Hey Guys. Quick Question about how to stop a print from warping?
I’m printing a spool holder and the first part i’m printing has started to warp up off the bed.
Printing on Prusa i3 MK2S.
AMZ3D PLA Filament
195/55 temps.
Add a brim to it and/or increase the bed temp a bit.
Try the brim first.
Put a cardboard box over the printer to minimize drafts and keep some heat in the part. That’s usually only necessary with ABS, but warping is warping.
It’s PLA; clean the bed with some rubbing alcohol, then keep increasing the bed temp until you get proper adhesion. For PLA I use 60-65 C depending on the brand.
Like Adam suggests have the bed hot for getting the PLA to stick on those first layers. When I use PLA I start out with the bed a 60 and after 0.5mm in layer height I drop it down to 45 to set the plastic so subsequent layers don’t peel it up as they cool. I get perfectly flat prints covering most of a 10 x 10 bed this way. No warping at all.
The only think that’s worked for me is to either enclose the printer to make sure you don’t get cold air coming in and cooling down the edges of your print surface or I drip a drop of superglue onto the corners of the print early in the print when I suspect that it may be a candidate for warming.
For Prusa i3 MK2S only @Lukas_Mathis provided the right solution. With the fine Z adjustment you can really tune the first layer to perfection. For example I ended up with -0,440 mm offset (this is different for each particular setup - don’t try to copy that value!) and when I changed it to -0,420 mm (that’s 0,02 mm difference!) my larger prints started failing. So it’s sensitive and you need to find your right value.
And the isopropylalcohol makes a major difference as well.
If adjusting z is not enough, I used the Builtak Surface. On this material the bonding with pla is perfect.
What I do, if I print on glas is to reduce the Heatbed temperature from 65 to 45°C if the print reached the 5-7th layer.
So the bottom of the print still hold on the glas, but get hard enough not to warp.
A Brim or Raft with 0mm Distance to the object can help too.
Thanks for all the replies guys.
First off, My Z is set correctly. I mean, I think it is. I haven’t really had any issues with it before. This print is the largest i’ve ever done so far.
My print bed is clean as i wiped it down just before the print.
it could be due to a draft as i think a door was open when i was printing.
The print did work in the end. the screw part is a bit tough to use, but it worked.
I’ll try the next piece with the door closed and see if that could have been the cause.
However, When printing the spool parts for this, i ended up with a bigger problem. A MASSIVE layer shift.
Now i have multiple things to figure out. I may just hope it was random and try again.
@Lukas_Mathis Yeah, i was in silent mode. Any reason why that mode causes this problem?
Thanks. I had it on as high power is loud and my enclosure isn’t built yet. I’m in an apartment with a few others so having it running loudly isn’t preferred. I’ll run it again in high power mode at some point.
print with a brim.
Clean the bed with ipa or acetone (cold). Lower the live adjust to press more onto the bed.
Make sure your frame isn’t loose - I had and issue with a loose frame (my fault not using loctite).
I’d question the filament itself - warping/sticking issues are rare with PLA, most manufacturers don’t require a heated bed at all and I can’t remember the last time I saw any kind of issue with PLA like this. How was the filament stored, is it dry/clean? Silly question, I suppose, but are you sure it’s PLA (and not just because it says so on the label)? If you’d said it was ABS I wouldn’t have been surprised at all, which makes me wonder…
Watch the first layer exactly. If this isn’t sticking well your print will fail like this