What's wrong with my brim?

[smorgana 0]

Things have been going well the first few days with my Ultimaker 2..

Tonight though I tried to build a model with brim, and it appears the threads of brim are not adhering to each other... Therefore the brim does not function to help adhere the part to the build platform. So the model lifted in the first few layers...

I've used brim before on this printer and it was solid -- the difference tonight is I am printing at .2mm layers, and set the temperature according to the filament manufacturer's specifications... So though previous attempts with Black ABS from the same manufacturer at the default 260c worked well, when I switched to orange ABS I noticed a puff of smoke on the initial mid air prime, and so thought I should set the temp down to within spec at 230c.

Here is a pic.. if anyone has advice I'd appreciate it... I'm re-running the print right now with no parameter changes, except I've applied another layer of glue stick -- and it seems to be going well, and is now past the point where the previous print failed.

Edit:

Second print failed a few minutes after posting this message... I'll probably try a different model orientation that has better adhesion in and of itself, but it would be great to learn what's going wrong here..

 

[solid-print-3d 30]

Looks like it's just printing a super thick first layer... What is your initial layer height set to? Try leveling the bed with a little more tension on the paper, or print something very large with 30 lines of brim or so, and as it goes around, printing that large brim, calibrate the bed on the fly until you get nice tight lines...make sure your Cura setting for initial layer height is set to .2mm or so.

Don't forget to measure the filament, in case you haven't, and enter those values in the material menu of the printer.

I'm sure one of the "big dawgs" will chime in with some more useful info, but that's it for now.

 

[smorgana 0]

Ah.. yes.. Thats another parameter I set... I set the filament diameter to the manufacture spec (my caliper had a dead battery last night -- so did not do a direct measurement...) I'll check that out...

Initial layer thickness is set to .3 (the default) which worked for good brim on previous prints.

edit.

filament diameter checks out to be within spec and set right...

 

[smorgana 0]

I switched back to stock the stock Ultimaker PLA that came with the machine to eliminate the materials variable.

Ran the same model long enough to see the brim is still stranded. Once the platform cools to room temp I'll set the bed level/height again.

Edit.

What I noticed was the brim was better on the lift of the print than the right -- and when I went back to do the bed level again...yes the right side was looser than the left.

Tried to set them all to equal friction on the paper, and a little more friction than I have been.

The brim is beginning to print and it looks good now... no more spaghetti ... I'll need to see a few layers to be sure the bed height is not too close to the nozzle though...

 

[smorgana 0]

 

It was the build platform level... and the height...

The recommendation was to make it so the paper "just" have friction... But I guess not all paper is made the same...

I'd like to come up with a repeatable way to set the build platform...

Other than that, now I'm seeing another beautiful Ultimaker print in progress..

Thanks for the tips.

 

 

[solid-print-3d 30]

Try to familiarize yourself with turning the bed screws while it's printing a large part. You really will be able to fine tune it much better calibrating it on the fly, opposed to just sticking with the paper only method. I find that each of my 5 or 6 brands of filament all have slightly different characteristics when printing the first run. For instance I have some jet green that has to be printed so thin it almost looks like nothings coming out...of course I make sure to tell Cura to set the first layer to .1mm so I'm not over extruding the first layer.

Another method I've had luck with is to tune it with the power off. I push the bed up to the nozzle, stick a piece of paper under it pretty tight, and hold the Z screw from turning with my left hand and move the head around and turn the bed screws with my right hand, constantly tunining it. It becomes pretty easy when you visualize how each screw affects the plane of the bed. Then I power on, andrun the calibration wizard. I only rotate the dial to raise the bed to the head, with a paper under the nozzle. Once the nozzle is nice and snug against the paper, I skip the next 2 steps (left corner, right corner) then I double check one more time at the rear on the 4th step, and again skip the 5th and 6th (left corner right corner), becasue I already know that the bed is perfectly parallel with the X,Y plane due to the hand leveling I did with the power off. This is a more, I wouldn't call it "advanced", but it is more involved... good for people with OCD

 

[smorgana 0]

will definitely try these methods out. thanks for your help! was hoping to have this model by morning, and its lookong good so far....