1 Topic by IanJohnson

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Topic: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

The plastic won't stick to the bed, it just drags around!

Clean the Kapton with acetone or alcohol to remove any oils or fingerprints.

Make sure the bed is 85-95C.  You can set a cloth or something on it to help it reach a higher temp if it seems to max out around 80C

Adjust the Z tab to make sure the first layer is pressed onto the bed enough to give it a wider area of contact.

    http://wiki.solidoodle.com/first-layers … e-z-offset

Make sure the bed is level.  If one side is lower, it won't stick as well in that area.

    http://wiki.solidoodle.com/leveling-the-print-bed

Settings to try-
    In Slic3r set the First layer extrusion width to 150%
    Set the first layer to print 5C hotter
    Set the first layer to print slower.

Consider clipping a glass plate to the bed.  Sometimes the aluminum warps so an area will be low no matter how much you try to level, but glass will be flat.  Clip it on no more than 3 corners, and level the bed after you add the glass. 

    http://www.soliforum.com/topic/160/glass-bed/
    http://solidoodletips.wordpress.com/201 … t-surface/

Coat the build surface with hairspray.  This creates a texture that helps ABS to stick, especially to glass.  Take the glass out to spray it.  If you spray the Aluminum/Kapton, use a piece of paper to shield the rest of the printer from the spray.  Aquanet works pretty well.

If it won't stick to hairspray/glass, try putting Kapton on the glass too.  You can keep Kapton on one side of the glass and flip the plate over if you need it.

As a last resort coat the build surface with acetone that has a little bit of ABS dissolved in it.  This is almost guaranteed to work, and you might have a hard time getting the print off when done.

My print keeps curling up partway through!

ABS shrinks as it cools, and as upper layers cool and shrink they can pull the lower layers with them causing warping.

Turn on "Brim" in the Slic3r settings, set to 3-5mm wide.   This adds a single layer outline around the part which helps hold the edges down.

Enclose the printer using the case if you bought one, or a DIY solution.  Even taping cardboard to the sides and top can help.  This helps hold the heat in so the print cools more slowly and doesn't have as much variation in temperature within the print.  It also helps keep drafts from cooling the plastic too quickly.  You can even warm the inside of the printer with a miniature space heater, but make sure the incoming air cannot blow directly on the print.

If the design allows it, add voids inside the solid areas of the print and on the bottom.  Shrinking areas of plastic in the middle of the print cannot pull against the edges if there are empty spaces between them.

    http://hackaday.com/2011/11/15/a-techni … 3d-prints/

Also try reducing the fill if possible.  More plastic inside the prints creates more shrinking and pulling against the outside.

2 Reply by cmetzel

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Thank you so much Ian!  I have been meaning to do this for some time now.  Now we need a skipping / shifting / offset one and that should cover 70% of the first post questions.

3 Reply by Rincewind

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Great work! Can we copy-paste it into the wiki?

4 Reply by blazespinnaker

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

I used the slurry of acetone and ABS bits and brushed a it onto the bed.  Worked great.   Not sure why it's mentioned as a last resort!

5 Reply by IanJohnson

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

It's a last resort only because it's easy to get it to stick so well you have a hard time getting the print off.  It probably depends on how thin the mixture is.

6 Reply by r.kalucki

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

I'm having a problem with black abs,90% thru the print the nozzle plugs. Any suggestion ?

7 Reply by Rincewind

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

FYI I copied this howto in the soliwiki (credits to Ian and link to this page are in the page history: http://www.soliwiki.com/Part_not_sticking

8 Reply by octopus (edited by octopus 2013-06-03 22:23:04)

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

I had problems with stickage as well. I saw on the web somewhere else (can't remember where now) that somebody suggested using blue painters tape on the bed. Sure enough it works wonderfully. I butted several 2 inch strips close against each other. It's not too hard to get them to butt closely against each other.  The gaps seem to expand a bit (the tape shrinks slightly) when the bed heats up, but it seems to have very little impact on my prints. Seems to work better than the Kapton.

EDIT: Now that I've been able to get a hold of some fresh Kapton tape, I've found that using fresh tape and taking the old stuff off has made a big diff.

9 Reply by Cross_ (edited by Cross_ 2013-06-02 23:57:20)

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

I tried the various adjustments and there still was a 50% chance of the ABS not sticking or warping.

Then I went to Home Depot bought an 8" x 10" x 2.5mm glass pane, drove to Target, bought Aquanet hairspray and 3 large binder clips. Long story short: with the glass pane and bed temperature at 85 C I now get the plastic to stick 100% of the time with no noticeable warping.
Why solidoodle bothered with the inferior Kapton tape in the first place is a mystery..

10 Reply by dcbeck

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

When I first started, I couldn't get anything to stick at all. I checked the forum and found a few things which might help.
1. While the bed is still cool clean it good with acetone. I tried doing this with the bed still hot 95 with no good results. For some reason the acetone seems to clean the bed when it is cool.
2. Use an extra layer and wider brim before slicing and it seems to help but still has a bit of curling which doesn't seem to affect the print.
3. Let the bed get up to at least 85 before trying to print. I set mine at 95 and it works fine.
4. Let the extruder get up to at least 185 before trying to print and extrude a bit before printing.
5. I retract all the abs out of the extruder when I am done printing for the day.

I still have some issues which I am trying to correct.

Hope this helps someone.

11 Reply by solijohn

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

One thing that we have been hearing good things about is Mucilage - natural plant based glue. It helps sticking like a charm!

Former Solidoodle employee, no longer associated with the company.

12 Reply by mcsdaver

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Plastic not sticking was my biggest problem until I tried hair spray. Now the parts are hard to get off, but they never come loose on their own.
I might try the sheet of glass with hair spray so I never get spay on moving parts in the printer.
Also if you ever start printing and remember you had forgot to spray the bed, stop the print, never spray hair spray on the bed while printing!!! It will clog your hot end fast!
I unclogged it with no trouble, but no need to destroy a good machine!!!!

13 Reply by ellistraub

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Ian,

I'm new to this technology and am just trying to come up to speed with my Solidoodle 3. (Raffaele, with Solidoodle, has been very helpful and patient and has gotten me past the initial port problems and software issues.)

Finally, I've "arrived" and am at a point where the "customary" curling problems are plaguing me and am interested in applying your suggestions. I've tweaked the z-setting to where it is laying down a reasonably flat but not excessively thin first layer. I've leveled the bed, using a card that I measured at .3mm with a caliper. And I've tried several combinations of bed and extruder temperature (using ABS) and getting the best results with 195C for the extruder and 90C for the bed.

Some of the suggestions out there on the forums talk about the need to provide an enclosure to keep the heat in and uniform. I don't seem to have any problem with the temperatures not wandering too far from their desired settings. I've also tinkered with the fan setting in Manual Control, to see if that might affect the result.

I've cooled off the bed and cleaned the Kapton tape with Acetone (Cutex nail polish remover, actually) and that seemed to help making the initial layer more uniform.

But, I have a model that is about 1" x 2 3/4" x 3/8" overall; and I cannot get the corners to lie flat. The print goes through about the first 1/8th " before it breaks loose from the bed and follows the extruder around.

I'm interested in following your suggestions in this post.

[Settings to try-
    In Slic3r set the First layer extrusion width to 150%
    Set the first layer to print 5C hotter
    Set the first layer to print slower.]

...but I don't know where to go in Repetier-Host to access them. Would it be somewhere in the ini config files? Could you give this novice some easy, step-by-step instructions to access those settings and change them?

Thanks in advance.

Ellis

14 Reply by adrian

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Try just adding a 3-4mm Brim to it if you haven't already. More surface area to grab the bed... Slic3r Settings, Skirt & Brim, Set Brim Width to 3 or 4.

15 Reply by ellistraub

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

That did it! I added a 3 mm Brim, added 5C to the first layer bed temp, and told it to print the first layer slower. The combination of all those things, and preparing the bed surface by rubbing it with nail polish remover did the job! Thanks.

16 Reply by jebleez

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

I tried the hairspray thing and it worked okay, but I still had a lot of sticking problems with my SD3.
Going from the advice I've seen here I bought an 8"x8" piece of glass at a local glass store for about $1.20 and re-zeroed the print bed out. I used a white glue/water mixture and painted it onto the surface. Now my parts stick great!

17 Reply by Skyman25

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

What was the white glue?

18 Reply by poppamies907

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Had the same problem. Then tried ABS+acetone mix and it cleared the problem. Well the problem is that as it sticks like hell to the bed i accidently teared the Kraton tape. Would it be possible for me to just rip the Kraton tape away? As the aluminium bed would be coated with that ABS mixture... or should i put a piece of glass between it?

19 Reply by john.tannius (edited by john.tannius 2013-07-21 08:48:57)

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

I'm about to take my printer out and smash it into little pieces with a sledgehammer. I have tried every single one of these methods in this discussion and out of all of them only the white glue on glass even comes close to working (parts still pop off about 6 or 7 layers in). I've gone through 4kg of filament and only have 2 half decent prints to show for it. My frustration levels are at a max here. Does somebody, anybody have any idea that actually works or should I just give up?

I did try acrylic sheet but it warped badly while printing (it was only 1/8 inch thick) the part stuck really well though even though it was a mutant from the warping. Would thicker sheet warp less?

20 Reply by adrian (edited by adrian 2013-07-21 08:47:40)

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Seems to work fine for a few hundred others.. so I guess.. lets work through what you are doing different - since if it works for a few hundred (nay, thousand) people then there clearly has to be something different in the process - because it actually works just fine ??

21 Reply by john.tannius

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Tried printing on bare capton tape,
tried printing on capton tape cleaned with acetone
tried printing with blue painters tape, stuck to the tape, tape peeled off the bed.
tried glass
tried acetone cleaned glass
tried frosted glass (also with acetone)
tried abs juice (left the glass slimy and oily?) abs slid right off
Hairspray sort of worked except on larger parts that warped then popped off.
white glue works well except when the parts start to warp. If I keep adding glue around the perimeter as it builds it won't pop off but it still warps.
I've tried putting up an enclosure around the printer to keep the temperature stable at a minimum of 85c I try for higher but my heater doesn't seem to have enough oomph it's set at 100c but rarely gets above 92c

I know other people are having success so I know I must be doing something wrong but I can't pin down what that might be.

22 Reply by adrian

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Have you set your z offset and levelled your bed with a piece of paper under the nozzle. To much z height is the one thing that would continue to cause issues with all the fixes you've tried... You really want that first layer squished on good regardless of bed construction. And it needs to be level.

23 Reply by john.tannius

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Yeah, I did the paper test. tricky to do when you have a sheet of glass covering your screw tops. I get a good squish all around.

One thing I just found out. I'm googling the heck out of the internet tonight. My ABS juice was probably bad. I always tell people I'm the smartest idiot I know. Apparently it is bad to make ABS juice out of printed ABS. It just doesn't dissolve right or something. Just made up a new batch and not even 15 minutes I completely dissolved 50cm of filament. I have the bed warming up right now to do a test print. The batch I made before never turned cloudy, I just had a congealed lump of ABS from a previous failed print where I had a huge tangle of fine filament. This stuff turned a creepy neon green (the color of my current filament).

24 Reply by john.tannius

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

And I'm in love with my printer all over again. I got a near perfect print on my first try with this new batch of ABS juice.

I want to thank everyone who puts up with people like me. I'm not an engineer or an electronics expert or even a technician of some sort. I barely know which way to flip a switch when it comes to electronics. I'm just a sculptor playing with a new technology.

I'm glad most everyone is tolerant here, even if they are laughing behind the screen. I'm sure I'll post more when I break something else.

25 Reply by mrankin (edited by mrankin 2013-08-01 23:16:42)

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Re: The plastic won't stick, it just drags around!

Well after a week of trying to get my prints to stick to the bed, I think I might have a bad batch of ABS. Is anyone else having trouble with the BLACK ABS? I changed out the ABS to the green length that came with the kit. I'm sitting here watching what looks like a picture perfect print that I've been seeing all over this site.

...by the way this is after doing everything in this thread up to this point to get the ABS to stick...
- Z level, leveling the bed, adding brims, raising and lowering nozzle temperature, lowering head speed for the first layer, bed temperature up and down 5 degrees, rafts, ABS juice, glass cut, leveled, z calibrated, hairspray, building walls to enclose the print bay to raise the temperature and all together about 80 attempted and killed jobs... AAARRRRRGH!

And all this time, it looks like it was the 2lb spool of black ABS that was the culprit. I strongly suggest trying another ABS spool before you graduate to the "getting a custom piece of glass cut from the business next store" level of troubleshooting. It wouldn't be a bad idea to include two colors in the box for just this reason.

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