M3D Promega Help

[orthoplanner]

Hi All,

I recently purchased Promega by M3D with K'tana Extruder. I'm currently having a lot of issues getting my print to stick to the bed. After spending hours calibrating and configuring the machine settings, I can't seem to figure out exactly what is going on. I have done the calibration about 20 times and keep getting a good graph for the bed leveling. I have a heated glass bed and have tried both PLA and ABS with maybe slightly more luck with the ABS. I'm mainly using the 3D printing to print 3D reconstructions of bones from CT scans for surgical planning. I use Ultimaker Cura and the settings were all based off the promega website where they had a template to download. I'm looking for any advice on how to get my model to stick to the bed better. As of right now, it either starts and sticks for about 3 seconds and then just lifts and moves around with the nozzle, or it will work for a longer period of time, and then do the crazy bunch of random strings appearance thing, if you know what I mean.

Any help would be appreciated as I am super frustrated at this point going on about 2 months of trying to figure this out. The M3D group has been absolutely NO help at all, and pretty much don't respond to any questions. I honestly regret buying the printer from them at this point. If you need any more technical information (I'm sure you will), I'm happy to provide.

Thanks in advance for the advice.

- J

[curious aardvark]

printer aside - and this really isn't about your printer - getting a good first layer adhesion is 80% of a succesful print.

You need to use an adhesive.
The basic ones are: pva stick glue. I use the cheap ones from the pound/buck shops.
Blue painters tape - will always work, but has issues.

Over the years I've tried everything.
My main printer uses a sheet of printbite. Which works pretty much hassle free. Not cheap, but it'll last the lifetime of the printer.
I can also recommend magigoo - just be BLOODY careful how hard you squeeze the tube !
I've also used dimafix - now that stuff is pretty amazing.

The issue with most adhesives is not getting stuff to stick, it's getting it off after. So some experimenting with first layer speed (start VERY slow and increase speed gradually) and z-'smoosh'. Z-gap height.

It's a learning cyrve with every new printer. But use an adhesive.

Just heating the bed and wioing a few layers of gluestick is a good and cheap place to start.

[orthoplanner]

Thanks for the advice. This will be amazing if it is a simple fix like this. Prior to this printer I was using the micro M3D, and never had any issues with bed sticking so I assumed it was printer issue.

I think I would like to try something like the printbite you mentioned. Only issue I have is getting it here in the states. Are there any other substitutes that you would recommend that I can get here? I saw something called Gizmo Dorks PEI sheet on Amazon that I could try, but figured I would ask first since I have never used one before.

[curious aardvark]

pei - that's the bugger !
would have mentioned it, but for the life of me I could not remember what it was called yesterday :-)

Yes definitely worth a try.
Just remember - none of these things are magic. So you will still need to dial in your specific printer for each print surface.
I bought a cheap sheet of pei last year to test.
Can not find it - so will probably buy another one lol.
I think a 200x200 sheet with self adhesive backing was about five pounds off ebay from china.

magigoo and dimafix both work well, particularly for items that don't have a lot of surface area on the bed for the first layer.

[orthoplanner]

Ok awesome. I got some Magigoo in today and am gonna try a print. Will keep you posted on how it goes. Fingers crossed...

[orthoplanner]

Worked like a charm. Thank you for the suggestion. Maybe this printer isn't so bad after all...