first layer printing

I am not sure if I have a printing issue or a design issue, but my first layer does not print solid. The perimeter rows connect, but the infill does not. Any help would be appreciated.

That looks like an under extrusion problem. Is the extruder calibrated? Did you measure the filamet and input that number in your slicer program? You can and should try a different slicer to see if things look better. I use either cura or slic3r depending on the print.

The extruder is calibrated. Unless it has changed I measured the filament at 2.9mm and entered that into Slic3r. I am considering using another slicing program, but my attempts to use skeinforge generally result in me having to baby sit the printer to heat the bed and hot end before I can run the job.

How do you determine what slicer program to use?

Could this be caused by bed leveling? I seem to have to re level my bed after every use, and my filament bends and jams between the extruder and hot end quite a bit. I wonder if the bending is causing a slowdown in extrusion.

what type filamet and what temps are you printing at? might be you are printing at a too low of temp for your filamet.

PLA with a nozzle temp reported to be 200 and bed temp starting at 60 and falling fairly rapidly.

In the end it's either not enough filament is being extruded or, it's not being squished flat enough. Nozzle height could be the issue if you are sure the extrusion is calibrated correctly. If you use Slic3r, you can also compensate for either by going into : Print Setting / Advanced and setting the first layer to something like 200% this will force the first layer to extrude more and thus will be squished (spread out) more and close it up.

I would suggest you try lowering your Z axis a tiny bit first, this also helps with bed adhesion.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I lowered my Z height a bit and checked the layer first layer %. I it set to 200. I scrubbed my printbed with alcohol to make sure it was clean. I am not really sure where to go from here. I am not sure how the parimeters and brim print find, but the infill keeps dragging.

You need to be precise with your Z height -"lowering it a bit" is not the answer. Check it with a piece of photocopy paper- it should be 0.1mm max. Whwn adjusting it, the paper should grab lightly under the nozzle.

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Waitaki 3D Printer