Been printing up a storm for the past month with PLA. I found using the Hot Plate was best, and was rarely having any adhesion problems… until last night.
Suddenly, out of the blue, all of my prints started failing with bad first layer adhesion – and there had been no changes in either machine or filament reels since earlier in the day when everything was fine.
So I:
Carefully cleaned the Hot Plate… still bad.
Tried different areas of the plate… still bad.
Shifted back to the Cool Plate with a bit of glue… a bit better, but the larger the footprint, the more likely it was to fail, and even on the small ones, there were problems with brim not adhering/blobbing.
Recalibrated… still bad, but an interesting change. The outer brim now adheres normally, but rest of first layer (including the inner brim if memory serves) immediately fails to adhere.
Reverted settings to default “Generic PLA” (I had increased max volumetric speed to match the Bambu PLA settings) and changed Brim to outer only. This was interesting. Outer brim and outer wall lines of the print were good, but inner wall line adhesion was very weak and some of it came loose. However, the rest of the first layer (the solid wall infill) printed OK, and the print then continued normally.
So it appears that the issue may be related to isolated lines on the main area of the build plate, they suddenly just don’t have enough adhesion. This seems to be unrelated to build location.
Edit/Update 1: I continued AB testing, next I swapped the .4 hotend for a .6 hotend. This brought things almost back to what I’d consider normal. Examining the .4 hotend, it had a fair amount of PLA caked on underneath the silicone hood – so much so that I had to chip away at it in order to swap the nozzle.
The .6 still has a few adhesion issues, typically a loose string or loop in the brim that gets knocked off as the next perimeter line is laid down, and that then gets kicked out of the way as the print proceeds. So there’s still something going on that I don’t understand.
TY. Do you have any insight as to what the issue was with the 0.4 nozzle? It wasn’t clogged, because when it did manage to produce a decent first layer, the rest of the print was perfect. It felt like perhaps it wasn’t at the correct height, so it wasn’t getting good adhesion, even though I was running bed-leveling and extrusion calibration on every test run.
I am wondering if perhaps the underlying problem is still present but the larger 0.6 nozzle is masking it to some extent.
Any luck on identifying this problem? I’m having a very similar problem. I’ve been using the textured PEI sheet sheet. No problems for a month, then all of a sudden I’m have first layer adhesion problems. I’ve tried changing the nozzle and no go, I switched over to the cool plate with glue and it finally stuck, but then started to lift half way through the print.
not saying this is your issue, but one i had. i found a specific silicone based lubricant i use at work that painters particularly dislike was causing a problem for me. no matter how much soap i used it will not wash off and alcohol diluted it and allowed it to wick through the cloth i used to clean. i now do not touch the plate when i clean it or remove prints.
another i had with my ended printer was using a cloth that had fabric softener on.
use dawn or i forget the EU equivalent. dont touch the plate and use a clean dry lint free paper towel to dry it or just let it air dry.
as far as scuffinig, use magic eraser, it does the least damage.
Same issue here. I have printed for months no issue, then out of nowhere regardless what plate I use I’m having adhesion problems. Tried different spools of PLA as well. I leave the door open and have a riser so the top is open as well but it did cause a massive buildup on the hot end tip etc. Starting to wonder now after I had to be pretty abrasive with a soldering iron and a hobby knife to remove most (there are some remnants I just can’t get out). Is it possible that my hot end isn’t getting hot enough at this point or did the latest update adjust the bed temps down or is there something that can wear out and not allow the bed to heat high enough? I have 2 new hot ends on order and we will see if that helps solve the issue.
Update: I increased the bed temp 10c and it appears to be adhering. Not overly excited about manually bumping up my heat bed by almost 20% standard every time I want to print however.
Hi, I’m brand new to the forum and brand new to 3D printing. I made a few successful prints with a new X1 Carbon and now that I’m trying to print a large flat object, think small iPad sized case things go great until about 3/4 of the way through the first layer. And it’s always in the same area on the same side.
I tried Bambu PLA, and PETG, I’ve tried the cool plate with PLA, and the engineering plate with the PETG with glue stick and with the liquid stuff. I’ve tried the textured PEI plate without and with glue. I’ve cleaned the plates after every use and don’t touch them afterward. I’ve tried slowing down the speeds and kicking up the temperature of the nozzle five and ten degrees from the programmed settings. THe same thing keeps happening. Nothing has worked so far.
This is the last print. you can see how nicely it lays down for more than half ot it. But then it all goes to hell.
I did notice one thing … when the hot end went to the far back corner a couple times I noticed the light reflection on the plate seemed to jiggle just a tiny bit, like something bumped the heating bed. I wonder if there is some issue there which causes disruption of the filament and a snowballing gunking issue.
Same problem long ago. Now I use Bambu PEI plate with 3DLac and some aliexpress PEI plate with Syoss Max Hold hair spray. No problems since…. I only spray a little once in 10 prints, or more.
I’ve had to slow my filament’s max volumetric flow to a 5 (down from the 21 that is set for Bambu PLA), and I’m getting better adhesion on my prints.
If I don’t seriously slow down the speed of my X1C, all my prints are garbage.
(And yes, I’ve cleaned my build plates, etc.)
Give that a go, and it may help.
Once your first few layers have gone down, you can increase the speed in the menu to get your printer to print quicker.
I had same problem for 2 days. It really drove me crazy. Even though I cleaned it 4-5 times with IPA, it wouldn’t hold. Then I washed the pei with dish soap. The problem was completely solved. But it was very annoying.
Just going to jump in here to say I experienced this exact problem with my A1 mini (textured PEI plate) after about two months of regular use. Tried cleaning with dish soap but that didn’t help, so I moved to angrier methods. I found scrubbing the plate with acetone and steel wool, followed by denatured alcohol and steel wool did the trick.
In retrospect I’ve definitely handled the plate with various wood and leather finishes on my hands over the past few weeks so I shouldn’t be surprised I had adhesion problems that required an agressive cleaning approach.
Welcome to the forum! Different things work for different people but just for the sake of other new people who may read this acetone will destroy your plate. Now that you have it sticking again I would suggest not touching it with contaminates on your hands and the dish soap and water should do the trick.
