A little advice on first prints

what sort of bed do you use? what's your bed temp?
 
Uhhh...its a magnetic, rubber type thing (?) (Ender's stock model) it shows right now to be at 50*C These are setting that come over from whomever designed the parts? (Thingiverse) If that is the case, I show retraction speed at 80mm/s and distance of 6mm. It SEEMS the test parts come out good, but larger parts just go bad from small simple sections not adhering to bed, and I can be sure, but there seem to be lines from/to parts that shouldn't be there.
 
You can't always follow the settings of others. Especially if they have a different printer. Even if your using settings from an identical printer, your temps may be slightly different and your retraction could be slightly different.

60c is a good starting bed temp for pla.

Clean the surface with Windex or isopropyl alcohol before the print. I actually use acetone to clean my CR-X's textured glass bed.

Make sure the first layer is slowed down to about %40-%60 percent of normal.

Turn the part cooling fan off for the first layer.

I also use about 5c higher nozzle temp for the first layer, then drop it back down for the rest of the print.
 
I took a closer look at you last prints, if I'm not mistaken, it appears you are using rafting to help with bed adhesion. It seems to be an aweful lot of rafting for parts that probably shouldn't need any.

Based on this, if the above recommendations don't help, I think you need to revisit your bed leveling. It is one of the most important tasks. It can also be tedious at first, but once you get comfortable with it, it won't take as long.

Also, after thinking about it, your retraction speed seems a bit high at 80mm/s. It should be much lower. If you go too fast, the extruder might slip and that could give you blobbing, stringing issues because it didn't retract as much filament as it thought it did.

Lastly, not likely, but I'll mention it anyway. With the cantilevered bed design of the ender 5 be very careful to not out any weight on the bed while leveling. I use a sheet of paper and slide it under the nozzle, but if you rest your fingers on the paper on top of the bed it can skew the results, especially with a cantilevered bed.
 
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acruxksa said:
You can't always follow the settings of others. Especially if they have a different printer. Even if your using settings from an identical printer, your temps may be slightly different and your retraction could be slightly different.

60c is a good starting bed temp for pla.

Clean the surface with Windex or isopropyl alcohol before the print. I actually use acetone to clean my CR-X's textured glass bed.

Make sure the first layer is slowed down to about %40-%60 percent of normal.

Turn the part cooling fan off for the first layer.

I also use about 5c higher nozzle temp for the first layer, then drop it back down for the rest of the print.
Click to expand...
Thanks @acruxksa I don’t doubt you can’t use others settings, but I’d be a real fool if I felt I had any right to be screwing with them with no idea what causes what. That being said, I can adjust the bed temp at the printer, is the ability to adjust 1st layer speed and the cooling fan done somewhere in slicer I assume? I can tell it to bump nozzle temp up for 1st later as well? My bed is not glass, I pretty sure I can’t use acetone, maybe alcohol. It’s funny b/c I read some people use hairspray....glad I didn’t try that then!
It’s just so odd that I can complete the test parts (I think well?) but actual prints go south real quick. Frustrating but it’s only my den one day here.
I have been watching a lot of videos, but it is SO COMMON for the vloggers to talk about WTH I understand what they are referring to. You guys are not the ONLY place I go for help, but at least I can say WTH are you talking about & get explanations...and for that...THANK YOU!
 
Machines have personalities... set aside some time each day to test the limits and settings. Watching a video opens the door, but you'll need to apply that in your own workshop. I don't own any Creality machines currently or use their slicer, but you seem to be getting decent resources from other members.
 
Yeah, youtube guys tend to expect you to have a higher level of understanding than new users commonly do. It can be frustrating, but they are trying to help the most people. The learning curve for everything is steep as hell to start, but lowers over time.

The small test pieces look good overall. Perhaps a little more retraction distance, less speed. I don't have a bowden, so I'm just guessing based on reading.

Bed adhesion is 99% of the time a leveling issue. Clean with alcohol to make sure there's no oils on the bed, that's safe for most bed types. The ender shouldn't need stuff like hairspray. That's more for plain glass. Your bed has a coating of stuff that is supposed to help with adhesion. For example, my lulzbot has a PEI bed. That needs nothing at all for ABS and PLA, but nylon and PETG can fuse to it, so we use glue sticks to create a release layer. Heat helps with adhesion as well, but too much can make the part prone to getting squished under the weight of the plastic above it. For PLA, I find a 60C bed is plenty to keep it stuck nicely.

You shouldn't need rafts for anything flat on the bottom with good bed contact. I almost never use rafts, they are a pain to remove later sometimes.

Use the paper or feeler gauge to level the bed in at least 6 spots over the whole bed throw. You want to make sure it's the same in every nozzle position. This is where automated setups like the bl-touch come in handy. I have a 6x6 bed with 100 probe points on it. Takes a while to probe, but you only have to do it once in a while. Don't forget to double check at least a couple of spots on the other side after adjusting a corner. It takes a while to get right the first time, but future changes are pretty quick. Then adjust your Z-offset so that the PLA is a little squished on the bed. So if you were to measure it, you would have a line slightly wider than the nozzle. You get a feel for it once you see it. You should get the same width over the entire bed. There are actually test patterns for the bed that can help with that. PLA on a heated bed should never have adhesion problems once you get the leveling and z-offset right.
 
If that's the stock magnetic bed, it should love to stick to PLA as long as it's clean. PLA is supposed to be printable on a cold bed, but I've had the best results with 70c on my Ender 3 with glass or steel bed surfaces. See how that's higher than what's already been mentioned? You just have to trial and error it. I actually DO use hairspray, but that's because I'm printing on a plain steel bed. Yours shouldn't need anything. +1 on not using rafts. They have their place I guess, but I don't use them. Brims on the other hand are very handy for help small parts stick.
 
I have Cura and Slic3r, but they are the most complicated and pretty much wasn't using their advanced features.
I will try hooking my laptop to printer and use the bed leveler that is part of the Creality slicer. I'll take the bed off and clean it like a french made. I do have a huge beard...I use beard wax, who knows...maybe I have gotten trace amounts of wax on bed, that would be VERY problematic. I'll have to get a beard-hairnet.:afro:
 
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