I just got a new Ender 3-S1 and so far, I am very disappointed in it for two reasons.
For information, I have had an Ender 3 Pro for about 3 years and have literally hundreds if not thousands of hours on it, so I am not new to the 3D printing hobby.
NOTHING sticks to the bedplate. I eventually just bought a piece of Creality glass and use it with glue stick and I can get some stuff to stick. But only when the bed is hyper level and the z-offset is a little tight. Still loose more prints than not.
The layers look AWFULL. I created a two layer square and print it out. The second layer has a wave in it – looking like the z axis is bouncing up and down in a sinusoidal pattern. My guess would be that it is this bouncing that is ripping prints off the bed.
I dont see any adjustments on the Z-axes. Any suggestions?
Just some more info. The issue with the bouncing Z-axes goes away after about 10 layers and then the print layers look really nice. What can cause this issue just on the very first 10 layers?
This won’t provide a precise answer, but I loosened and reset the gantry as well as loosened and then readjusted every eccentric adjuster on the machine. I erred towards a little too tight.
The “bouncing” is gone. Nice clean first layers and every layer after that.
Changed my mind. I just printed a large flat print and the patterns were definitely still there. When you remove the print the voids from the “bouncing” are quite obvious. Does anyone have any suggestions on what this bouncing might be?
I have no idea if anyone other than me is listening to this. I took the extruder head off the machine exposing the X-axis carriage. Sliding the carriage by hand across the X-Axis, I could feel two “bumps” in the movement. I loosened one wheel at a time until I found the wheel that was causing the bumps. I tightened that wheel just until it rolled without the bumps. The print improved by about 80%. There is still a pattern in one area of the print. But the bump still seems to be gone from the X-axis.
Slowly moved the y-axis by hand and feel another small bump. I will take apart that axis tomorrow.
I did order some new Wheels to get rid of the bumpy one.
THIS IS A BRAND NEW PRINTER. It is an entry level printer – how could someone new to the hobby ever work through this kind of quality issues. Very disappointed with Creality – BUT, after all this is tune out of the build, the print quality is quite nice at a reasonably fast speed!
Pattern could be z-offset too close to the bed, is it a rippling pattern? If so back off the z-offset by 0.05mm increments until it goes. Guessing it will be 0.1-0.15 too close to the bed.
Thank you – I have been experimenting with the Z-offset. I will continue to experiment so that I better understand how it affects the quality.
I will be getting new wheels and bearings tomorrow. I will carefully replace and re-adjust and see where I end up. For now – it seems to be printing almost perfectly