plastic lifting off the bed

I am trying to print for the very first time, but whenever i try to print, the PLA plastic lifts off the heatbed and clumps together on the extruder. I have the temp. on my heatbed at 75 degrees and i have tried 60 degrees, but both those temps. don't work. Any help would be appreciated.

There are several things that can be going wrong.

1) Are you trying to print directly on a glass bed with nothing on it?
2) Is your Z axis "zero" set properly?
3) Is your extruder calibrated (does it feed 10 mm of filament when you ask for 10 mm)?
4) Does your printer match what you have set up in Slic3r (nozzle, filament diameter etc)?

Best guess - you need some hair spray on the glass.

My Z axis set at zero, but i don't no how to calibarate my extruder and should I just put hairspray on it or use something else?
Thanks

Kapton tape or blue painters tape also work

60 deg bed should be hot enough

Also what temperature have you set your extruder to?

Can you post some pictures?

How thick is your first layer set to? (it should be thin, say 0.3 mm)
What is the speed setting on your first layer? (it should be slow)
Do you print a skirt? (you should)
Do you extrude at least 10mm of filament in the skirt? (you should, it gets the extruder going)

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The quick cal on an extruder is to see if it pushes 10mm of filament when you tell it to in Pronterface (or what ever your control program is). You put a mark a ways up on the filament and measure how far it moves.

The second step on the extruder is to measure the diameter of your filament. It's rarely 3.0 mm (or 1.75). It's more likely 2.95 or 3.02 (depending on where it's from). That setting also goes into Slic3r.

Final step on extruder cal is to have it shoot filament in mid air. The measured diameter of that filament is what you set as your extruder diameter. My 0.40 extruder puts out 0.41 to 0.42 mm filament.

Thanks I'll try those and update on what happens.

Try the full nozzle height for your first layer height as it will pump out more plastic and then all the other layers use your regular layer height,

I found this makes it very easy to lay the first layer down, but not the best looking, ideal for rafts

for instance i use .5mm layer height first layer and then .30 for all the other layers
my nozzle is .5mm

I have a glass bed (ReprapPro Mendel) which I run at 57degrees (PLA) and I dont use anything on it, but I do regularly clean it thoroughly with methylated spirits. I put this on a tissue and rub the bed until it sqeeks, then dry it with a new tissue. When selecting the type of tissue to use, make you don't use one impregnated with anything ... (I use man sized tissues of a well known brand).

Using this method I have never had any problems with getting the first layer to stick ... in fact it sometimes sticks so hard that I have a job to get the finished print off!

Harvey

This is a trick someone on reddit told me.

This will make PLA stick. Like REALLY stick.

1 - Lay down the Painters Tape.

2 - Rub on a little bit of Rubbing Alcohol on top of the Painters Tape with a cloth. Bring the bed temperature up to 30C or 40C

3 - Print.

This will get you started. The parts will really stick well to the bed, and it may be a pain to get the tape off the bottom of your parts.
But at least it will get you started and you can experiment from there.



Problems I also had when getting parts to stick to the bed.

Make sure you bed is level. Like REALLY level. invest in a dial indicator.

Make sure you are extruding enough plastic (steps/mm set right in the extruder). I was under extruding by a fair amount when I started.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2013 01:17PM by ShadowRam.

Extruder flow rate is directly impacted by:

1) Actual nozzle size (as in strips or jams)
2) Layer height
3) Extruder steps / mm being correct in the firmware.
4) Extruder nozzle size being correct in the slicing program
5) Flow fudge factor being set to 1.0

Those are all the Slic3r names for things, but the other slicing programs have the same sort of settings.

You can print on various kinds of tape and everyone swears by kapton. I've never tired kapton and blue painters tape for PLA only delivered like a 78% success rate for me. My tried and true method is aqua net extra strong hold hairspray in three even thin coats with dry time between on glass for PLA. Elmer’s extreme glue stick in one even coat on glass for ABS. These two work for me 99.8 percent of the time. Do the extrusion calibration mention above and then make sure you be is level. Home the Z axis in all four corners of your bed and make sure it's the same distance above each corner. I use a piece of light card stock as my measuring device. I put it down under the head before homing it and then gauge the force require to pull it out on each corner. When the fell even, I consider the bed level. If it's lower in one corner the plastic won't be smashed into the plastic as well there and more than likely not stick. Your first layer should produce wider lines the rest of the layers. That's why there are first layer specific settings. This smashing helps the plastic stick.

If you are running Cura rather than Slic3r / Pronterface, the whole first layer thing is a bit different. How you go about getting the desired result is a bit dependent on the tool chain as well as the hardware.

I'm working on printing parts for my prusa i3 using a type A machine at work. The whole experience is very educational. The Type A Machine did not include a heated bed. Printing is a nightmare because there's roughly a 20% chance that the first layer will go down right even when you have done everything else correctly. All we can do is lay down painters tape and pray. So I've discovered a few things that help when you have nothing else going for you.

First, not all painters tape works well. We started with a generic roll of blue painters tape and our success rate was close to zero. Now we are using wide, green frog tape. I find it's best to put it down on the bed and scrape the hell out of it with the edge of a metal ruler. Then by the next day filament actually adheres to it. Even then the bed has to be dead level, the height of the bed has to be perfect, and you must sacrifice a dove on the first day of every month to Sindri the Norse Dwarf.

I hear using hairspray on the painters tape works well but I've yet to try that as the ruler scraping, green frog brand tape, and regular sacrifices seem adequate so far.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2013 11:38AM by Dorian.

There are a number of other issues you will have running a printer with no heated bed. They are well worth their modest cost.

Heated beds cause a lot of issues too. I personally don't use one and my largest print (in pieces) is 1 metre by 0.5 metre by 0.4 metre. Heated beds cause the part to have less definition, wider base etc.

For good adhesion on unheated beds try some kind of PVA based glue on glass (thats what I use). Or lemon juice. Or ABS slurry. Or Hairspray.

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bob, how to calibrate the extruder? once i converted the object into the GCODE use the slicer, i directly input the GCODE into pronterface. i have not find any setting for the output of the extruder.my question is where can i calibrate the extruder to adjust the output of the filament?

Your slicing program has a bunch of settings that impact your extruder flow rate. It's put into the gcode as the slicer generates it. Depending on what slicing program you use the settings are a bit different. They all have a filament diameter setting and you could simply use that to vary the flow. What slicing program are you using?

In other words, to change your flow rate, you need to modify slicer settings and then reslice the model to produce new g code. The new rates will be reflected in the new numerical values that are embedded in the G code.

I was ablw to solve this problem by applying a mixture of kapton and hairspray. Thanks to everyone who helped