Now that I have my head jamming issue fixed, I’m getting ready to start printing in earnest.
Here’s what’s happening now: The initial lines to the center look great and the initial build-up looks fine until I get to about the 3rd or 4th row. Then the nozzle tip disrupts the print and drags it off the plate. After that, everything looks like it was created by a black widow spider. Yes, I’m a noob, but I read a lot (paralysis by analysis). I’ve read and seen in some videos that this may be due to a build plate that’s either too hot or too cold. The filament, while it definitely adheres to the plate, is quite easy to peel, and I’m wondering if the bed temperature is the problem.
I have an Ender 5 plus with a Micro-Swiss nozzle upgrade.
What are your settings for temp and what slicer are you using…?
Some slicer settings run the first layer slower and speed up afterwards…
Check all those setting also…
Another thing to check is the bed temp with an infared temp gun. Although not totally accurate for engineering it will show any differences in the bed temp.
For example on my K1 Max set at 55°C it shows temps ranging from 50-58.
I always set it a couple degrees higher because of that…
I’m using a bed temperature of 60C and a nozzle temperature of 200C. These are the default values for my printer. The prints I’m working with right now were set up on Cura, although I didn’t make any adjustments to the default print.
I have an Ender 5 plus and MicroSwiss NG extruder, 3 or 4th layer binding up, that seems like you might be a little close to the bed. Are you still using the glass bed, I ditched that for a magnetic PEI plate. Bed parallelism is a must on this printer, you’ll have noisy leadscrew nuts if it is out. I replaced mine with POM nuts. Also have a look at WobbleX for the bed mounting, gets rid of Z ringing. I trust you also have the silent motherboard, I put the old motherboard on the other week and I can’t believe how noisy those stepper motors are, Silent board is a mush, apart from fans you can’t hear the steppers. PSU cooling, I fitted a 120mm noctua to stop more noise, it does fit honest guv. Get a Sonic Pad and have this running on Klipper, vibration compensation is a great thing. Of my 5 printers it is possibly the best one.
That is close to the glass transition point for PLA so it might still be molten on the bed. I print between 45 and 55°C bed temp. Nozzle temp I can go as low as 190 and high as 220 without too many problems.
I think I’ll try lowering the bed temperature slightly, as you suggest. I’ve slowed my print speed from the default 100 (down to 90) and it gave me slightly better results, though it still bird caged eventually. I’ve very carefully trammed the bed, so I am confident of an even application. I’m at the point where I only want to try one adjustment at a time. In the industry I work in, the first step in troubleshooting is to ask the question, “What’s the last thing I touched?” If you throw the parts cabinet at it, you’ll never know what either fixed the issue or made it worse.
I really appreciate the feedback and I will keep checking back to see what other folks have tried as well.
I had great luck initially printing a Benchy, but that was several months ago. I might try another one today to see how it compares to the first one I printed.