Bad Bed Adhesion Even After Cleaning [Solution]

Community Contributions
1

If your prints are still not sticking even after cleaning the bed, it’s not your printer, your temps, or your nozzle — it’s whatever you used to clean your bed.

More context: If you are watching your nozzle glide across the bed and your filament is gliding along with it with ZERO adhesion, this is for you.

Many people (myself included) grab the kitchen sponge or some random rag to wipe down the plate.

The problem is, those things usually have oils, soap residue, or whatever else baked into them from previous use.

You think you have a nice clean build plate, but it’s actually just as dirty [if not worse].

ONLY use fresh paper towels or a microfiber cloth you ONLY use for your printer. No handprints, no reused sponges. Even consider buying a set of “printer gloves” when handling your plates.

A complete process for an absolutely cleaned build plate:

  1. Wash Hands
  2. Dawn + Hot Water
  3. Scrub with paper towel
  4. Dry with paper towel
  5. Wait 5-10 minutes
  6. Spray paper towel with Isopropyl Alcohol [IPA]
  7. Wipe clean with paper towel
  8. Wait 5-10 minutes
  9. Super light once over buff w/ Steel Wool 0000
  10. Final wipe with paper towel
  11. NO MORE HANDS ON PLATE.

Note: If this doesn’t solve your problem, you 100% know it’s not a dirty bed.

3 Likes
2

I made this post because the Google results for this problem are all over the place, and I want a clear answer in one spot for beginners.

If you’re having abysmal adhesion issues seemingly out of the blue, there’s a 99% chance you’ve got a dirty plate and you don’t know it.

2 Likes
3

i kind of disagree with some of your steps, but if this keeps us away from unexperienced user’s 1 star reviews then sure XD let them do that just to make sure its not the print profile issue.

Edit: just to be clear do not spray IPA directly on the plate, spray it on the towel then wipe the plate.

2 Likes
4

IPA is not required if you’ve cleaned with soap & water properly & steel wool is extreme.
IPA can leave a residue.

Hot water, washing up liquid of some kind, scrub with a silicone brush, rinse off, dry with shop roll/paper towel, done.

I’ve been printing a long time on many surfaces and that’s all the steps you need for normal maintenance.

2 Likes
5
  1. You’re correct - IPA is not required for a typical cleaning.
  2. Steel wool IS extreme for normal maintenance, but again, this is for people who “can’t seem to fix their adhesion issue”.
  3. This is not a ‘normal maintenance’ recommendation.

This rec is specifically for the person who has been printing for many moons, and suddenly, nothing is sticking anymore. They’ve done everything from calibration to manual leveling to incremental Z-changes to filament changes to nozzle unclogs to cont.

6

I thought IPA wasn’t recommended for the Textured PEI plate?

7

I use IPA between washings but it’s 99%. And for sure, use paper towels instead of anything that might go through the laundry. Fabric softener is the killer. I can’t remember the last time I had a stiction problem.

I’ve noticed it does remove some “color”. But I’m still using my original PEI plate after two years and it’s still working. I have three or four spares as I recall.