I have just got a new Creality Ender 3 S1 Pro. It comes with a magbnetic PEI sheet.
I am pulling my hair out trying to get a half decent bed adhesion.
I am using Polymaker Lite PLA.
Ive tried a warm bed @ 35^C and a hot bed @ 65^C. Ive tried a nozzle with a temp of 200C & 210^C.
When I level the bed Im doing it warm. Manually adjusting it to get it somewhere near (with the piece of paper that the printer comes with for this purpose) and then doing and auto level and setting the Z offset by adjusting to accomodate the paper in the centre of the bed.
I also added M420 S1 Z10 after the G28 statement at the top of the G-Code to ensure the printer uses the auto bed-levelling mesh to print.
The image below should be a circle but its just not adhering to the bed.
Any thoughts or words of advice (and at this point encouragement!!)
I can immediately see that your nozzle is too high, there’s not enough “squish” on your first layer. You should see the filament go down as a “pill shape” in cross-section, not a circle as in your photo. Try moving your offset down 0.25mm to start, perhaps more.
If your PEI is smooth (not textured), you can also rough it up with very fine sandpaper to keep the smooth finish but get more stick.
Adhesion/release aids like glue can be used, but I’d steer clear of them if you can, they turn your bed into a goopy mess over time.
Definitely go hotter, PEI is a weird substance that really does get stickier the hotter it gets. You bed may be as much as 20 degrees off what it says it is, so you could try 70 or even 80 degrees as a last resort if nothing else works.
This goes to show that the ABL in the S1 Pro is good, but no replacement for education on first layer height.
At 80, the PLA might soften a bit, so you might need to go down to 60 again, I just recommended it as your 60 might actually be 40 on the surface, I usually only change one thing at a time.
James beat me to it, but your z offset is definitely too high, and your bed not hot enough.
I use a G10 sheet for my print bed, real shiny, and 205 deg hotend / 50 deg bed and I dont have any issues with bed adhesion.
You definitely do need to have the z height correct though.
I dont have auto bed level, I just do a manual level with thin acetate sheet at 4 corners and leave it at that, however you have to watch the first layer and sometimes tweak the bed height as it is printing to get that good ‘squish’.
I have 3 or 4 of these items to print so I’ll pull the bed temp back 5^C until I get to 60^C and see what difference it makes. I suspect the Z height was the most important change though.
Im calling this a sucess:) Obviously still on the learning curve, but this is my first functional print, modelled in Fusion360 from scratch. Ive test fitted it and it’s as close to perfect as it needs to be.
