Full brims, mouse ears, with glue, without glue, higher bed temperature, lower bed temperature, flat base, concentric cutout base - whatever I try, I seem to be getting wank adhesion, major warping, and ultimately this shitshow.
Dry PLA, warm room, no draught, plate cleaned with IPA. I’m going to fucking punch this thing in its stupid fucking face.
Edit: Prevailing advice very much seems to be to bust out the Fairy liquid and give it a good scrub, so I’ll try that. It’s a Kobra Neo 2 so is auto-levelling, so I can’t piss around with any of that stuff (as far as I know). Another quick question while I think about it, does everyone always print onto the bed at ~60°C? Because Orca Slicer’s default for a textured PEI plate is 45°C, which seems mad. I think I tried it once and it was shite so turned it back up to 60.
You have already gotten a ton of good suggestions already but I’d like to vouch for the Ellis 3d printing tuning guide and Suave Mega Hold Hairspray (huge pink can).
If you follow it from beginning to end you will have those prints coming out looking clean and actually sticking to the bed. It will take you a few hours but I promise you won’t regret it.
I find in 3d printing, sometimes it actually matters in what order you do your tuning.
Hot tip: Read the instructions first before you start doing anything. I kept making mistakes because I didn’t do that
I had similar issues. Turns out I was using 70% ipa. Switching to 90% fixed it.
Have you tried cleaning the plate with dawn dish soap vs IPA? Soap is much better IMO at actually cleaning. I do this with nitrile gloves to make sure I’m not getting any oil on my print surface but there are definitely a lot of variables so you may have already tried my suggestion.
This time of year I like to use something darker than IPA, like a porter or stout
The bed must be left sticky to be sure.
I know you jest, but I want to try it now.
Mmmmm, love me a good stout! I believe February is stout month. :)
I do this too. IPA is great (beer and chemical) but soap and hot water work best for me
I feel you… Been there… Too many times until the hobby was just a frustration and not a hobby anymore.
Are you sure you can’t fix the z offset? My old printer was as bad, I had to manually level it (because the auto sucked )every time and I need to do it a bit closer than the auto level wanted it to and the instructions said. It was so close the first layer was extremely flattened, and I had to try many times to level it. First did I only need to do the bed leveling perfectly (a bit too close) then after I switched to glass did I have to play with the sensor (screwing it a bit further away than their instructions). I did both calibration for like 15 min to an hour… But when I had got it right did it print beautifully! I think if I let it on until next time then I wouldn’t need to do the calibration, but it was loud so I had to turn it off. Btw i think mine was just weird that it calibrated it self only when I started, as in how high up it should be for the first layer so I could just screw up the bed to get it closer.
But now have I switched to bambu lab (enclosed) and it is so easy that it is scary, now I actually trust it and can do big prints that will take more than 3h. I only hit print and it works right away it felt so weird the first 10 prints. I felt empty, my job had been taken away by a robot. Should it be this easy? Why can I use the default values in the slicer? What do you mean I can have it on its default speed and not needing to do it super slow in the beginning? Crazy stuff. It feels like an adult and my other printer was a chaotic 6 years old, they can if they try but they didnt try most of the time…
Also have you tried placing your creation in any other z axes rotation or moved it a bit from the center? I had one print that worked ape shit every time in one direction, switched it a bit and rotated it and then it worked right away. But yours seem to have worked well until it start lifting off from the bed so I think playing with the z offset is the way to go. Be careful tho I switched to glass because it was hard to get it off afterwards, with glass did it pop off right way when the bed wasn’t heating up anymore.
Other stuff: I had heat on at 60 at all time and it was pretty hot in there because of the printer (the room is normal room temperature otherwise), maybe your room is too cold for it, could you build an enclosures? Or is the table it is on shaking a lot? Glue and tape and whatnot never worked for me.
What does the underside of that print look like? Maybe nozzle too far from the plate?
- verify actual bed and print nozzle temp using IR or contact probe. Thermistors can die and cause too low a temp.
- fully wash bed with soap and water, not just IPA.
- try a different spool or brand of filament. Sometimes whole spools are just formulated badly and it won’t ever adhere right. I’ve tossed a few spools that wouldn’t ever print correctly no matter the settings.
Use hairspray
Regarding OP edit: you can print many PLAs even on a room temperature bed. In most cases 60C gets adhesion to the high reliability zone though, and cooling down from it promotes self detatchment after the print.
Clean your plate thoroughly with simplest dishwashing soap you can find and dry without contact (no paper towels, no contact, just let most of the water drip out, shake out some more, then finish drying on heatbed). Then try again.
You can dry it with a microfiber cloth too
Try higher bed temps only for the first layer or two, then lower it.
That used to help me with getting abs to stay put.
My adhesion was like this until I washed my bed with dish soap, and now I have to chisel my prints off with a hammer because they stick on too well.
As others said, dish soap over IPA. I’ve also had shite PLA before as others mentioned. Find a good brand and stick with it. Also, magigoo is amazing. Basically glue but not glue. Designed to stick when the bed is hot then release when it cools. I add magigoo any time I have a long print where I worried about potential warping or lifting.
My understanding is that dish soap cleans grease and IPA smears it around.
What I do is wash with soap once, then clean with IPA between prints starting from the center outwards (* until it’s dirty enough to need another proper wash).
I fucking love it! I have been there so many fucking times to the point of putting a hole in a wall. Best part is I’d give up walk away for a month or so then literally turn the stupid fuck on and press print and it would print just fine. I just use glass on one printer and carbon fiber on the other. I had pei once threw that shit right in the garbage. A good scuff with 80 grit sand paper on both and wash off with rubbing alcohol. I did have an issue once with a bent touch probe that would fuck my z offset so the first layer wouldn’t actualy be low enough.
does everyone always print onto the bed at ~60°C?
That depends entirely on the result you get and the Filament you use. Also, keep in mind that whatever you set your bed temperature to and what the printer reports, very likely isn’t what you actually print on. For example, on my Ender 5 Plus, I have a glass bed and had to set my printer to 75°C while on my Voron 2.4, I can simply set it to 66°C and get the surface temperature to around 60°C.
which means that you need to measure the temperature on the surface of the printer and not rely on what the printer is reporting (unless you actually measured the temperature and can guess the actual temperature). The more mass that the print has to heat up, the longer it will take for the print surface to actually reach that temperature.
Personally, I aim for around 60-65°C for the print surface for PLA. I always had good adhesion for my prints at that temperature.
I put my PEI plate in the dishwasher and then used glue stick and it fixed my problem but YMMV
