Printer noob - Can't print consistently on FFCX

[Geoff]

I have multiple problems that I hope you guys can help with. I've had my FF Creator X for a week now, and have had mixed results. I'll start with the ABS. Before I printed a thing, I read through all of Geoff's posts (thank you Geoff!), hoping to minimize the wasted time of figuring it out myself (caution, noob here). So, with the printer comes two spools of white and blue ABS. I set the extruder to 230º, and 106º for the table. Cleaned it with alcohol, and leveled it. I set up my simple print with settings of: 15% infill, .2 resolution, 1 shell, and 50F/80T. I tried the white and the blue, both printed messy and lifted off the table. I changed the table temp down 5º, then another 5º...still kept lifting. I said screw it and loaded a white PLA spool to try. Those settings were: 190º/75º, 15% infill, .2 resolution, 1 shell, 50F/80T. Now we're talking! It stuck great to the table, but in various places it tore up or missed lines (see pic below). Then I tried blue PLA with the same settings...holy hell what happened!? It printed horrible, and lifted...what the french toast is going on?! I read one of Geoff's comments that color can affect temp so I raised and lowered it by 10º and got spotty change. I'm sure its something that I'm missing, since I'm a complete noob at all this, but I really want to get it right. If anyone has any suggestions, please drop a reply. Oh, I'm also still printing on the yellow tape...Friday I'm going down to get a sheet of 1/8" glass. So to summarize, 1) why is the ABS lifting and printing messy? 2) why is the blue PLA printing crappy vs. the white PLA? 3) how can I get smoother prints on the first layer? Oh, and is there a trick to printing off the SD card? I put .stl files on there, but it doesn't see them. The only thing on the menu is "exit menu". Thanks again for any help given.

2014-07-16 14.56.46.jpg

Hi!
Ok well, looking at your picture I can see one issue,your hot bed is not level. I can see good tight layering at the top, but your lines are further apart at the bottom, and the goopy hole in the bottom left would be because at that point, your extruder was too far from the surface and could not extrude onto the plate so the bottom left of your plate needs to come up a fraction. If it is an autolevelling system, I would try it again a few times- I calibrate my hotbed daily. , but it's a manual thumbscrew system

White PLA issue
1. Recalibrate hotbed - you are printing too close or too far away on some areas of the plate.
Your nozzle is hot, the bed is not - (I consider anything under 80c a cold or PLA hotplate) so the nozzle is too close to the already extruded PLA and is melting it.
I use a piece of A4 paper for calibrating, when I feel friction between the paper and the plate and nozzle, that's where I leave it.

PLA can print anywhere from 120c to 200c... if you are getting goopy prints at 190c, go down to 180 - still goopy? go to 170 and basically keep going until you are happy with the consitency. If it wont print and goes CLICK CLICK! you know you are too low.

Blue ABS issue

Your settings for ABS are ideal, but if you are not getting stick with ABS, it works the OPPOSITE to PLA. More heat, means more stick - raise the bed temperature to 110-112c

When you heat a bed with PLA too much, it lifts. When you DON'T heat a bed with ABS enough, it lifts.

BUT there is a limit. To hot and the ABS will curl during printing due to rising heat, so please follow the below steps and see if it helps.

Printing ABS
1. Set your preheat temperatures to 232c and 112c.
2. When you print, print at 230c and 110c. Why did we set preheat higher? because you lose heat when you start a job, all the home axes and movements lose time and heat, ignore the little screen. The thermistors are good but always lag behind the actual heat a little. That few degrees means life or death for a print. Starting the print when the plate is hotter than printing ensures a really good stick on the first layer and then as it cools a couple of degrees, does not affect the first few print layers, which are the most important.

[lucidpsykosis]

Thank you so much for breaking it down. I was about to pull my hair out. Right off the bat, I can see my first mistake...I was using a business card to level the table; I'll work on getting it better leveled. In my opinion, having three points to level is harder than four. I say that because when I try to level the back of the bed, sometimes one extruder is looser and the other tighter. I guess I'll just keep trying till I get it right. Thank you again Geoff, as always you're a major help.