****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
To the two people that had adhesion issues with this bed, my first print was flawless, then the second one didn't properly stick, the third was worse. And it just kept getting worse too. I was cleaning the bed between prints with 99% isopropyl alcohol and paper towels like I always did, but it was just getting worse. Out of desperation, remembering reading that PETG (I wasn't using PETG, but hey, I was desperate) works best on a build plate after washing with soap and water, I tried that.I then returned my Z offset to the original setting and printed a test print. FLAWLESS print quality on the PEO side. The texture is beautiful, and my latest print (a fireplace phone holder) looks stunning. I'm not even sure I want to paint it now it looks so good.FOR Z OFFSET, this is something I had been putting off, or doing wrong, FOR YEARS. The best way to do this is live z offset, but when I tried what others suggested, I honestly couldn't tell what I was looking at, and couldn't get a good bed. Paper trick is good, but is ONLY the start. The biggest thing to remember with that is that paper still has a thickness and you're telling the Z Offset that there IS NO thickness between the nozzle and the bed. You still have to dial it in further.Now, in whatever slicer you use, add a primitive block, resize it to fill the bed, and be only .2mm thick (you only need one layer for this). Change your Z Offset from what you dialed in with paper, to .1mm lower than that. Then, in your live z offset - change it to .15mm lower again to start this process, and start the print. After roughly 5% of the print is done (it will create a diagonal bar at .15mm "too low"), raise it while it's still printing .05mm. After another 5%, raise it another .05mm. Do this until you have either printed it at .15mm too low, to .15mm too high, or until the print stops sticking to the bed (no need to try beyond that.Remove the print from the bed. This should peel off like tape on a smooth surface, don't pull TOO fast, but it should come off relatively easily. Now look at the bottom of the print. The smoothest bar is the right Z Offset. If it's too low, it will be smooth in sections, but other areas will peel up from the bed as a result of the nozzle scraping the plastic. If it's too high, the lines won't be pushed down far enough to stick together properly so will have very fine gaps in the surface.Count the number of bars from the very first in the corner - if the best print is the first bar, your Z Offset should be -.15mm lower than what you set at the start of this all. If it's the second, it should be -.1mm. If it's the third -.05mm and so on. Using this, you WILL get perfect bed adhesion and beautiful prints, even on an Ender 3.
