first layer problems

Hi,

I am new to 3d printing, and am trying to figure out a lot of this stuff. One problem I have not been able to solve, and I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction, is my first (few) layer(s) always looks aweful.

My printer is using a wade's extruder, 3.0mm ABS filament, heated bed (running at 130C), RAMPS 1.4, Sprinter with Pronterface.



As you can see, I printer this object twice, the top one shows the first layer, the 2nd one shows the last layer. After the first few layers, it seems to print pretty well.

I've tried increasing the temp of the bed in hopes that it will help the ABS stick a bit better, but still no go.

When I print larger objects, if the first layer has a "lead-in" (by printing a thin outline around the entire object), it helps a lot.

What should I try to fix this?

Thanks in advance!

It looks like your nozzle is way too high for the first layer as the bottom filaments look round instead of being pressed flat.

At the first layer the nozzle height should be one layer height above the bed (in some cases a little lower if you have problems with it sticking, but that leads to a ridge around the bottom of the object).

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Are you using any tape on your heated bed such as kapton?

Thanks guys, looks like Nophead wins the prize of the day! I lowered Z to about 0.3mm above the bed, and the results look much better.



The ones of the left were printed before the adjustment, the ones on the right were printed after the adjustment. The toy hook still doesn't look great, but that is mostly due to the fact that the middle of the hook is unsupported (not flat). The clip, on the other hand, is flat, and it looks great!

Thank you very much for the suggestion!

(ps, I am printing on glass with a layer of Kapton tape)

Thanks again for solving this one!

Sand the kapton slightly with some light sandpaper and make sure the bed is at 120C..
put the first layer at 75% of you layer height and it should stick!

also there is a setting in pronterface for sfact to lower 1st layer main feed rate. lower this slightly. slowing this down allows more time for the filament to be pushed down and squished and allows better sticking.

ymmv.

Thanks, I'll give it a try. I just discovered last week that some parts won't stick. I was printing a filament spool, and there are many parts (17, if I remember correctly). One of them is an arm for the spool, where I'd have to print 4 sets of them, each set contains 4 pieces. Anyway, in each set that I printed, one of the pieces--it was always the same one--never printed properly. The corners would lift and the ABS would start to bunch up. The rest printed very nicely.

I checked the head height at the exact location of the lift, and it was fine. The bed temp was also about the same as the rest of the bed. Maybe it was just bad gcode?

I had some difficulty too, printing pla directly on glass. I painted on a coat of a little abs dissolved in acetone and no problems since.