Does anybody know whats wrong here and what I can do to avoid the gaps at the borders?
Originally shared by Marc Pentenrieder
Hi, I have a very bad first layer. Could this be underextrusion?
I use white PLA from DasFilament at 225°C and the bed at 60°C.
The second layer looks much better, with gaps filled.
I am using a Creality CR-10 with Simplify3D.
Looks like your hot end is not close enough to the bed.
Either that or check your extruder size in your slicer software. Could be you’ve got a smaller hole than it thinks. Ie, .3 on the hot end .4 in the software
I agree, it looks like you are to high on your first layer. If you were under extruding, your second layer would be bad also.
I also think you aren’t close enough to the bed. If you look at the holes, the plastic is being dragged over the other layers because it’s not being smushed against the build plate. Plus your bead looks really round and it shouldn’t be. At no point should it be round. You should always be smushing your filament into the plastic or glass below it.
I agree with everyone else, your nozzle is too far from the bed on the first layer.
Either flow rate or extruder too far off the bed. Recalibrate your z offset first
Agreed with nozzle too far from bed on first layer, however, I notice that the lower part of the picture is visibly worse than the top. This suggests to me that the bed is not level with respect to it’s direction of travel.
Thanks, for all your feedback, I will check nozzle height tommorow an give feedback.
Is there a rule of thumb how to determine the right nozzle height, perhaps half nozzle diameter? Until now I used a business card to set nozzle height of my .4 nozzle.
Because it is so close to being right it might be worth adjusting your z offset by something like -0.4mm in your slicer program. That’s what I do rather than spending more time playing with the bed/endstop.
business cards are way to thick. You move your nozzle to eg. 0.2mm then use the 0.2 feeler gauge - it shouldn’t jam but slip with contact. You have to repeat that on at least 3 points. Do it until all 3 points are ok. Now your Zero should be close to zero. Normaly your nozzle should never be set to 0 when on the bed to avoid scratches. On your first layer the gcode/slicer will move the nozzle to layerheight and you want this exact without extra margin. You have to do this with a hot hotbed!
I think this is more of a problem with the way S3D does its 1st layer when you change the layer height and width settings. I can’t find it right now, but at one time they had a pretty good article that explained what would happen when you start tweaking those settings.
I don’t recall the details, but those settings do not intuitively align with what you might think. I had the very same problem showing up with these gaps and it was a result of messing with those settings. Right now I’m at 150% for both, but I see room for improvement because I’ll get those gaps at the perimeter like you have.
I suppose you are using Slic3r with standard parameters. I suggest you set the diameter of the filament at Printing Settings -> Advanced -> Extrusion Width -> Default Extrusion Width. In my case, I set 0.4. Than, calibrate it and adjust the percent of extrusion to a fine tune.
Well on a positive note it looks like your bed is level…lol
Standard copier paper is about the right thickness – a business card is likely too thick. But the bottom line is get it about right, then adjust it until your first layer is suitably squidged.
Hi, it is a little bit better now, but my bed isn’t level. I will try to level the bed, when I am back from my trip in one week. Thanks for all the advises.
In S3D try increasing your outline overlap %
@Ulrich_Baer +1 for 0.2mm feeler gauge. Leveling and first layer height became so much more consistent and predictable once I got away from this paper/business card business and started using a metal feeler gauge. When the gauge slides under the nozzle with just a slight resistance I know my head height is exactly 0.2mm.
@Noel_Kuck agree with you - I’ve always had to set S3D’s outline overlap much higher than I’d expect would be necessary. Just make sure you’re not increasing outline overlap to compensate for underextrusion (or miscalibrated Z height offset).
