Why do my prints keep messing up?

[Jcdavison1 0]

Hi everyone,

 

I am new to 3D printing and I’ve been using it the classroom, however, I keep running into issues when printing. I’ve tried some suggestions with adjusting the heat and speed but it seemed to make the problem worse.  I’ve attached this picture of the recent print. Can you please tell me what I’m doing wrong? It keeps messing up and sticking to the nozzle. Help please! 

[owen 19]

Hi

Looks like you're not starting close enough to the bed. The first layer and brim should be squished onto the bed so that the lines of print are touching each other with no gap in between. Best if you can do the bed leveling routine and give it another go.

[tommyph1208 55]

Your problem is with bed adhesion, potentially just caused by bad bed leveling... Looking at the first picture, your first layer isn't properly "squished" out and has not adhered to the bed, this will eventually cause the print to break off the bed and subsequent extruded filament to just print randomly in the air, which can lead to what you describe about it sticking to the nozzle.
I don't know what printer you have, but you should run a bed leveling process, making sure than when the printer is homed in the z axis (ie. is at the height where the first layer would be printed, the nozzle should sit right at the bed surface regardless of where on the bed you move the printhead... Check the distance with a thin piece of paper, you should be able to drag it in between the nozzle and print bed, feeling some amount of resistance.
Apart from this bed leveling you may wan't to look at different options for bed adhesion... There is a separate thread for all of this: Here

 

Edited December 5, 2018 by tommyph1208

[Jcdavison1 0]

Thanks for the advice so far. I’m going to try the bed leveling calibration again with those tips and see if that helps. I’ll see if a glue stick helps. Right now I have the blue painters tape on it as suggested on the manual when I set it up. My model is the Ultimaker 2 Go, by the way. 

[geert_2 556]

When printing on glass, the bottom should look less or more like this (see photos below), thus quite flat and glossy, with the layer lines squeezed together. When on blue tape, it will of course be rougher, but the layer lines should still be very flattened. So, as the others said above, your bed is way too far off.

 

 

 

[Jcdavison1 0]

Thanks for the advice so far. I tried adjusting the build plate again and it seemed to help a lot, or at least a print actually finished and didn’t just ball up to a mess in the nozzle. I’ve attached a picture of the most recent print. It finished but on some areas it still looks like there are some stray strings - I can’t tell if it’s a design error or still the printer (which is an Ultimaker 2 Go). These designs are made by elementary students so it’s possible there could be some flaws. Also, any suggestions about removing the blue tape and just going to glass instead? I’m not sure if I would benefit from it or see a real difference. Thanks in advance everyone! 

[geert_2 556]

Steep overhangs need support: the material needs something to stick to. Otherwise the printer is extruding spaghetti in the air, which is what you see here.

 

There are several solutions:

- Use the standard support settings in the slicer (Cura or whatever slicer you use).

- Design your own custom supports in CAD into the model. This is what I prefer due to my often complex models.

- Or design the model in such a way that there are no steep overhangs at all, and thus supports are not needed.

 

Here you see a few support methods I regularly use, and which are designed to make their removal easier: