Getting the height of the first layer of your
3D print perfect plays a huge part in whether or not the print will actually come out successful. So today, you’ll learn what a good first
layer looks like and how to achieve it. AprintaPro reached out to me for this sponsored
videos series to be featured on their PrintaGuide platform. Launching in January, it’ll be home to 3D
printing tips, tricks and guides. Check out AprintaPro and the PrintaGuide site
at the links in the video description below! Essentially, what you are trying to accomplish
with a properly set nozzle height is good adhesion of your printed part to the printbed. There are a few other important bits to that,
which we’ll look at later, but let’s first start out with the nozzle height, or, more
accurately, setting the correct zero position for the Z-axis. 3D printers don’t have a
way of sensing when the nozzle touches your build surface, but rely on an endstop or a
separate sensor to probe the bed. For both cases, you usually need to manually
set the zero position. The exact procedure differs from printer to
printer, but the general idea is usually the same: Use a thin piece of paper for stiffer
beds and a thicker piece, like a business card, for springy beds and adjust the endstop
or sensor offset until you can feel a slight resistance from sliding the card around when
the printer moves to the zero position for the Z axis. Make sure the nozzle is clean and, ideally,
heated up so that any boogers will get wiped away by the paper. Start in the center of the bed for a first
rough adjustment, and if your printer does not have a sensor-based autotramming or autoleveling
feature, make your way around the bed and repeat for each adjustment point. Move the printhead as close as possible to
the adjusters and tweak them until you get an even resistance at each of them. The fine tuning to get the height will need
to happen with a few test prints. Of course, for this way of adjusting the nozzle
height, you should be sure that your 3D printer is neither over-extruding nor under-extruding,
as that will throw off the look of the layers. So start a simple print, and watch the first
layer being laid down. If there are visible gaps between the individual
lines, you need to set the nozzle closer to the bed, if you can see the nozzle digging
through previous lines and can’t see each line clearly when you look at the bottom of
the printed part, try setting the distance a bit higher. To check how well the entirety of your print
bed is aligned, check out the sample files linked in the video description. Some people recommend going for a bit of an
oversquashed look, but i generally prefer the height set perfectly and then working
with the following tricks to increase adhesion if necessary. First off, make sure the bed surface is in
good working order. If you’re printing onto bare glass or a
specialised print surface like PEI, Buildtak or even unheated bluetape, give it a quick
wipedown with some alcohol to remove any greasy spots. If you’re using gluestick, Printafix or
another wipe-on or spray-on adhesive, you can usually freshen that up with a damp towel
or by simply applying a fresh layer altogether. Also, use your slicer’s settings to increase
the extrusion width and height for the first layer only - this will have the extruder pumping
out proportionally more material, which not only really smooshes the plastic against the
bed more, but also makes the first layer more resistant to little adjustment errors - so
with that, there’s really no need to get the bed perfectly flat and bump-free down
to the last 10µm. Typically, you can go as far as two times
the nozzle size for width and a full nozzle size for layer height, but this is pretty
extreme and will likely overstress your extruder. To counteract, try going slower for the first
layer only. This is also a good idea in general if you’re
struggling to get the first layer sticking well. Printing at a slower speed will give the filament
more time to heat up and also warm up the bed surface a bit with the radiated heat from
the heater block, making it easier for the first layer to stick. To get a similar effect, try raising the temperature
of the heated bed and the nozzle by 5 to 10°C just for the first layer - many material and
bed surface combinations will stick much better just with that bit of extra temperature. Keep in mind that many cheap heated beds will
bow up or down as they heat and cool, so when using this tip, keep an eye out for the second
layer as well and use a constant temperature for the heated bed if you see the second layer
getting overstuffed or separating from the first one. Alright, so i hope this video is helpful to
you. If you liked it, give it a thumbs up, consider
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and I’ll see you in the next one.
