Wednesday, Dec 19 2018
Lifting on the left
I’m printing a box with cut outs in the sides. It is 275 mm long which is using most of my 300 mm build plate. Hatchbox PLA with the bed temp set to 55 °C. I’ve not had problems in the past, but this print I see the left side of the box lifting off of the bed while the print is still in progress. In the picture on the left the print is roughly 3/4 complete.
Didn’t stick
This is a closer look at the left side of the box. This box is destined for a shelf in my office so the lifted corner isn’t an issue – as long as the remainder of the box sticks to the build plate until the print finishes.
My first guess was that the build surface wasn’t very hot on the left side. A quick check with my finger says otherwise. It seemed about the same temperature as the right side. Now I’m guessing there was some contamination on the build surface. It’s possible, for example, that I touched the build surface when cleaning the strand of filament resulting from priming the hot/end after the last print. I’ll clean the build plate before my next print.
Sunday, Dec 23 2018
I’ve printed several large boxes since cleaning the build surface and have not had any lifting issues. I think skin oils or other contamination was the issue.
Also: note to self. When printing things at a 0.35 mm layer height for fast prints still use a 0.20 layer height for the first layer. Prints stick better.