It seems like over the last couple months/half year there’s been this new fixation with printing a huge perfect single layer of plastic all cross the entire bed of one’s printer. I see lots of folks asking about calibration issues when they are trying to do this. It seems like it’s sorta become a standard of sorts.
I just ask why?
It seems to use a huge amount of plastic and honestly I don’t think it probably effects real world results that much.
I feel like the 3d printing community has a lot of shilling going on for companies and the information you get might not be entirely reliable. Look into the issues with this FLSUN S1 if you want to know what I mean.
But anyway, I have never had an impulse or see the need to print a single layer across the entire build surface of my printer. because I feel like that’s a huge waste and doesn’t actually matter when it comes to real world results.
Am I missing something? I kinda wonder if this kinda test is being pushed by the folks selling us filament, to sell us more filament. Is there a good reason to actually do this?
Please enlighten me!
This fixation isn’t new at all. One of the most popular modifications to Prusa printers for years has been the Nylock mod to make your plate as flat as possible.
It does make sense, while most parts don’t take up the whole bed area, when you do need to utilize the entire space of a printer you dont want to have to struggle with it. Having a good first layer maximizes the chance that your print will be successful.
I think it depends on what you want to print. Personally, most of my prints fit within a much smaller footprint. So, I don’t usually need my first layer to be perfect across the full bed. However, when trying to print something larger, I can absolutely tell how terrible my first layer is. It sucks to end up reprinting the first layer half a dozen times, because one small area keeps failing to adhere.
A large part of my issue is the printer I have just isn’t all that good. And, when I get less lazy, I’m going to just build a Voron. At that point, I’ll probably be one of those folks tweaking it until I get a perfect first layer. Because I want to be able to start a print and not spend the next hour fighting first layer problems.
I inherited an older Delta printer that had a warped, janky bed and damaged nozzle from poor calibration. Even after replacing damaged parts and recalibration, I still need to print rafts for everything. That first layer is everything, and the tutorials for getting an even first layer have been immensely helpful in my journey.
Deltas are their own sort of hell to calibrate. You really have to have everything tight and even then it’s a pain, and it seems like it needs constant attention every print. I built one years ago and it’s fun to watch printing, but I don’t use it much because of the above.
I kind of love it, and it’s working pretty well except for the bed. I should just replace the bed surface and put it in an enclosure, or I should upgrade to a newer printer entirely.
I’d have to say, if its dialed in it prints the best of my printers. Nice layers and smooth sides.
Maybe you should get an FLSUN S1, everyone who got one for free on the internet says it’s amazing 😜
I didn’t know this was a thing, but I hope 3d printer reviewing people adopt it as a standard test. Most of the time a prints fails for me, it’s because of a inconsistent (continuously changing) first layer.
Prusa’s first layer calibration in the past would do a long line across the plate to give you time to adjust, I personally just use a piece of paper or feeler gauge (have a tap probe) to set my offset and then run with it. Auto levelling and meshing work extremely well in my experience, if you have something adjustable imo you’re best doing that offline anyhow, the nozzle to surface distance is what matters, you don’t need to push plastic to measure that, in fact I wouldn’t even attempt to do that until I was confident in my measured offsets, tool crashes suck and super close scraped on plastic sucks to remove from a surface.
Its just a test to dial your printer in. I shimmed my bed with 0.1mm washers. I haven’t done a full square of plastic, but I printed my first layer / z-offset print of choice in all 4 corners and center in order to verify the bed level results in octoprint were accurate.
Before hand 70% of my bed printed perfect, but one spot was a little lower, and the mesh bed leveling wasn’t accounting enough for it. Parts printed on textured sheets would not pick up the texture as well in that one spot. I like the textured look for top surfaces of control panels and such, so having an area on the bed that wouldn’t apply the texture was a bit annoying.
Tests like what you are talking about is an extreme way to verify that everything is square, or at least well accounted for in the firmware.
Also, since this wasn’t something achievable out of the box until recently, printer manufacturers are showing it off as a point of pride / as a sales tactic.
