I've finally dialed in most all of the settings on my Ultimaker/Cura nicely but the first layer gives me trouble. It sticks fine, has for a long time, but the amount of material extruded in this layer is overkill. It seems like it is extruding 150-200% as much as needed and the nozzles forms grooves in (smears across) the excess material that has oozed out. Every other layer lays down nicely. I've seen references to how well "Cura stitches the first layer," and other comments that seem to suggest that the first layer is intentionally laid down extra thick so I suspect this is a software issue (or a user issue with the software )
A couple other observations:
[*:3uvyu979]manually twisting the z-axis about 3-4 notches (Z+) produces a more pleasant first layer fill but very thick still. Incidentally, my Z-limit is set to a few thousdanths of an inch above the table (thickness of piece of paper). [*:3uvyu979]adjusting first-layer thickness does have an effect but doesn't solve the issue; seems like there is still excessive extrusion [*:3uvyu979]this doesn't ruin the print by any means but it makes the bottom surface ugly and when printing the second layer, the sprung table rocks underneath the nozzle as it rams through the ooze piles. That seems bad.
Googling for this issue has been difficult but since it seems like a configuration/software issue I thought I'd quickly chime in here to see if this was by design. If that were the case, I'd be curious what my options are to control that mechanism and if this isn't a known issue, I can go back to my machine tonight and get some pics and example gcode.