A little advice on first prints

Hey all my advisors. I have printed tons...calibration/test items along with a real print here and there. I purchased a book on Amazon they seem to be all encompassing with printer issues. Learned a bit more. One continuing issue that is very problematic that I can't really find answers too;
When I start a print, it pulls a light/fine hair from the home position to where it will start printing. The first thing it does when printing is a light outline of the part (no raft) and the 1st part it pretty much doesn't put down anything, when it starts, it's pretty fine and doesn't stick. These end up wreaking havoc. I don't understand how there isn't filament ready to go as soon as it starts printing. I believe I have retraction at 70/mms and 6.8m, The bed leveling I have done so many times and settled in on the paper just lightly dragging (originally I had it where I could push pull post it note, but just barely, now its a bit smoother move) What that equates too? 1 thou? 2 thou looser? Flow I leave at 102% for first layer, fan off 203 degree nozzle temp.
Is there a setting that has filament ready to rock straight out the gate? I have even pushed some through just before print starts, this is also a slippery slope as it builds a bit up a home position which makes those angle hairs pulling from home position more problematic.
I'm really trying to figure this out on my own, but I know when to call for assistance. Side note, there is a bed level wizard in Creality slicer, but it really only allows you to move table up down as a whole unit. It doesn't move to different points and let you adjust. I end up disabling the X & Y steppers and manually moving it.
I have some decent prints, but I feel like its less tecnique and more dumb luck.
Thanks much as always.
 
With a bowden setup, you're not going to get filament "ready to go" out of the gate. Even direct drive 3d printer often use a priming line before the print. Also, a properly setup bowden printer is always going to have slightly more stringing than a properly tuned direct drive printer. Usually the stringing is very fine hairs that are quite easy to clean up. There are settings for everything you want to do, but truthfully, unless you start using a slicer that everyone is familiar with, your best bet would be a Creality Forum or user group. I'm not sure if you on BookFace but they have user groups for just about every Creality printer made.

Cura and Slic3r might seem intimidating at first, but the truth is that as long as you set them up for your specific model of printer and type of filament, there are generally very few settings that need to be changed to get repeatable results. Creality's slicer is aparently based on an older version of Cura, but you would think that if you chose you're printer in the setup, it should still give passable results. This leads me to believe there are other hardware issues. Generally this means something is loose or not square. Have you tried printing any of the files that came on the sdcard with your printer?

I would have a hard time recommending any book on 3d printing, simply because by the time it's written, printed and released, it's old news. ;)

https://www.thingiverse.com/groups/creality-ender-5 Not identical to the ender 5 pro, but should be close enough to get you up and running.
 
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Ahhhh... the old booty boot, I feel ya brother, I'm bugging myself. Alright....I'll go bug the guys at that forum. Reminiscing, we laughed, we cried...I called you names behind your back... (j/k)
I am transitioning to Cura, it does look MUCH more robust, but yeah, intimidating. I guess I should stand there with tweezers and get those hairs for the first 30 seconds or so. This is NOT NEARLY as manly as real machining. :cool: I'll post a final helper (when I get to that point) for all the other knuckle dragging 3D newbs.
Alright, gotta put my apron on and clean my magnetic bed thing....
 
My extruder is direct drive and I still need to prime it. You can modify the startup gcode to achieve that. It might be a good idea to get an example from someone that has the same printer though. You would have to adapt what I'm using to match your printer.

There is almost always a tiny bit of plastic that gets involved with the print. It shouldn't be a problem if you have the bed level and starting Z height set properly. The brim you are describing is a common way to prime the extruder and check the Z settings at the same time. If that is the right height and such, the print will probably be as well. A string from it to the first layer isn't uncommon and doesn't hurt anything. Usually I don't even need tools to remove them if I get them.
 
A skirt/brim of 5 to 8 lines that is offset slightly (outside the area) from what you are printing, can give the extruder/hot end time to settle into producing a nice even line of filament sticking to the bed before the main print starts. It also keeps the fine stringy bits at the start of a print away from the main job. I also keep a brass brush handy to give the nozzle a clean just before the print starts.
 
GunsOfNavarone said:
Ahhhh... the old booty boot, I feel ya brother, I'm bugging myself. Alright....I'll go bug the guys at that forum. Reminiscing, we laughed, we cried...I called you names behind your back... (j/k)
I am transitioning to Cura, it does look MUCH more robust, but yeah, intimidating. I guess I should stand there with tweezers and get those hairs for the first 30 seconds or so. This is NOT NEARLY as manly as real machining. :cool: I'll post a final helper (when I get to that point) for all the other knuckle dragging 3D newbs.
Alright, gotta put my apron on and clean my magnetic bed thing....
Click to expand...
:). Not trying to get rid of you.

The problem is that at this point the issue could be any of a dozen different things. The forum I linked to is just one of many specific to your printer and a good place to look for common problems. Without having a printer like yours, we're kind of stuck giving general hardware advice.

If you can narrow it down to the software, many on here will be able to help.
 
No man...I'm just ribbing you! I appreciate yall's patience. I am having much better results with cura. Much more control and a thousand of things I'm just clicking like I'm a professional. Did a bronze gear that super nice. Freestylin on the adjustments on the fly...cause and effect. Its a toy (for me) gotta just learn to appreciate it for THAT. I will be installing TL smoothers and dampeners tomorrow...hopefully that is all. Its just a cheap easy upgrade that shows great benefits. Picking u a Tormach Tuesday so this will probably fall to the bottom for awhile, but its been great, running almost 24/7 for a week or so?
 
If any other beginner comes across this thread, Cura really has helped and this guide is great for explaining the different setting and what exactly they do. I have printed others designs off Thingiverse and found issues. I was able to reverse engineer it (having no idea prior what issues I needed to look for) and change the issues I found. See sections on right side
Cura Definitions
 
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