Ender 3 Pro - Attempting Calibration Print on used printer

I'm brand new to 3D printing. I just bought a used Ender 3 Pro from someone I trust and they tell me it's been functioning well. I've been doing some reading and watching videos and most of what I've read says you can often improve print quality so that's what I'm trying to do. I understand a level bed is likely the biggest culprit and therefore I start with this -> https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2987803. The Gcode seems to be working as intended. It's traced the 4 corners and I've adjusted the springs so that a single piece of paper has slight resistance between the extruder and the bed. After two rounds of plate adjustment, I start the print. My print is terrible and I abort after about 2 rounds or so.

Issues:

1. some filament seems to extrude on its own as it gets ready to start. This causes a "Clot" on the end of the extruder which doesn't adhere initially. After a few seconds, it starts to adhere but it all comes off as one large "glob".
2. Adherence seems very poor and only about half or less of the filament being placed is sticking. I intially assumed this was poor height with my base being too low but I've attempted a few prints now raising the bed slightly to increase resistance to the paper test and it's the same results.
3. After printing for a bit some filament that had been adhering is pulled off. This doesn't seem to be related to the extruder actually pulling it off but more related to the filament never being very well adhered.

I've attached a picture of what my plate looks like after the two rounds. There's clearly only a very small amount of filament adhering.

I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this due to my lack of experience and would be grateful for any guidance.
Thank you

Assuming you are printing PLA, What bed temperature and extruder temperature are you using.
The label on the filament reel or the box it came in should have the temperature ranges printed on it.

I am printing with PLA. Extruder temp is 200 for this test and bed temp is 45. Filament temp on the box is 190-220 so that should be good.


Of note, when I originally got the machine I was excited and made a few prints before I tried to optimize anything. The prints weren't perfect but I was able to make a few of these -> https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5186283

I've now tried to print them again and I get similar results as the test. It's a ball of messy filament with essentially no adherence. I've clearly caused this and made things much much worse with my attempt at "Optimization".

Try 60 bed temp and use some glue stick, or just try glue stick first.

There are lots of Youtube videos about bed adhesion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bikeracer2020

Try 60 bed temp and use some glue stick, or just try glue stick first.

There are lots of Youtube videos about bed adhesion.

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Thanks for the reply. I'm happy to try that but it doesn't make sense to me that I'd need to use glue if it was working before and now with bed adjustments it's no longer working. Am I missing something?

Another thing to do, clean the bed first with some IPA (not the beer ):)

Ok, after a whole bunch of video's etc I realized that I just was too far away from the bed. I had resistance to the paper but not enough. Anyways I've now optimized my prints significantly and I'd love opinions on the interpretation of these dots. I'm not quite sure whether these are good or if I'm actually a hair too close and there are ridges in these dots. I'm just inexperienced and can't tell the difference.

Thanks
Attachment 17884Attachment 17885Attachment 17886Attachment 17887Attachment 17888

This might help.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze36SX1xzOE