Sometimes you get everything right on your first try and the results are very pleasing.
I have a roll of Gray Solutech PLA that I think is cursed because every time I’ve printed from it my printer seems to either under extrude or over extrude on the first few layers. Today I winged my process settings and nailed it!
Damn that’s level. #firstlayerenvy
@Mike_DiMare The funny thing is, my bed is slightly warped. I’ve found if I print my first layer at around 0.22 I get nice bed adhesion.
@Cornelius_Wiens Damn, looks like PB metal I’ve heard some of those beds are warped. Still trying to figure out if my PB simple bed has a slight warp.
@Mike_DiMare Yeah, it’s a PB Metal Plus. Fantastic printer, just a slightly warped bed.
I’m thinking of maybe shaving a tiny amount off the bed via a CNC Mill, I have access to a CNC Mill at my workplace, and I’m planning to replace the Kapton tape with BuildTak in the near future, so I might as well try and fix the warping issue then.
@Cornelius_Wiens I swapped to a pei sheet on my PB. So good. If you can swing it, get a. 03" pei sheet and 3m tape. Save money over the long run.
I added a simple 1/4" glass plate as I don’t heat my bed using PETG for a heated bed ceramic glass is best
We spec our beds to +/- .3mm… So yes, they are not “glass-flat”… Well some are some aren’t. We actually rarely see any that won’t just work w a 3mm first layer. I suspect the reports are from people that do a .1mm or a .2mm layer over a large surface. Some of our beds are actually cast “mic6” that are prediction ground perfectly flat (plus and some older heatbed upgrades for the simple- the ones w the milled pocket for heatbeds). The current heatbed upgrades are 6061 aluminum double disc ground-- you can’t get any flatter. This bed is being feathered into the stock Simple. The only ones we don’t double disc grind are the stock play and the play y upgrade w heat. Those are 6061 that we sand with an orbital. All can be sanded if they get scratched (crash, knife or scraper). We think these are appropriate decisions for their respective price points.
We recently tested the sensor on steel and stainless steel… It triggers higher up. If someone wants to put glass on their bot, I recommend a thin sheet of stainless under the glass so the sensor triggers high enough to be useful over the glass.
Brook
@Brook_Drumm thanks for the info Brook, now I can spout correct info. Using a 0.3mm first layer I’m still seeing some issues the g29 isn’t compensating for, which I thought should not be any issue if the bed was planar but not level. I have checked for flatness and have seen that it indeed does not look warped. I guess i’m referring to a post where the user actually had some warping issues. http://www.printrbottalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=8919&hilit=bed+flat+bed+gcode
This thread is definitely not a common occurrence but it does stick in my mind when talking flatness. There are many other threads on the forum about bed leveling.
In my case I probably could use a small shim though I assumed g29 should negate that requirement. Time for some tests when I get home.
@Mike_DiMare The standard G29 command samples 3 points and computes a plane from those 3. But a warped or twisted bed will cause the computed plane to vary from the real one.
Shims and using the G30 spot test command should be able to correct slight warping or twisting, such that the G29 plane computation will then be very close to your real bed.
@Paul_Gross yep, but I don’t actually think I have a warped or twisted bed. A deeper look is needed. Thanks for the tips though.
