1 Topic by WWaldo

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Topic: Printing without a Raft

Hey everyone,

I have been experimenting with printing without a raft on my set up. I have a heated bed so it shouldn't be an issue doing this, but I can never seem to get a print to come out right at the beginning.

The first layer next sticks right away, so it gets stuck to the extruder head and gets dragged around for a while until something catches, and then it starts to work normally. I installed the outline plug in into skeinforge to see if it would help, but I have to be there to pull the plastic ring off really fast so that it doesn't get in the way because it is getting dragged into the print area.

Has anyone had a similar issue to this?

My extruder head is set to 210 and my bed to 100.

I am actually wondering if my bed isn't level, is that a possible issue?

2 Reply by ysb (edited by ysb 2012-11-08 17:23:49)

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Re: Printing without a Raft

set extruder temp to 195.. 210 is too much...

i think you are right about a problem of leveling. do the "paper check" to see if the Z screw is good (level up the bed to the max and see if a sheet of paper just pass between the head and the bed...if too loose, unscrew the Z screw a little (like a quarter of a turn) and do the test again ... and do it in the 4 corner of the bed.. if the result change from corner to corner, time to level the bed with the bed screw)

you can also clean your bed (before heating) with a towel and a bit of acetone. sometimes, even a little finger print grease can unstuck the first layer

Find all my 3D printable models here
Game of ropes 2 online..Adult only

ysb's Website

3 Reply by Stoney

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Re: Printing without a Raft

good timing .. I came onto the forum tonight to see what has been mentioned about printing with no raft .. I was not having much luck either.

I have been trying to print this doohickey tonight http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:33296

the top being bendable and having to fit in the slides needs to be thin and flexible .. but also solid.

With the help of notepad++ and reopening the gcode file after each slicing. I finally came to the conclusion that the best method is to change bottom/altitude to a small negative value, -0.1 or -0.15 or whatever. Its the easiest way to get decent squish.

problem now though is unlike a raft it prints adjacent touching strips, these clash with the bottom of the extruder and get lifted .. the best i have come up with to solve this so far is to drop the raft/object first layer/feed rate perimter multiplier down to its lowest of 0.7

hopefully some of the smart blokes answer this, i am not sure how to approach it properly.

4 Reply by ysb (edited by ysb 2012-11-08 18:18:48)

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Re: Printing without a Raft

you didn't need to use a raft or only for very special object.. i never use a raft to print something and you didn't need to modify "by hand" gcode until you try to do a "special effect" (like printing a part of a model in 0.3mm.. and another part in 0.1mm by combining two "gcode" files)

if it didn't stuck to the bed, there is probleme of calibration..1- of the bed  and/or 2-parameters in the slicers software

Find all my 3D printable models here
Game of ropes 2 online..Adult only

ysb's Website

5 Reply by cmetzel

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Re: Printing without a Raft

It sounds like your problem is z height adjustment.  Read this post on Ian's blog and make sure that's set properly and your bed is level.  Clean off the bed so you don't have dust or crap on there and you shouldn't have a problem printing without a raft.  I'm pretty sure it's just z height issue though.

6 Reply by WWaldo

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Re: Printing without a Raft

Thanks for the advice!

I just did the paper test, once I got it to the correct height I started to check other corners, it dug into the paper as it went to the left, so the left side is a bit too high. I guess I can deal with it, but how do you change the height of the bed on a specific side, just for future reference?

7 Reply by danny

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Re: Printing without a Raft

you have three hex bolts in the bed.

to get to them you'll have to poke a hole in the kapton.

for front/back levelling
set the distance at the front using the front screw.
move the extruder to the back.
to raise the platform at the back you'll have to alter both the screws by the same amount.

left/right levelling
basically the bed pivots in the middle and there is a screw on the left and right side at the back
need the right side higher, turn the right side screw anti clockwise a bit.

8 Reply by jon_bondy

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Re: Printing without a Raft

If you are having problems getting the first layer to stick, one thing that helped me was to have the first layer printed at 25% of the normal speed

9 Reply by Stoney

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Re: Printing without a Raft

jon_bondy wrote:

If you are having problems getting the first layer to stick, one thing that helped me was to have the first layer printed at 25% of the normal speed


what setting is that .. the lowest I could set skeinforge to  was 70%

10 Reply by WWaldo

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Re: Printing without a Raft

Yeah, that would be helpful if the first layer printed slower. Where is that setting? I am assuming speed but I am not at my desktop so I can't check right now.

I was able to change the height and that helped. I didn't need to poke holes in the kapton, I just twisted the screws from the bottom. That helped out a lot, I just need to get the z height fixed again and it should be okay.