Ender 3 Warping/Bed Adhesion Problem

[river prawn]

Hello, I have an ender 3 that I have been trying to properly configure to be able to print figurines since I've gotten it, but I've been running into issue after issue. I was told it's normal to take a bit to get an ender 3 properly configured, but once you do it's a great printer.
Current issues I am having are warping and ved adhesion. I added a raft bed support to try to fix the issue as a test but still got warping on one side as shown by the picture.
I have it get to the regular fan speed at layer 10 (starting at 0 for first few layers). Bed temp at 70° and extruder at 215°.
I have it leveled and bltouch to auto level before each print.
Before I added the raft for testing, I was getting other issue shown in the images.

[tepid plume]

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[river prawn]

I did the cube test print which printed fine, but I'm assuming it is because it is a smaller print.

[stark gorge]

is one of these pics the underside of a raft?

[river prawn]

no, thats the underside of a print without rafts. just that first pic (my most recent print) was with rafts, which the underside looks fine with the exception of the warp

[stark gorge]

still seems like a level issue. you can see two of the corners have better adhesion, but the lines are coming up on the opposite side

[river prawn]

I think I did a little more leveling after that print of those last couple pics, but still unsure why it's warping. I can send pic of the raft from that scraper if needed

[stark gorge]

I never really got along with that type of bed. i jst use a borosillicate pane, lol. But if it's not getting squished to the bed enough, it'll start coming up

[river prawn]

Should I swap back to the glass bed instead of magnetic?

[stark gorge]

nah you can make it work

offset needs to be lower

also, external corners are prone to warping to begin with

[river prawn]

This is the underside of the raft from the last print

[stark gorge]

i dont normally print rafts so its a little difficult for me to assess that

still looks like it could be on the far side

level, but far

[river prawn]

So change z offset to lower it a little?

[stark gorge]

yeah

[river prawn]

I feel like last time I lowered it a little bit, it was too close and was almost scraping the bed but not extruding enough.

[stark gorge]

an autoleveler will just determine variation in bed height from a reference point. you need to tell it exactly where to start the print with the z offset

by how much?

or how much did you change it

[river prawn]

Right and I've done that

.3

[stark gorge]

thats a ton

so your normal layer height for a 0.4mm nozzle is 0.2

that's a change of 1.5x layer heights

[river prawn]

Ohh

[stark gorge]

the order you should be looking at is 0.01mm

i consider 0.1mm to be a big "step" in z offset change where you will definitely notice. changing by 0.01mm will finely tune it into place

[river prawn]

So it's at -3.00 for z offset right now. What would you suggest I change it to to test?

[stark gorge]

-3.05

which is just me eyeballing it

its pretty close, otherwise it would just mess up from the start

[river prawn]

Gotcha. I will adjust that and give it a go. Should I do it with the raft again or remove the raft now?

[stark gorge]

id keep doing what youre already doing to reduce variables

[wind sphinx]

for leveling your bed its better not to use a raft, if your bed is properly leveled you wont need a raft to print most things.

[river prawn]

So I think i got the warping and better bed adhesion fixed from doing this, however, now a lot of my prints are doing this...

[wind sphinx]

How does the first layer look like?

[river prawn]

It looked like it was starting well as I monitored the first couple layers. But looking at it after the fact, looks terrible

[wind sphinx]

yep looks terrible

looking at the first layer i assume its a lil too far from the bed

can you print a bed level test?
that will tell if your bed is at the right distance or not

[river prawn]

Sure, which one do you recommend?

[wind sphinx]

ender 3?

[river prawn]

Yes

[wind sphinx]

https://www.printables.com/model/210247-ender-3-bed-level-test

try printing this

this is what you want to look for

[wind sphinx]

you want the prints to look like the square in the center, where you are at right now is around the fourth or fifth square

[river prawn]

Gotcha, I will try that when I get home from work. Thanks!

[river prawn]

This is what happened. It does look like it's a bit too far on the corner that worked. But it globbed up on other ones...

[scenic crest]

Bed isnt leveled. How did you level it.

[river prawn]

I did the paper thing. Moving it across as I raise/lower the dials. The paper was tight when I did it...

[scenic crest]

did you change the z-offset?

[river prawn]

I did from before. As suggested first from -3.00 to -3.05.

[scenic crest]

do autohome.

go into move, set z to zero, then redo the z-offset with paper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0WKA4gXG-I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4BDIGixU7Y

[scenic crest]

he said he eyeballed it. so do that again please

[river prawn]

Okay. You think all corners are still level, just z offset isn't correct? Or after we do this I'll do level test again to see?

[scenic crest]

just test manually first to see if it doesnt scrape after you have done the z-offset

you have a bl touch. did you add the code in cura for that? m420 s1 or g29.

[river prawn]

I did. I followed a video for setting that up. Then my friend also gave me the code for the line down that left side for cleaning the nozzle before the print.

[scenic crest]

then heating the bed, autoleveling and then changing the z offset should be fine.

could check manually if you want but hopefully autoleveling should take care of that anyways.

[river prawn]

I'll try that and let you know. Thanks

[river prawn]

Just did this, but to me it seems too close like it's a really thin layer

[scenic crest]

did you change the z offset also

with folded paper

[wind sphinx]

Yep too close

[river prawn]

Folded paper? I did a non folded piece of paper.

[river prawn]

Alright, doing another bed level test.
After this is completed, I was wondering what the recommended settings for infill and speed and such is.

[wind sphinx]

stock settings is fine,
otherwise this is what i used for my e3v2
infill gyroid 5%
speed 60mm/s

[river prawn]

Thanks

[river prawn]

Are these still too close or?

Also, about every other attempted print I send, I get this error.

[wind sphinx]

Still close, raise the z-offset by 0.1mm

[wind sphinx]

Did you use the silicon sock for the hotend?

[river prawn]

Silicone sock? I didn't mess with that so it's stock.

[wind sphinx]

This

[river prawn]

Yes, it has the stock black one on

[wind sphinx]

Then it could be triggered by a cold breeze to your hotend. If not then the problem is with your thermistor

[river prawn]

Okay. Should I shut the air vents in that room?

[wind sphinx]

You can try

[river prawn]

Another question for you.
How do I change it to only probe 3 x 3? I currently have it doing 5 x 5 but I believe that is overkill and I don't remember how to change it.

[wind sphinx]

Focus on getting your bed leveled first

[river prawn]

How do these look? To me they look fine with the exception of a couple of them having one corner thinner

[river prawn]

Got a successful print.

Any suggestions for reducing the layer lines visibility and helping the corners not warp?

[stark gorge]

a brim will help with the corners. lower layer heights will always be less visible, but mechanical maintenance can do a lot to mitigate z-banding issues

[river prawn]

How do I fo that? Sorry, really new with 3d printing haha. Trying to learn

[stark gorge]

well the first two are slicer settings, and the third is a whole thing lol

[river prawn]

The setting is lower layer heights? Just so I'm understanding, that would make it go up less per layer and squish the filament more per layer or use less filament per layer so it's less thick or?

Does it really matter much if planning on painting them anyway? As I assume the paint will make it look smoother as well

[stark gorge]

idk what slicer you're using, but going to a lower layer height will use less filament per layer so its not really squished any more or less

but painting can exaggerate layerlines

[river prawn]

Cura.

Oh, painting exaggerates layer lines? Okay

[stark gorge]

there are a lot of things you can do to smooth it out #chat-painting-finishing

[river prawn]

I'll check it out, thanks.

I really appreciate all your guys' help

[river prawn]

Just did this print overnight and it seems my support failed a bit. What can I do to fix this?

[wind sphinx]

Not much, you can sculpt the face with clay

[river prawn]

I was meaning for fixing the support for future prints. I have a 3d pen I was planning on using to fix up the face

[marble rover]

as far as beds go, i would suggest upgrading to a magnetic bed eith PEI layer. i have never had a print loosen at the bottom layer with that stuff and it loosens quite easy when the plate cooled down and you flex the plate, it usualy comes off at its own

[river prawn]

I have a magnetic bed. It's my supports that are having issues staying

[marble rover]

do you have a PEI layer?

if i use PLA on the Neptune 3 max, which has a PEI magnetic build plate, and i set the bed temp for the first 4 layers or so to 70 degrees C and use a brim of 5-8mm around the support, they go nowhere. it might also help to set the acceleration of the y-axes lower if you have a gantry printer, the bed can cause excessive shocks during accelerating and decelerating the bed. Some people call them slammer-printers for a reason.

i hardly have trouble with adhesion to the buildplate, wether i use brims or rafts, it doesn't seem to make much difference, except rafts can be a pain to remove.

my TRON XY X5SA has a magnetic plate, but i realy have to use a gluestick th make things stick

no PEI layer on that one

[river prawn]

Uhh, I have an ender 3, unsure if it has PEI layer or if it's gantry. I have been using brims but with a small gap between the inner layer of the brim and the outer wall of the print. I'm not sure why the support is having issues. Not sure how to dial that in fully.

[marble rover]

a brim or skirt is the extention of the first layer, it draws a 1 layer band on te outside of your print to increase it's surface, so if the print is like a stick, it adheres better to the printpate. as for the PEI, a PEI buildplate looks bronzlike i don't think only the ender 3 pro comes with ea PEI buildplate but you can buy it as a seperate upgrade from creality or other companies, just buy the right size.

what slicer are you using?

[river prawn]

I'm using cura. The 4.13 version

[marble rover]

why not upgrade to current version, 5.4? you can download 5.4 for free from Ultimaker

[river prawn]

I'll do that. Didn't know how out of date I was haha

[marble rover]

keep the old 4.13 installed as well, incase you can't get your head around the somewhat differen UI.

I use 5.4.0, but i also keep the elegoo version of curaslicer installed, as fallback

[river prawn]

Okay, thanks

What suggestions do you have for support settings?

[marble rover]

and maybe dive into cura, there is a great series of video's on youtube for that, from basics to every tiny little setting that can improve your prints from a guy named ItsMeaDMaDe

i sent you a url in a message

the guy also is on discord

look for MeaD, he has a discord server

as far as support settings, i realy advise you to watch the basics video from itsmeadmade on youtube, i myself use like 10% infill and usualy between 5 and 10 % support, zigzag or lately i'm experimenting with tree support

and a skirt of 8mm round my supports, if it's all thin sticks, then the supports need supports, for that gorilla of yours in that size, i would use a high infill and tree support, because it might show holes, because of the hollow infill. i would even say, with those holes of th eyes and mouth, i would try making it solid

so maybe 100 % infill

it's not that big, i printed a 12 cm ironman and hulk solid, way safer. baby groot sitting (like 8 cm) also solid. pla isnt that expensive. and until you realy know all in and outs of the slicer, stick to PLA. no use confusing yourself even more with all these special requirements of specialty fillament like metal, carbon, or flexible etc.

[river prawn]

Right, thats my thought. I have been using 10% infill, and tree supports, but Like when the supports get up towards where they are supporting, is seems like they just fail/fall... I do have it so there are 3 layers for the outer walls, so I would think that would prevent holes from showing as much, right?

What would you also suggest for a smoother print/making less layer lines show? I tried reducing the layer height but it took 3x longer to print. Also, was thinking about changing to a smaller nozzle to maybe try?
But regarding post-print processing, I have been wondering about like an acid wash or whatnot for smoothing it more, or if just painting with a primer then a main coat would cover the layer lines?

[marble rover]

first solve the support printing problem, less visible layer lines i.e smoother surface is dependant on loads of different settings, there is no easy solution

a nice way to smooth it over, is wash it in sla resin and leave it out in the sun 😀

minimizing post production is the key, first understand the basics an be able to solve things without attention to smoothness

for that you need to fiddle with th advanced settings.

with an ender3 you can print the new spiderman helmet with the tiny 3mm hexagons almost flawless

i have printed about 17 rolls of 1 Kg with my neptune 3 max, and still a long way from super smooth, still dialing in and experimenting, all with the same PLA

[river prawn]

Oh wow okay. Thanks for the tips. I think my current project is trying to print a full 3d settlers of catan set.

[marble rover]

first make sure you are able to print anything and reduce supports by positioning your print then move on to the next thing. the smoothess of a print is influenced by the pemperature, the speed, layer thicknes and more

[river prawn]

I reduced my speed down to 60mm/s and these pieces luckily don't require any supports.

[marble rover]

then there is acceleration and deceleration can screw up your prints

60 mm is quite normal speed

[river prawn]

So just trying to be able to print them with decent quality to then paint and play with, even if they aren't 100% perfect.

My default setting was 70mm/s for speed.

[marble rover]

just watch that video it will help

[river prawn]

Where do I find the acceleration and deceleration settings?
Okay, I'll do that. Thanks so much!