My first issue with replicator 2x

Hi everyone, I am fairly new to 3D printing. My workplace purchased a Makerbot Replicator 2x for me to use and to teach others how to use in a hackerspace type setting made specifically for high school students. I have made many prints successfully. I have leveled the build plate a few times (usually after moving the printer around the room).

A few days ago I attempted to print the right half of a simple part to see how tinkering with the infill setting would affect the print. I set it to the highest quality of .1mm and lowered the traveling and extruding speed each by about 20mm/s from the preset option for high quality printing. I set the infill to 65%. Everything seemed to be going well until about half way through when the filament appeared to stop sticking to the already printed filament. It kept extruding but just pushed everything off to the side. When it was done the part ended up about half the height it should have been even though it was not cut that way.

I leveled the build plate and tried a simple known to work print, the chain links pre loaded on the sd card. A similar thing happened. I unloaded the filament, made a new clean cut, and re loaded it. I made a simple 1cm cube and tested it with the same settings I had for the first failed part. It worked perfectly other than the bed temp seemed to be a little bit too high. I lowered it a bit and another print confirmed that the default 210 degrees Celsius was the cause of the warping in the small cube.

Eventually I will need to find a good way to teach other people how to use this printer so I am trying to figure out the few quirks that I have encountered. Does anyone know why it would suddenly start doing that? Could it be because I have been leaving the filament on the printer and loaded so I can set it to start printing as soon as I arrive? Also, how often do I really need to be leveling the build plate assuming the printer is used 5 days a week for at least one (though possibly small) print each day?


Any advice is much appreciated. The more that I can learn about this machine, the better I can teach it to others when the lab is finally set up. I just joined the site before making this post, so I have not explored for other resources quite yet.

Thanks!

I've found that if a prints first few layers work, then the build plate is not the issue (less things curl). so don't worry about leveling if it feels like things on that front are good.

In terms of extruding, when your extruding at such small amounts at such low speeds, its sometimes difficult for the plastic to catch on itself and may "choose" to stick to the nozzle. I know the 2xs can handle .1 prints, but i've found .2 is really its Jam. Also I've really struggled messing with the default speeds. Try it at the defaults and see what happens?