Ultimaker 2+ Gaps in filament path

[Undel 1]

Edit: it is fixed!

History: Correcting leaning prints

The ultimaker 2+ is my first 3d printer. A month ago the prints began to lean to the left as a print gained height. I corrected this issue using some helpful guides on the forums, as it turned out to b e an issue with the horizontal belt motor. It needed to be tightened, as there was a big gap in a part. I tightened it and reassembled everything. I successfully printed an ultimaker robot, and the print did not lean at all.

Gaps In Prints

Since the successful robot print after my leaning print correction, all of my prints have had gaps between the filament path, where it should be laying flush. This is printing with the same file, materials, and settings that I was having success with previously. Here is a video showing the issue. It's most visible at 0:46. Look at the brim in the center, running vertical, and the brim on the right side, running verticle. The filament has gaps between each pass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDN13XFh2SA

I have tried:

 

• Aligning the Print Bed
  
• Removing the Material
  
• Watching the reinserted material extrude a nice thick line onto the build plate for 30 seconds.
  
• Increasing the print temperature on colorfab PLA from 210 to 215 C
  
• Performed the atomic method of unclogging the nozzle. I got a clean pull. Print still has gaps in layers.
  

 

Is it possible that I have caused an issue by messing with the horizontal belt motor? Or is this a clogged nozzle? (it extruded a beautiful line of filament after the new material was inserted, so I'm not sure.) Any recommendations appreciated.

Edited June 19, 2016 by Guest

[Undel 1]

Update: It is fixed, and was having issues through human error.

I kept thinking that it would make sense if this were an issue with the print bed because that's what it looked like. The first thing that I did was relevel it, but it didn't fix the problem. But it dawned on me this morning that I leveled the print bed using the closest spare "piece of paper", which was a thick photograph. Sure enough, after leveling the print bed with a sheet of printer paper, the first layer of my print is looking great!

Moral of the story: Don't level your print bed using a photo as your piece of paper.

[gr5 2,210]

Even better - once you level it once don't re-run the procedure and instead just turn the knobs until you get perfect bottom layer.  Here's my bottom layer guide:

Here are examples where the bed is too close to the nozzle (0mm off the bed) to too far apart (.35mm example where it completely fails similar to your print).

I prefer a skirt like the blue filament above where it is well squished and sticks well. The more squished it is the better it sticks. On rare occasions I can't have even .1mm of brim on the part so I can't squish it at all for dimensional reasons - so parts fit. In those rare cases I am more for the red line amount of thickness.

Edited June 19, 2016 by Guest