First layer beads not contiguous

In 1.2.9 using 0.3 layer height, the bead is never contiguous (touching the next bead). All variations have been tried, including first-layer extrusion widths (.5 to 2mm, and 100% to 350%), first-layer height (.1 to .3), and first layer speeds.

It even does it on a skirt with multiple loops. It seems to know how wide the bead will be, and positions them just slight apart. What setting am I overlooking?

What do you mean by 'bead'?

Melted filament.

Well you could be under-extruding that is why lines come out narrower. Make sure that your filament diameter is correct.

There is no setting to adjust this from the GUI. From my experience Slic3r produces the correct distances that produce good solid layers. If you want you can attach your gcode and I can take a look.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2015 03:52AM by demetris.

Well I went back to the default settings, and it got much better (almost touching). I noticed it defaulted to the first layer thickness being .4 compared to the .3 other layers. I had only used .3 or smaller for the first layer because I could not see how it could make a .4 layer when the nozzle is only .4

Will fiddle with the advanced first layer width and see what happens.

Measure the height of the actual first layer that gets onto the bed.
Is it the same height as set in Slic3r?
If it's higher, you need to make sure the bed is closer to the nozzle.

After resetting to default settings, looks like the problem was that I had first-layer height (0.2 or 0.15) set to less than other layers (0.3). After taking the default slic3r first-layer height of 0.4 it now looks great.

The original idea was to squish the first layer more and spread it out, but it did not work out that way.

Quote
RRuser
After resetting to default settings, looks like the problem was that I had first-layer height (0.2 or 0.15) set to less than other layers (0.3). After taking the default slic3r first-layer height of 0.4 it now looks great.

It shouldn't matter what you choose for first layer height. Slic3r does calculate the correct E steps in order to extrude wide enough lines to fill the area.

Quote
demetris
...There is no setting to adjust this from the GUI...

I am quoting my earlier post here because I can't edit it and it seems misleading becuase I left some words out . I meant there is no setting to adjust how far apart the lines should be. This is internally calculated by Slic3r and you can read more about it here (look at the paragraph 'Spacing'). There is a setting that can be use to tweak this distance, the variable 'overlap_factor' by it is not adjustable from the GUI. If you want to change it, you have to build from source. Personally I believe the default value of 1 is too much (I tried and reduced it and got better results) but this is outside the scope of this thread.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2015 02:48AM by demetris.