1st layer will not continuously print. HELP A NOOB OUT PLEASE!

[wbriones 0]

Hello team,

 

I'm very new to the printing community and I'm having an extremely hard time finding the right setting for a print. the print is a car door skin roughly 1.5mm thick. for the first layer it will lay out filament halfway through and then start a new layer, gradually making its way to the end of the print. By layer 5 it will have put down 1 "complete layer".  The issue with this is there is no compensation when printing over an area it hasn't printed yet, basically its printing in air and I've tried to z -offset it quickly but that does not work. In Cura, is there a setting I can select that will make the 1st layer one continuous layer from start to finish? I would assume that there is some type of setting that can make the 1st layer continuous, but I haven't found it.  Below are the settings I am using, the Cura version, a screen shot of how I have it oriented and the file itself. I appreciate all the help. 

 

Printer is Modix Big120X

Cura version 5.6.0

8mm Nozzle

.15mm layer height

print speed 40mms

nozzle temp 210 (220 is max)

bed temp 55 (60 is max)

1mm REAR RIGHT COBRA DOOR.obj

[Slashee_the_Cow 276]

If you could provide the Cura project file (.3mf, get it ready to print then go to File > Save Project in Cura that would help a lot, as well as the gcode you're trying to print... and not to ask too much but a photo or something to show what's going wrong would really help.

 

But firstly:

1. Has the printer's bed been properly levelled?
2. If the printer has an auto bed levelling sensor (which in most printers complements manually levelling, not replacing it) have you run an auto levelling function on it if it exists?
3. Once you know the bed is properly levelled, have you configured the Z-offset manually?
4. Printing a 0.15mm layer height that slowly with a 0.8mm (I hope you meant 0.8mm) nozzle is going to be hard for the printer to control the flow to low enough for that to work. You'd be much better off switching to a 0.4mm nozzle if you have one.
5. You didn't specify what material you're trying to use - different materials require different temperatures, and by the sounds of it your printer will only be able to use PLA.
6. It doesn't matter what your printer is putting down at the start, printing something like that in that orientation  without any support is never going to work. The the closer it gets to the top, the more vibrations from the print head moving around will rock it around, so you'll reach a point where it's just waving backwards and forwards too much for the next layer to be put down directly on top of the previous one. You need to either rotate it so that's printing (for example) face up or add some diagonal struts for support.

[wbriones 0]

Thank you for the reply,

 

Yes, the bed has been properly leveled (see picture). I have been using the auto z offset, I have not used the manual z offset when I auto level the bed, I will try this. I have auto leveled the bed after every successful print which is about 10 times.

 

Yes, it is a 0.8mm nozzle, thank you for the correction. I can switch to a .6 or to a .4 if that is what it takes. I did try running the layer height at .6 but the layers did not adhere to each other very well. 

 

I am using PLA+. To clarify, the nozzle and bed temps I stated were the maximum temperatures for the PLA I am using, my printer can go much higher.

 

I am actually using raft + zigzag supports (this way the entire print sits atop the raft), but I had to try without bed adhesion and support to see if it did the same thing, which it did.  I can try different orientations of the print as well; I am open to anything.

 

I'm on my way to run some errands but once I return, I will run the bed calibration and manually offset the Z, reconfigure that file, run it with the .4 nozzle and attempt to print it again. I will repost my findings once it is succeeds or fails. (I hope it succeeds). 

 

Again, thank you for the input.

[Slashee_the_Cow 276]

10 hours ago, wbriones said:

Yes, it is a 0.8mm nozzle, thank you for the correction. I can switch to a .6 or to a .4 if that is what it takes. I did try running the layer height at .6 but the layers did not adhere to each other very well. 

Layers that thick would require the temperature to be higher and/or printing very slowly. When there's more filament going through the hot end at the same speed it has to be running hot enough to heat it all the way through as it passes. Not being hot enough would explain poor adhesion (it needs to be properly melted to adhere to itself as it dries). The general rule is that you shouldn't print layers more than 80% of your nozzle diameter in thickness.

 

10 hours ago, wbriones said:

Yes, it is a 0.8mm nozzle, thank you for the correction. I can switch to a .6 or to a .4 if that is what it takes. I did try running the layer height at .6 but the layers did not adhere to each other very well. 

The "standard" size (at least as close as there is to a standard) is 0.4mm. I usually use that with a layer height of 0.2mm (unless I want something highly detailed, in which case I take it down to about 0.12mm). But yeah, 0.4mm is usually considered the happy medium between detail quality, speed, and most importantly, easy to print.

 

10 hours ago, wbriones said:

I am actually using raft + zigzag supports (this way the entire print sits atop the raft), but I had to try without bed adhesion and support to see if it did the same thing, which it did.  I can try different orientations of the print as well; I am open to anything.

Rafts usually aren't considered necessary these days - they're a throwback to older times when bed adhesion really, really sucked so you printed a raft with big fat lines (holds better) and then printed on top of that (since most filament will stick to itself pretty well). I have to use a brim sometimes but I can't think of the last time I needed a raft.

 

Supports won't do much for your wobbling problem - all they do is hold up areas that stick out at an angle greater than your material can overhang, and most of your model is either straight up or at such a slight angle it doesn't require support.

 

I'd print it laying down like this:

Yeah, it requires a bunch of support = more filament, but failed prints also = more filament. I also raised it off the bed slightly (open the move tool on the left, uncheck Drop Down Model and set the Z to 2mm or so) so that it's completely on top of support (yeah, I know what I said about rafts, but this is different) instead of just the lowest part (which is pretty tiny) touching the bed. Just make sure that Support > Support Placement is set to Everywhere so those overhangs at the right are supported.