Suddenly bad prints

[Starlord]

Is a brim the same as a raft?

kd7eir, as printbus mentioned try using a brim instead of a skirt (I use typically one loop of the skirt). The brim is essentially the same as the skirt you printed except it is attached to the first layer of your part.

A little more description of the uses of both:

A skirt is used to purge any air in your hotend before the print is drawn to make sure that there is filament coming out of the nozzle and that the complete first layer of your print is drawn. I have also seen some people use a skirt printed 10 to 15 layers high to shield the print from cool air drafts, although I haven't ever needed to do this. The more loops you specify, the thicker this skirt will be.

A brim is used to increase the surface area of the part on the first layer which will increase the part's adhesion to the bed. It's super effective (pokemon) at getting the part to stick and reducing corner lifting. I use a 5mm brim on parts that I can't quite get stuck down by using normal bed treatments.

[printbus]

Is a brim the same as a raft?

Nope. A brim goes around the final print on the first layer - sort of like the brim of a hat. A raft is underneath the desired print.

[gmay3]

Is a raft pretty much only used properly with a dual extruder system when it's printed in a dissolve-able material?

[printbus]

Is a raft pretty much only used properly with a dual extruder system when it's printed in a dissolve-able material?

Not necessarily, but from what I've read the raft is often tough to remove from the bottom of the print. I've never tried to use one. There's an active thread in the Tips, Tricks and Tech Help area discussing starting with a raft and then having the bottom of the print raised up on one or more very narrow posts. The intent there is to force easier-to-remove support structure between the raft and the print. Sounds like a lot of work, a lot of wasted filament, and a lot of lost printer time but YMMV.