Initial Layer printing problem with UM3E

[maxlvhao 0]

Hi,

I recently got a UM3E for my research lab, and it worked perfectly for the first week.

Over that week, i was playing with different material, extrusion head, and all sorts of tweaks (as I did to my UM2E), and it worked fine.

Someday, I found out that it couldn't print the initial layer successfully, and never worked since.

I'm suspecting there's something wrong with the z-axis calibration or temperature control or extruder stepper control... but, really, I have no clue what's the cause... it never happen to my UM2E before...

any idea?

[fbrc8-erin 267]

Do you have your active leveling turned on still?

There's an option in the menu to re-do your Z-offset calibration.

When you start your prints, is the tip of your nozzle clean? If there's filament hanging off it, it will throw off the active leveling process.

[yellowshark 153]

Yup I agree, that looks like the results you get when the nozzle is too close to the bed.

[rizky81 0]

I suppose the silver color is the root problem. Because I have exactly the same results when printing with silver filament. I'm not an UM user but I found we have something in common when printing in silver color. This only happens when I print with silver (or maybe for gold and something that contain metal look) filament, otherwise its all fine for other colors.

[tomnagel 125]

In your pictures it seems that the brim is printed fine, and is attached nicely to the bed.

Can you confirm this?

If so, I would say bed leveling is fine.

What slicer did you use? If you used Cura, did you use the default profiles?

[yellowshark 153]

Not necessarily. I understand why you are saying that and until a month or so ago I would have agreed. But I had a similar problem with a part recently which had openings on each side for a belt and then a larger solid middle piece. The infill on the first layer around the narrow outer side of the belt slots was fine but when the infill in the middle started it gradually ended up like the first two pics above (not quite as bad maybe). It took me a long time to work out what was going one and it was due to the nozzle being being too close to the bed.

I am not saying that THAT is the problem, but it is worth checking.

[maxlvhao 0]

In your pictures it seems that the brim is printed fine, and is attached nicely to the bed.

Can you confirm this?

If so, I would say bed leveling is fine.

What slicer did you use? If you used Cura, did you use the default profiles?

 

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the reply. The bed leveling shouldn't be a problem. I was using Cura with default settings..

I also noticed another strange thing: I can't set the correct Z offsite value for the PVA extruder.. like I set the z offsite according to the instruction, but during the actual print, when it switches to PVA core, the nozzle is way too high above the bed to deposit any filament on the printer. I was guess some firmware or control error, could that be a possibility?

[tomnagel 125]

Sounds to me it is not switching properly. Does the problem reproduce? If so: please check whether or not nozzle 2 is switched to the lower position right before it starts printing.

Is your printer updated to the latest firmware? In rare cases with older firmware, switching does not work correctly after auto level is performed.