I am new to 3D printing and I have an m-505 prusa i3 I built from a kit. It uses repetier software. When I use the slicer and start the print the extruder seems to not come back to where I leveled the bed and thus seems to far from the bed for the PLA to stick. Not sure what I am doing wrong.

Thanks for the help and info.

Keith

Do you have a min z-endstop? If so, you should adjust its location so that the hot end (at its z-home position) is a bit less than the thickness of a piece of paper away from the bed. I.e. if you slide a piece of (thickish) paper between the hot end and the printing bed/glass, you should feel some friction.

Levelling the bed is slightly different in that (after you have done the above at one point on the x-y plane) you adjust the springed bolts of the bed so as to feel the same friction on the paper as you move around in the x and y directions, keeping z at z-home.

In practice, the usual way to do this, is to go at home (i.e. home all axis) to adjust the position of the z-endstop. Then move in steps of say 20mm in the x direction until you reach the opposite corner, adjusting the corresponding bolt so as to keep the friction the same. Then move in the y direction to reach the third corner in the same way. Then move in x to get to the 4rth corner. You'd better go around twice, making further corrections, because a plane is defined by 3 points, so if you have 4 bolts to adjust then every time you adjust one you also affect the others.

I just level my bed by watching the reflections off the glass (before applying tape) and then homed it with the adjustable nut as was necessary to get a unsmushed, yet adhered layer.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2015 09:37PM by Montiey.