Ender 3 - Print Issues (Novice Printer)

Hey Y'all,I've been lurking on this forums for a few days now, and I've picked up quite a bit. I've been watching loads of CHEP/Filament Friday's YouTube videos. However, I'm still struggling with my printer.SoftwareDesign Tool: Autodesk Fusion 360 (Will be switching to Blender3D due to licensing issues)Slicer: Ultimaker Cura v4.6.1Filament: Stock Filament that came with the printer. I'm assuming PLA. I've ordered Inland PLA from MicroCenter.I've provided photos below, and I own this domain, where I've hosted the gcodes and STL files I'm using. I've also included the print settings I'm currently using.As you can see, the top left of my print comes out nicely, while the rest comes out thin, and horrible. I've leveled the bed with CHEP's bed leveling. Used a piece of paper and slid it in and out until I felt the paper being grabbed by the tip. I've ran a few test runs, Test_1A/B is the first run I did, and Test_2/A/B is the 2nd run I did. I manually adjusted the bed while it was printing. A few spots turned out better.

Frankly, learning this has been the most frustrating experience of my life. I work in IT, specifically Data Centers. I'm by no means an "idiot". I know I'm missing something simple here, or don't understand something about the slicer. I've purchased a few classes from Udemy, and I plan on studying up. I have a project in mind I want to do, and my work has agreed to pay for any filaments I need if I print a few projects to help reduce damage to spare parts. We're throwing away thousands of dollars on motherboards because they were damaged.

Anyways, if someone can point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated. I don't need the exact answer, kind of takes away the fun of learning, but it would be nice to lessen the hair pulling. I've posted in reddit, but I felt I needed an actual forum for help. I also joined a Discord channel, and instantly regretted it. Several people were a-holes, and I just bounced. I don't have time for elitism.

Thanks in advance! I work night shift, I look forward to reading where I goofed up.

Cheers,
Data

Edit: I've included the original images due to re-sizing on the forums. Mind you, these are 4mb+ png files are a 4K resolution. Hoping the extra detail will help, if not my bad haha

step 1 - clean the bed with soap and water
step 2 - clean the bed with IPA
step 3 - level the bed again with the paper method (go around 3 or 4 times)
step 5 - reprint your calibration print and live adjust as needed
(hint - the worst areas in your photos look like you're too high, but that may just be poor adhesion, thus cleaning measures)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by xayoz

step 1 - clean the bed with soap and waterstep 2 - clean the bed with IPAstep 3 - level the bed again with the paper method (go around 3 or 4 times)step 5 - reprint your calibration print and live adjust as needed(hint - the worst areas in your photos look like you're too high, but that may just be poor adhesion, thus cleaning measures)

---

Just to be clear, IPA as in alcoholic beverage or Isopropyl Alcohol?I also have a glass plate I want to use, but failed epically at leveling the bed, lol.Thank you for the suggestions, I'll try them this coming weekend when I have time off from work.

Isopropyl, preferably 99%, do not use beer

I went to the store to look for 99%, couldn't find it. I decided to use what I had at home, which happens to be 70%. I some-what regret using it, I've got a nasty film on mine now. However, prints did stick a WHOLE lot better after I switched to a glass plate. My colleagues at work, and a few people from the reddit website said to skip using the abrasive plate. Now I have a new problem, I can't seem to get the filament to stick in the center. Is there a way to raise the center? Here are my next few print tests I did, to see the progress I made. On a side note, I was tempted to use home made moonshine (95% alcohol/190 Proof) but it had flavoring which would've defeated the purpose.
http://hadesproject.com/3dprinting/Test_3.jpg
http://hadesproject.com/3dprinting/Test_4.jpg
http://hadesproject.com/3dprinting/Test_4A_Pawn.jpg
http://hadesproject.com/3dprinting/Test_4B_Pawn.jpg
http://hadesproject.com/3dprinting/Test_4C_Pawn.jpg
http://hadesproject.com/3dprinting/Test_5.jpg
http://hadesproject.com/3dprinting/Test_6.jpg
http://hadesproject.com/3dprinting/Test_7.jpg


Edit: Is it because the clamps are too tight by chance?
Edit2: God the formatting screw ups are super obnoxious.

if you got a film, you did not clean off the remaining soap properly, keep cleaning and it will be good. But if you got glass, then you shouldn't need to worry about that for a while. I like the ability to remove the plate and flex it to pop off a print, so mine is getting a spring steel plate soon.

As far as glass being a different height in the middle, glass is supposed to prevent that. But yes, you could try shimming it with tin foil or something similar so that it transfers the heat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by xayoz

if you got a film, you did not clean off the remaining soap properly, keep cleaning and it will be good. But if you got glass, then you shouldn't need to worry about that for a while. I like the ability to remove the plate and flex it to pop off a print, so mine is getting a spring steel plate soon.

As far as glass being a different height in the middle, glass is supposed to prevent that. But yes, you could try shimming it with tin foil or something similar so that it transfers the heat.

---

Far simpler solution! Move the Z-Axis up. Someone on the /r/ender3 suggested this over shimming it. When you use the glass plate vs the other build plate, you need to move the Z-Axis, otherwise you can't level it correctly. None of the guides/videos I've watched, cover this. Good to know though!

From the look of your calibration prints you really do have poor bed adhesion and from the pictures of the larger pieces you also seem to have interlayer adhesion problems. together these suggest your problem is either too low a print temperature for your filament or just dodgy filament. You don't say what material you are using. We recently did controlled tests on 8 filaments 3 ABS and 5 Nylon materials of these we found only 1 of the ABS filaments and 3 of the nylons could be made to print reliably in our set up. We tried all of them with multiple print bed materials as well.IPA Isopropanol can often be obtained from a car paint shop supplier but does tend to dissolve grease and spread it around rather than completely remove it so you need several goes with a rewetted cloth. I personally use acetone (not nail varnish remover) for bed cleaningIf you are thinking of using ABS for your project else where in this forum I have given some fairly detailed help on how we use it in a lab situation based on an Ender 3 Prohope this helps

May I ask I did not see it in your post but you are heating everything to temp then doing bed level with paper correct?

Yes I do but I only print ABS and Nylon which I print to a 1mm thick sheet of Tuflon (same as US Garolite) clamped to the ender glass bed .
did you find my other post with the setting details we use??

Incidently since my last post I have run 2 prints about the same size as the ones you were trying - no problems