First layer - adhesion

Hi Guys.

Photos: [www.dropbox.com]

First topic here, so bare with me. Around 4 mounths ago, i completed my Mendel90 from Nophead - great kit and awesome printer.
I'm having some problems with the first layer. Sometimes it sticks great and other times not. It depends on the item I'm printing.
So i attached some photos of the buttom layer of my prints. Hope somebody can help me out here.

Material info:
2.95mm red or black PLA from reprap.me

Printing setting:
Hot end 210C
Bed 65C
Layer thickness 0.2mm 40% infill.

Software:
Slicer 0.9.10b trying both expert and simple mode.

Yet another question, the printer seems to snogle with small infill between two perimeters. (see attached photo)
Is this because of the infill speed or what ?

Looking forward to learn.

Regards
FSeier

The bottom layer looks too high as there are gaps between the filaments. It should be solid.

Not sure what you mean about infill and there is no picture attached but looking at the Mendel90 parts it looks like you are using multiple perimeters whereas they are designed to be printed with one with Skeinforge and a filament width of 0.6mm. They look to have gaps where there isn't room for any infill. With skeinforge the ends of the infill join up so you effectively get a second perimeters for free.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Will try lowering the Z-home-position then.

Thats excatly what I mean, It is trying to do infill, when there isn't space for it. I ment see the photos from dropbo (just as you write, the two mendel90 parts)
I have never tried Skeinforge, actually don't know why - but I will now.
I will get back with response. Thanks Chris !

So - I lowerd the Z-home position, which helped for the bottom layer.

But I can figure out how to slice with Skeinforge. I managed to cope the whole skeinforge50 folder (from the sd card) to the located folder from Python on the Win7.
I changed the start, end, home, cool start, cool stop gcodes via Pronterface and saved them as gcode. But it seems like Skeinforge doesn't read them and when i try to open them in Skeinforge, by clicking the button left corner named Skeinforge it doen't. Itsn't it supposed to do that? Tried to slice the android stl and Pronterface estimates the print time to about 7 hours.
Sorry for the newbie here, but what am I doing wrong ??

You open STL files in Skeinforge. You edit the configuration gcode files with any plain text editor although I don't know why you need to change them, at least to start with.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

The reason why I would like to edit the configurations is to make an ooze free start, nothing else. The gcodes are named example, does the fan work without chancing this?

The supplied configuration has ooze free start. The fan is controlled by the settings on the cool tab.

I don't know what you mean by "the gcodes are named example". The only files in the ,skeinforge / alterations folder are start_PLA.gcode, start_ABS.gcode and end.gcode. I have never used any others. These come from the SDcard settings/.skeinforge folder and should be copied to where skeinforge stores your profile as described in the manual. The settings that are in the Skeinforge50 folder are the defaults that only get used the first time you run it without a profile and are not useful.

The example android.gcode has ooze free start and turns the fan on on the second layer. It was made with the supplied PLA0.3 profile from android.stl, also supplied.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I have tried a lot of different surfaces and the only one that works for me with a variety of prints is blue tape. Some prints are fine with sqeaky clean glass, others with lemon juice. Some are fine with carbon fibre and others warp with it. The main problem with blue tape is that adhesion is a bit too strong so that it takes a fair bit of work to free the print at the end.

Finally I figured out how to play with Skeinforge. I erased everything I had on my PC and downloaded news from GitHub - works great now ! But I'm wondering how the fan properties is? When does it kick in? Only when bridgeing or also when layer time under ~30 sek or so ?

Ralph: I releveled the z_home_position and started to clean the bed with vinegar instead of acetone, that it just awesome, everything's sticking now

The fan is controlled by the properties on the Cool tab. I just turn it on at the second layer but you can set it to only come on for small layers, etc.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Great, thanks again Chris. It so cool that you always helps.
Skeinforge is a total new world to me. I have used slic3r before