What are the perfect settings to print in pla, as you can see the details are great in the first picture. In the second picture the bottom part where the raft was the details were not that great, you can barely see the diamond. How can can i improve the first model layer?
Don’t use a raft. I really only use rafts when I have a small amount of surface area contact on the bed versus a large part or scattered supports that I want to keep stable.
It seems like a raft is mandatory lol.
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I’m not sure what I’m looking at, the focus is on the close end of the build surface and the part by the nozzle is outside of the depth of field. Wait is this a Makerbot?
Yes it is.
Here are the raft settings
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Unfortunately that was your first mistake. Makerbot has almost zero respect from the 3D printing community, they make overpriced, closed source, faulty hardware. What generation, Replicator+?
Replicator Mini Plus.
These models were printed with a raft and the details are great.
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The raft will always make the bottom layer look that way because the raft need sufficient Z offset from the part. This produces a side effect causing the bottom layer to look as it does. If the offset were decreased this would look cleaner, but the raft would be significantly harder to remove. The best thing to do is run the Z calibration fully and try printing without a raft. If the part is sticking nicely to the bed then you’re good to go, if not the calibration usually errors on settign the nozzle height too far from the bed in which case you can adjust it manually by giving each of the screws under the bed about a quarter turn. Let me know if you need anymore help with the Makerbot or assistance with recommending a better, cheaper, more reliable printer that can print more than just PLA toys.
Thanks for your advice, this printer was given to me for Christmas and it’s been reliable ever since. I am going to buy a Prusa I3 MK2 so that i can print with other filaments, and is the Prusa a reliable printer?
Best printer I’ve used. Coming from the Makerbot just be prepared for a steep learning curve
Yup and YouTube and the forums are my friends, thanks for your help.
Blue painters tape works great as a surface for PLA. You wouldn’t need a raft anymore. You would need to adjust the z height to offset for the thickness of the tape.
Thanks for the tip Stephanie.
Not a Makerbot user, but I find hair spray applied shortly before the print starts to work great for PLA.
I don’t like using hair spray or glue sticks. Too dirty. You get the hair spray to places where you don’t like to have it.
I prefer pertinax: http://www.masterplatex.de/epages/62236671.sf/de_DE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/62236671/Products/Hp2061br/SubProducts/0%2C5-Hp-br-M%2B.
Works great.