hello
so im new to this whole thing but haven watched tons of videos and had a successful first print of the calibration cube. unfortunately - moving forward i have not yet been able to repeat this success.
i have releveld the bed each time trying to find that sweet spot but each time the filament wont stick to the bed. now it does when it runs up the side but soon during the base print it wont print flat and smooth.
im using an ender 3 max.
i cannot seem to find any videos of an explination of what each screen does and what i should do to trouble shoot. do i need to change the filament speed?
also, i couldnt force by hand the filament through down to the nozzle and purge some of the filament. i had to run a print and just let it run itself down the tube and out to the nozzle.
any help would be appreciated. or direction towards a video breaking down each screen on the dial pad and what they do so im better aware of what they do.
thank you
Hi and welcome. what filament are you using on your Ender 3 max. maybe if you have a detailed photo of the bottom of the cube you printed, it might help us help you, but it might be hard to see what the first layer was like that way but it may show other things. The first layer as you’re finding out is the most important and good first layers need good adhesion from the bed. so bed heat, The level of your bed (you said you did), and the Z offset height. this is the height the nozzle is above the bed and determines how the filament is squashed. the first layer should not have any gaps between rows on the one hand (too far) or ridges on the other (too close). this is why the beds have to be so flat and coplanar with the path the nozzle takes as it prints.
I’m also new new to this whole thing. I have a buddy who has a good sized print farm and he swears by using a gluestick to “Prep” the bed. He cleans the bed after every print… then reapplies a thin coating of gluestick.
If you couldn’t push the filament through by hand I would guess that you didn’t have your extruder heated to a high enough temperature to melt the plastic. When you run a print the code has commands to heat up the extruder and the bed before printing but if you want to do it manually you would have to manually set the extruder temperature on the machine itself (and then let it cool down).
so i was able to get another solid print. the only thing was that the first layer kinda peeled up on one of the corners… otherwise it was another good print.
about feeding the filament. i can get it in the sensor - squeeze the release arm and feed a bit it a little ways in… but i see people who can feed it all the way down to the extruder and thats what i could not do… i couldnt manually feed it through and all the way down to the extruder.
So for the print peeling you need to look at your bed heat and maybe try some glue stick as was suggested earlier but I don’t see where you said what filament you are using? Try printing some test patterns for the first layer and see what they come out like.