glue sticks DON'T work with ABS. I never tried so I couldn't say, but I don't see why glue wouldn't. Don't use the part cooling fan - ABS needs the previous layer to still be hot for the new one to bond.

For PLA, DON'T USE BED HEAT! It doesn't help. In fact, plenty of "PLA-only" printers are sold WITHOUT bed heat. If you're printing something with fine features and/or overhangs, bed heat will just cause uneven curling and the print will come out looking gross. This is why the Orion has a part cooling fan! If I ever used bed heat with PLA, it was at about 40C, and only so that the glue/hairspray would dry quicker. I'd turn it off after the first layer was down, because I knew it would hurt print quality. I also had to use it with Kapton tape on the build surface, but I abandoned that in short order. Kapton is a nuisance compared to glue sticks and it's always getting gouged.

If you haven't figured out the issue by now, get us a photo of the print in action. It's difficult to see without that.

I am taking your advice...Second part printing...will know the results this time tomorrow...thanks again.

[elwooddbeauchamp]

Well...only 12 hours in and results are much worse than WITH heat.
Like the first, the first 15 layers are filled, the rest are only 3mm thick wall to the top (around 700 layers).
Started with fan off, then on at layer 15.
Started with bed heat @ 50C then off at layer 5.
Any suggestions?

[Polygonhell]

Sharp corners like that on large pieces can be a bear, the usual two fixes (in addition to some sort of adhesive) are Micky mouse ears, put a round tab about 2 layers thick at the base of the corner in the modeling package, or use a "brim" this precludes using kissSlicer.

On heat, you should print the first layer 10 to 20 degrees hotter with no cooling fan on, on subsequent layers set the temp to normal and run the fan, leave the bed at 60 for the whole print.

You can also increase the extrusion width for the first layer if your slicer allows, I've always found Cura to have bad adhesion on the first layer because it uses a very narrow extrusion width.

As to setting Z=0 I do it with a 0.1mm feeler gauge instead of a piece of paper, then add that 0.1mm back on to the final Z Height, with lower layer heights it really needs to be very close to perfect.

[elwooddbeauchamp]

if its the spool that came with the orion, what color is it... if its the 1 pound spool of blue, thats pla.. if its natural, its abs... if its the blue, you will want to go to a 60-65 bed, and a 205 hotend... all the orions for the past few months have been shipped with blue PLA...

Guanu

It was purchased with the Rostock Max v2. SeeMeCNC.com Item # 50133 PLA 1.75mm Orange Juice

[guanu]

for our solid color pla, I use hairspray on the glass, bed temp 65, hotend 205... I saw you had 15 solid layers, thats a lot of hot plastic.. may be whats causing the curling, I've really only done about 5 as the highest, but also you want the fan on layer 2,.. not having the fan on for 15 solid layers is a big pile of hot plastic, and even pla, it could cause quite a bit of curling... so I'd say kick that fan on right after the first layer..

Guanu

[elwooddbeauchamp]

for our solid color pla, I use hairspray on the glass, bed temp 65, hotend 205... I saw you had 15 solid layers, thats a lot of hot plastic.. may be whats causing the curling, I've really only done about 5 as the highest, but also you want the fan on layer 2,.. not having the fan on for 15 solid layers is a big pile of hot plastic, and even pla, it could cause quite a bit of curling... so I'd say kick that fan on right after the first layer..

Guanu

Solid advice, thanks, Guanu!

[Carlc]

Just wanted to thank everyone who has posted on this thread. I too have been suffering with the first layer not adhering. Having read the thread I have now run a recalibration of my Z index and managed to easily move the nozzle 0.25mm closer to the bed. I have reset my bed temperature and my nozzle temperature have been trying hair spray when printing ABS. I am having a lot more success and all of a sudden that feeling of joy on a successful print is overwhelming me

Thanks again to everyone, really valuable information that has helped this newbie a lot.

Carl

[Eaglezsoar]

Eyup Guys,
The spool is ABS natural.
Tried to post a video but got message MOV files not accepted ?
Will try the calibrations once again.

cheers

Ebygum

Did you ever get everything printing okay?