I have had my J1 for years. I bought it off Kickstarter. Sadly I have been struggling to get good prints. They always seem to end up being a mess. It’s been such a headache that I just don’t use it. When I see all the amazing things that other people print, I get pretty angry. I am a pretty technical person. I run my own software development company… why can’t I conquer this darn printer?
My common struggles are that the first layer or two always seems to sabotage the entire print. Today I decided for the first time to try two things… put some glue stick on the bed to make the first layer stick better. I also slowed down the print time with the “Smooth Surface” setting for my job.
Unfortunately, this results in a 24-hour print time! The first layer has not come up. But it’s also not perfect. There are a lot of mistakes. I also see a lot of webbing in the interior. This is just an adapter for my wood shop, so I’m ok with this instance of non-perfection. But I would love for it to be better.
Greetings, I use Orcaslicer so maybe my settings will not work for you. I also have the all metal hotends which work great. You show a layer height of .12, I myself always find .2 to work the best.
You show a fan speed of 100%, I find 20-30% best for Petg, I also set nozzle temp for 250deg.
You should also try and recalibrate the machine.
Hope you have luck.
You mention a wood shop. Is the printer in the shop?
I had a lot of trouble getting the first layer to stick because my bed had a layer of fine dust on it. Even cleaning with alcohol and a microfiber cloth wasn’t enough. I ended up printing the first layer, cancelling, cleaning the nozzle, and printing again a few times before the bed was clean enough to get a good first layer.
Sometimes a brim can help, even though the print shouldn’t need it. It might not have contact to the bed everywhere, and you can see bubbles under it. But enough of the brim is attached that the print can attach to the brim.
Clean bed and adjust the z offset, after calibrations of course.
Z offset always needs a little fine adjustment. Good news I find is it’s pretty stable on the J1. I only need to tweak mine after toolhead changes and stuff. Otherwise it’s stable for months.
Some more remarks on print bed adhesion (may be found here and on the internet as well):
different filaments have varying bed adhesion and react differently when it comes to disturbances.On the PEI coated bed the J1 has, you are usually quite well off when compared to what was sold in earlier times, but still the following applies: PLA has a mediocre bed adhesion and may come off quite easily, especially if I take a look at the large and thick-walled rectangle you were trying to print. To improve in that, increasing bed temperature may help (already 2…5°C may do wonders), apart from the obvious solution of using another filament manufacturer or another type of filament. PETG for example sticks like hell - there is a higher risk of ripping pieces of the print plate than the part coming off.
the part geometry and possible drafts play a great role in adhesion issues. If you use PLA, print with the doors (partly) open, but keep the printer out of drafty areas (windows, doors, air condition outlets, fans…) and design your parts not too massive. A common beginner’s issue is making very thick-walled parts because there is not feeling yet on how thick a parts needs to be to be stable, but not considering that plastic always shrinks significantly when cooling down, which necessarily causes warping and rips the edges or the whole part from the print plate. Start with smaller parts and make your way forward instead of printing huge pieces as a first attempt.
lastly, the print bed needs to be clean. That much is obvious, but in my personal experience the J1 bed is somewhat tricky in such a way that using the standard “wipe with a cloth and IPA” procedure did not work that well for me for some reason. I got very good results using the “Bref Power” grease remover - spray the stuff on the bed, use a fingernail brush to rub it in, wait about 30s, thoroughly brush once more, rinse and dry with a fresh paper handkerchief/tissue.
Hope that helps!
(Edit: taking a second look at your picture, I noted two more things…
First, a brim around the edges might help if you really need the part that massive.
Second, if my skirt line comes off as easily as it seemed to do on your printer, I would stop the print immediately.
And third, I forgot the bed leveling in the list above. Even a couple of hundreths of a millimeter can have a huge effect on adhesion. If you take a look at the underside of your last failed print, it should become obvious if that distance fits or not. One thing I learned about 3D printers over the years: automatic leveling and such is a nice help, but never trust it blindly.)
This has still worked well for me, after dish soap and water if needed.
What I note with the J1 PEI coating is its a little rough. Enough that it can scrape lint from many things one might use to clean the bed if not being gentle. Just pretty coarse, like coarse sandpaper.
The tiny fibers it can pull might stick to the bed and cause trouble for some if not noticed before printing.
