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!
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.
From my experience, if the first layer doesn’t come out well, the print will fail.
Definitely nothing new, that’s been going on since before I got into 3d printing like 7 years ago.
There was a point where having a good first layer was actually critical to having good print bed adhesion and successful prints. 99% of problems were solved by re leveling the bed and/or cleaning it.
Now, with abl and fancy tools like lidar and better bed surfaces, it’s not nearly as essentially to get a perfect first layer, but it’s still a sign of a well calibrated printer.
I dare say it’s one of those things that’s just hung around because as waves of new users join the community (especially around times like Xmas when a lot of new people join), they start researching stuff and see older users posting about their first layer and think of it as some kind of rite of passage, so they post theirs… And then the next group come in and see it, wash rinse repeat…
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.
Not sure I’m taking about the same thing but what I’ve seen is people printing a couple of layers out of pla then switching to other material to avoid having to mess with glue or else. This is to avoid bounding with plate as it can happen with petg or other material. But in no case I’ve seen people printing entire build area, usually the same size as print + a bit of extra to pull off that pla layer
They’re talking about something different. They’re talking about the people they will print a single layer across their entire build plate to see if it’s level. Basically just an extreme bed level test.