3D printing headache

I've an Anycubic Mega X PLA printer and nothing will stick to the table. That's my issue. So the deposits just move with the print head, and nothing is built.

The printer has been in a dry shed out of use for over a year for various reasons. The usual problem with 3d printers is getting things off the plate, but Anycubic printers have that licked - too well, it seems. Things I have tried include:

• Wet ones - no effect.
• 99.9% Isopropyl Alcahol cleaning - no real effect.
• Soaking the table in IPA - still no good.

So I read a suggestion about Pritt-stick, and tried that. But when the table was heated, the pritt-stick dried out and added a super-slippery coating of it's own. The table heating was in the gcode file, so I didn't expect it.

Next I tried to clean up with the paint scraper tool they supply. That did raise an amount of dust, but left dried pritt-stick around. I only have the use of one hand to attack it with.

Finally, I decided to try an old-fashioned ink rubber. You find these in stationers that sell pencil rubbers Half the rubber is white and erases pencil. The other half is grey, is supposed to erase ink, but actually wears a hole in your page unless you're careful. But they are a mild abrasive. That's been requisitioned, but has still to arrive.

I'd welcome any ideas, especially from Anycubic owners.

I'm not running an Anycubic but
back before I started using a magnetic build plate, I used to put masking tape on the surface. Not near as nice as a magnetic system but better than nothing.

Would it be an option to get a two piece magnetic build plate? The bottom piece adheres onto your current build plate and the top piece gets held in place with magnetic force generated by the bottom piece. I believe Creality pioneered this design. However there's plenty of cheap knockoffs anymore.

business_kid,

I can only suggest a specialist 3D adhesive such as one of these:
https://all3dp.com/2/what-s-the-best...r-3d-printing/

@Mill J. A Magnetic build plate I can't quite see the point of. I'll investigate it It might be exactly what I need. I know on Creality the issue is inclined to be detaching the print without using explosives, or very large hammers.

Originally Posted by beachboy2 business_kid, I can only suggest a specialist 3D adhesive such as one of these: https://all3dp.com/2/what-s-the-best...r-3d-printing/

Interesting! I'll have a look-see. I have a month's work upcoming including many 3D flat 3D prints only ≅3mm thick but taking up most of the 300mm² plate.

Well, I had a quick scan for magnetic plates, but went for the sticks, which are on the way here by slow post from Italy. I found all3dp.com a difficult & messy site. Amazon.co.uk have Irish stock, but only for fast moving items. Amazon.com don't deliver here. Brexit has put a premium on ebay & amazon items from outside the EU. That includes the UK.

Curiously, Alibaba & Aliexpress have responded by using EU stockists. So I can buy from China, but have it delivered from the EU.

EDIT: I'll update this when the sticks are tried.

Like you, my printer hasn't been used for about a year. The main reason for the print not sticking to the build plate (the first layer of the print) is generally because the hot end isn't set to the correct height, usually the thickness of a piece of paper (0.004 thou, 0.10mm) It also depends on your nozzle size and the height of the first layer which can be set in your slicer. Last time I tried to print , like you I got noodles. I've 0.3mm nozzle with the first layer set to 0.25mm, subsequent layers at 0.2mm.

The magnetic build plate benefit is that it can be removed from the Y axis bed once the print is complete, you flex the plate to break the print free. I've still got my original Borosilicate glass platen and spraying it with a fine water mist seems to do the trick of freeing the print. I just clean it with a damp cloth most of the time, Isopropyl alcohol every now and again. Because my filament reel has been exposed to the atmosphere for the year the printer hasn't been used it seems prone to breaking. I believe PLA is hygroscopic so it's probably degraded.

Anyway... My

Play Bonny!

Curiously, I found a bigger gap than 0.1mm helped initially but I had gradually narrowed it. My plate seemed raised in the centre from new, but it's pretty level now. Whoever suggested Pritt-stick should have specified no heat. My problem now is that the Pritt-stick has slimed the plate, and there's no reason in the wide world for anything to stick to it. Quite the reverse.

My ink rubber trick achieved nothing. As I'm not in a rush for the prints and have adhesive sticks ordered, so I'll try that, and hope removal of large prints (when I get going) improves the situation. Next, I suppose I'll try increasingly strong acid, or maybe flipping the plate to see if it works on the second side.

I don't have that model but got advice from a friend who has a small business doing 3D printing as hobby-that-pays-for-itself. Having the exact distance for the head is essential. Also, the bed needs to be prepared in that it must be oil-free and a little sticky.

The approach recommended to me, and which seems to work well, is to wash the bed (isopropyl alcohol or dish soap) and then hit it with a thin layer of cheap hairspray once dry. After that, heat up the bed to the working temperature and then level it. For leveling, I just use strips of 80g / m² printer paper to gauge the distance, having gotten familiar with the right amount of tug the head should on the paper have when at the right height. Lastly, for most designs, I just run a skirt and watch carefully for the adhesion during its formation before the printing of the actual shape starts. If the loops don't fuse or start to lift up, abort. I've had to abort a lot of skirts and readjust, less as I get practice, but once that goes correctly it is rare (knock on wood) for the rest of the print to fail.

However, some shapes will not have enough surface area to adhere regardless of physical preparation and you will need to add either a brim or (in extreme cases) a raft. Some items will even need supports. Those can be set using Cura. Also, if you are getting items from Thingiverse, it seems that most of them will have to be rotated before printing.

Blockages of the filament nozzle are another matter.

Progress Report:

• The 3d glue sticks came, but seemed little better than the pritt-stick which slimed my plate.
• I wanted to remove bed heating, to see if that would help. So I installed the Ultimaker Cura AppImage. But any way I try to open a file, it instantly exits. Any ideas on that one?