Welp, here we go,

[BrickHaus]

I couldnt pass this open box ender 3 v2 for less than 200 bucks. Now Im trying to get a print started. Having issues with bed adhesion, and messing with paramerers.

Hoping I can get the process down better to make rocket molds.

I do have brains at work to pick for ideas, but MCB has been a great wealth of knowledge so far, so wish me luck!

[KMDPB]

Congrats, exciting stuff! For bed adhesion I like to start a print and watch the nozzle while it lays a bead on the bed, i adjust the leveling knobs until the bead is slightly squashed all the way around the bed. I dont do the paper leveling thing. What are rocket molds? Sounds like something I'd be into!

[BrickHaus]

I had Bryon Garcia make me a semi unique mold file of something similar to his v1 rockets.

Bryon sold the V1 molds to Jacob Neg Ray years ago. We have asked Jacob for rockets many times and he hasnt been manufacturing any.

We asked Bryon if he was making rockets, and he is working on a v2 rocket, but he made me a mold file for a cost, and now we can mix foam and make rockets as we need them rather when others have time to make em.

Gonna collaberate with some friends to try to make a bunch of rockets and have em for sale eventually.

[BrickHaus]

Okay, so I got a roll of natural pla, and light blue pla+. I was told that the clear stuff is harder to print. I was also set up in my wifes home office to get things working, but I realized having this running in her office for 60 hours was likely a bad idea.

That being said. Even though it looked like it may semi work, I stopped the clear print. And set the printer up in my paintball room. Its in a full 12 course basement, so its something like 54 degrees in here,and I put a magnet over the heat duct to minimize air flow.

Loaded the light blue pla, re leveled like 6 times til I liked what I had, and re started the print.

Its way early in the print to tell, but the base looks like itll be a good print.

[BrickHaus]

Welp. Woke up this morning to find my filament has decided to celebrate its independance before me... grrr. I need to figure out how to keep the pla spool feeding with out me babysitting. Oh well, my bottom layer was a bit thin. Gonna try again.

[JonM]

Judging by the photos, it looks like your bed isn’t leveled properly, causing adhesion issues. You’re going to want to dial that in using the paper leveling process. Make sure to preheat the bed, then check and recheck each point repeatedly until you can slide the paper in between and still feel just a little resistance as you move the paper back and forth. Too loose and the gap is too wide. Too tight, and the paper will bind. Once you check every point, run through another leveling cycle to make sure your previous adjustments didn’t affect other points.

You will also want to dial in the temperatures you’re printing with. Different filaments, even different colors, can require different settings to print well. The same thing goes for print speed, retraction, cooling, and so on. I recommend looking up other people’s recommended settings for your materials and adjust as needed from there.

[BrickHaus]

Yeah, Itend to agree.

I installed cnc machines for 5 years so I figured Id have the bed leveled in minutes. But I have actually scratched my bed in repeating the leveling process, so this is more finite than I give it credit for. I Think it think its still slightly off, the left side is high. And its too high all together. I need a thicker piece of paper or a real feeler gage to set the 4 corners set maybe? . This was a print with a 0.1mm z+ offset and it still was ripping filament on the left mold. Right looked alright.

I figured its not dialed well enough to run lights out so, I canceled this print, and im heading to the lake to spend the 4th with my family.

Ill level the bed and do more research on it.

The 2nd picture was attempt 2. That was going okay but the corners were curling up. I left for a hike, and my filament snagged killing the print.

I did cut about 15 feet of filament off because it was sprung and jumping off of the roll.

[JonM]

One thing you may find is that the bed can be slightly warped. My Ender 3 was no exception. I’ve since taken to printing on glass with Elmer’s purple glue stick. You can pick up a glass cutter and a few mirror tiles or spring for the manufactured options. Attach it with a couple small binder clips and you can quickly swap out plates without jacking up your bed surface.

[BrickHaus]

Ill bring an indicator home from work and check it. Being a v2, I was hoping the glass bed was good enough from factory. I should know better though, the printers we use at work are constantly being hot rodded, extruders, nozzles, bowden tubes, tac plates, ect. Ect. I was hoping to figure out how to make this work without a bunch of kods, but if its jot flat, ill add another glass pane.

[XEMON]

I have the older version (as many of us here) ... feel free to reach out with questions.

For teh glass bed, i went to he "big buck store" and got a picture frame with a glass and cut it to size ... worked better than any "3D printer glass" ive ever used ...
Suave unscented air spray is the best coating ive found so far.

[Rainmaker]

My setup doesn't seem to be too popular around these parts... but for the bed I got a Gizmodorks PEI sheet, and just put it on top of the stock bed. There ain't nothing that won't stick to that PEI. I don't even watch the first layer anymore.

[XEMON]

One of the few things i havnt tried ... When the glass doesnt cut it anymore ill give it a go

[ReconSWS]

Back your bed off and jack the 'first layer extrusion height' to like 150% and you should be golden. Honestly, every single time I have a bed leveling / adhesion issue, it's cause the parameters make the first layer extrude too little (if its too slow, or too thin width) parts will just pop off add to my collection of tombstones. Every single time however it is simply remedied by just going into the slicer and changing that one thing (and then re-leveling so it doesn't clog if its too close). Most of the time I'll rather just set the printer up, wish it good luck, and come back in 10 hours to disapponitmet :P a few times before I get around to literally changing this one second and fixing the problem.

[BrickHaus]

First of all. Thank you for the advice thus far. I still have a long way to go to get the quality of prints I desire, but your tips are helping me figure stuff out.

Ive spent the better part of 24 hours trying to bang my head on the wall with this one. And I think Im finally getting somewhere.

You could have never helped me with this one.... So this was an open box. The installed nozzel was apparently mangled to death by the first owner who didnt know how to use this printer. From the looks of the side cutter, it was an accomplice, or victim.. i dunno. This mangled tip, along with my bed being too cold ( currently running 73* for PLA+) and I have a filament guide almost done. There are a few strings from poor early adhesion, but itll work.( im seeing part warpage at as low as 68, and poor adhesion at 60.)

Doesnt help I scratched my bed again in frustration after discovering the bad tip, and swapping tips. I went to run the leveling program again to level with the new tip, and it was much longer ( suprise)

But needless to say, if this filament guide works, aill be starting a mold print with these parameters, and hope I can go to bed. (Im up wayyy past my bed time, but this has been bugging me.)

[XEMON]

for nozzle, i buy them bulk from overseas, and just replace them when they get stuck ... i dont bother cleaning them anymore ...
Once in a while i get a bad one and just toss it ...

I always have at least 5+ on hand

[ReconSWS]

So in that last pic with those blue parts, how well did the first layer go down? Did it look like a good first layer... and are these releasing well into the print? Or is the first layer just weak out of the gate? If it's releasing late into the print then the build surface tack is probably weak I dono. I don't recommend this since this product is disgusting and messy, but I will be applying 3M 77 glue to some of my beds next week, and a light light dusting on a heated bed might do wonders (since I will be using it for cold bed printing). Mind you this stuff is nasty got VOCs in the can so if u spraying indoors needs lots of ventilation and will overspray and destroy all your stuff lol (so I made a little nozzle for it and use garbage bags to cover the printer).

Just try doing first layer supervised prints only until ya get a perfect first layer :P .. if that is the problem. You can even do manual bed adjustment during a first layer print. Again tho, if the bed is just crap then nothing will probably help lol (except a new pei bed like rainmaker said), or some nasty glue or hey maybe some hairspray.

[BrickHaus]

Yeah, Im not sure. Yet.

The first layer on this part had the string on the inner radius not stick. Its odd because the slicer builds a small section of it, then tries to pull the long whips of the loop arm on the second layer. And it pulls those lines fast.

But it printed. 205 nozzel, 74 bed, ran 80% speed til it had 2 layers down, and let it run.


Both parts had a bit or curling, and the dovetails warped, but it worked for now.

[BrickHaus]

Now, Im back to confused here.


So with knowing I can get adhesion at 74, I tried to print a mold half last night when I finally got to bed. Same parameters, ran it at 80% for the outline layers. As it started filling the first layer in, I went to bed and turned it to 100.

First layer looked great to my untrained eye, but it broke loose at some point andthe head knocked it off of the bed.

Im ready to office space this thing.

[BrickHaus]

I decided I wanted to try a benchy this morning as it should have finished by the time I left for work... end result was another series of scratches in the bed. Dunno what shifted, but something is different, bed is obviously too high. Ill run through the level test again for the 500th time tonight when I have time.

All I gotta say is.. "PC Load Letter?!?!?!?"


I hope you all find my misery amusing.

[ReconSWS]

Are you applying any force to the print head at any time with your hands? I.e. changing filaming you push it down really hard, or priming it you push down on the filament which pushes down on the print head. Doing this will cause your z-axis worm screws to lose their positions which is ONE of the causes of over-night instant bed changes.

[XEMON]

it seam like your first layer high is to low ...
- whats your layer high?
- first layer %?
- how do you "level your bed"? (it's technically tramming, i dont know why the general term is "leveling" in the 3D print community)

PS: i dont know about the V2, but the stock bed gave me issue too .... hit and miss adhesion, or woudnt come off the bed ... it finally bubbled up when i started printing ABS
If you decide to go toward glass, dont waste money on "3D printer glass bed" ... a cheap picture frame and a glass cutter will run you $10-15 ...

[BrickHaus]

Im gonna try a picture frame pane tonight.

As for the layer i fo, not sure with this print. I was given the .stl, and a g code file. I was told i can just run the g code and shouldnt need the stl, so after leveling last night I tried to run it.


As for level, the paper method wasnt working, so I have been starting with a rough level from paper, running the " ender 3 level bed program" i got from thingaverse. basically a line around the outside of the plate, and 5 height reference pads. I run it at 30%, and fine tune. I then shine a light at the extruder and adjust as it draws the line around the bed .

Ill have to try re leveling with the bed hotter, and lower tonight after work.

The center seems to be an issue though, level test modt commonly wipes the center pad off of the table, telling me its crowned slightly.

[XEMON]

You're going at it the right way (the "paper method" is really the worst way to tram it ...)

You need to do this with the bed AND hot end at print temperature.

Also, the bed may not be flat ... This is part of why I went towards a glad plate ... I had a low center, 3 corner at the same height and one higher ... Drove me insane before I could figure it out ...

[BrickHaus]

When the guys at work take your model, and make it look easy....

[BrickHaus]

The struggle saga continues. Lmao.


So to Update yall. My co workers quizzed me on printer settings, and told me hotter bed hotter nozzel, and suggested I level the bed with a dial indicator.

Last night I used an indicator to level the bed. It is wavy, but its +/- 0.0035" and the 4 corners and center are all within 2 thou.


started a print of my rocket molds, and got a good first layer.


Went to bed, and woke up this morning to check it. I had the lights off, but I found it odd when I stepped on a glass plate that wasnt in that spot the night before....

I turned the lights on to find this...


From my Investigations, I must have not gotten my nozzel tight enough when installing the new one, and over time it oozed into the fan shroud until it was anough to adhere to the print and rip the bed off. Took a nice chip hitting the cement.

i had to take the fan shroud apart and clean the extruder off pretty good. I made a terrible mess.


The smaller print is what I just started after a re level. And it seems like its okay.

I just keep missing details, but Im honing it in now.