Hot Bed Issues

Hi all,

I'm new here and have just started out into the 3D Printer world. I have purchased a Kit printer from Sunhokey (Prusa i3)

I have had some limited success with prints (Cubes etc.), but have had some issues with poor adhesion the print bed.

Some basics that I have covered so far - I'm using blue painters tape on the bed, I'm pretty sure the printer is calibrated and adjusted correctly, I'm printing with PLA, Hotbed set to 70 degrees, hot end set for 230 degrees ( as per manufacturer guides - but this could be wrong). I'm using repetier-host and have tried slic3r and Cura-Engine.

The main issue I'm having is with the bed temp.

In standby (ready mode) the LCD registers room temp or both bed and hot end, preheat option for both bed and hot end work, and LCD registers changes and stabilizes at the correct temp +- 2 degrees

Start the print and the hot end increases to working temp but the bed doesn't and starts to cool as if it has been turned off, by the time the skirt is printed the bed has cooled significantly and continues to cools back to room temp, prints fail more times than not.

I'm not sure where to start looking to rectify this issue, I look forward to any suggestions


Thanks for your time

Will

Not sure about the bed heat issue, but I can add a few comments:

Your hot-end temp should be somewhere between 190 - 210 degrees - 230 is a bit hot for PLA.
If you are heating the bed then you shouldn't use blue tape - that's for a cold bed. I don't know what your heatbed is made of (glass?) but you could try a light dusting of hairspray to give the PLA something to grip.

For the heatbed problem, try checking all your connections, check the temperature of the resettable fuses (if you've got a RAMPS board) and check the voltage of the power supply with a meter while the print is running.

Silly question - the gcode from your slicer isn't turning the heatbed off, is it? In other words, have you set the bed temperature correctly when you slice the item?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2016 06:02AM by David J.