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Hello, I’ve been 3d printing almost non stop for the last 2-3 weeks since I got my QIDI Tech One Printer. I love the sizes and prints it makes. Great quality designs with very few issues. One huge pain that is continue to get worse is that my prints stick too well. Initially they didn’t stick at all and got a pile of PLA. I resolved that by using the glue stick and a very light mix of Aquanet Hairspray. However, now, I am unable to get my prints off the blue mat that QIDI provides with it’s printers. I replaced it for the first time thinking maybe there was just too much glue being activated with the hair spray. However, This didn’t help. Many of the first layers of the printed object stay stuck to the mat and I really really have to scrap to get the plastic off the bed.

I’m using 30degrees Celsius on the Bed temperature and 205 Celsius for the Extruder temp. It has a fan built into the extruder that I make sure is activated with every print.

My prints are somewhat usable but the bottoms are almost completely demolished after I get them pried off…

I’ve tried using very little or no glue and the PLA doesn’t stick at all other than sticking to the extruder…

I don’t know what else to do… Any suggestions, I’d like them to just pop off with very little to no damage to the bottoms of the prints… Another suggestion was to add a Brim to the print. I’m not sure what that does, but, to me it seems like this would add significantly to the print time…

Any recommendations?

Thanks!

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Hey There,

So this is a common thin in 3D printing… Getting your print to not stick to well but also stick to well if you get what i mean. There is only one solution and this is to try every little thing you can imagine until it works like you want it. First of all i would go with the “nothing at all” aproach. Get rid of everythin on your bed (maybe not the blue mat but the glue and spray) an try to print… you said your prints wont stick without help? ramp the temperature of your bed up a notch. I always printed PLA on a Glas only bed and it worked great. But i had to heat the bed to 60°C so it would stick… try that. If that is not working let the temperature where it is and ONLY use hairspray. Got Pretty good results with that as well. If not working go with the gluestick again but still with a little more heat in the bed. If thats still not working and you head is smoking. I would go with somethin like BULDTAK. its a little on the expensive site but it works like a charm. Im mostly printig ABS because i print Robots so i need the extra stiffnis, since i got the BUILDTAK there is no warping at all. But you can screw up with buildtak. If the nozzle is to near to the bed it will stick a “little” too well but this is fixed quite easily. Then there are the more exotic aproches wich is using beer or sirup as binder instead of glue, but i would stay away from this aproach except nothing else is working.

Hope i could crush the Roadblock of yours and get you on the right tracks to fixing this Problem!

Best Regards and happy Printing,

Eddie.

OpenRobotX.

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On the blue plate. PLA should stick fine. Bed level is key as is first layer height and speed. Glue and hairspray together is overkill. One or the other and really not hair spray on the blue plate. Bed temp is really low. Try 60 to start and you can always bump the first layer temp of the extruder some to help.

I have this machine so I know it can work!

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I have reduced the speed of the first layer from 30 to 10. I will try the plate at 60 celsius. I was reading that anything over 30-40 and the PLA will warp.

I’ll try the 60 temp and no glue / spray as well, and may need to level the bed again as well as it may be printing too close to the bed with the glue that’s on the bed now.

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Great!

Let us know if it worked.

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If I have a print that is really stuck I will reheat the build plate to the softening temperature of the material and carefully pry it off. About 60 for PLA and 110 for ABS.

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I removed the blue sticker when it got damaged and replaced it with 3mm borosilicate glass. IT’s awesome. Good adhesion but 95% if I let the plate cool I can just lift the print off with zero effort.

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O.k. I’ve found the magic combination for me. The first is that my bottom and top layers were set to way too thin. The default settings I was using was creating a host of issues for me. For some reason the QIDI software slicer was set to 2.25 mm for filament size. Not sure if this would cause an issue, but the max size is 1.75mm. My top and bottom layers were way wrong. And incapable of creating the support I needed. The hover instructions indicate for high quality bottom layer should be set to.06 mm. For lower quality as high as .25mm. For the models I was printing, the detail came out very excellent at .2 mm.

.06 mm created a bunch of issues (like sticking too well or not at all! )

If you’re having issues with sticking or not sticking adjust your print settings, check them and recheck them! Next, my hot plate. I’ve tried a variety of tempts and I seem to get the best stick results around 55 Celsius. I’ve tried down to 40 and I start having issues with something not sticking right and coming home to a blob of plastic… I went up to 60 and down to 55 and that seems about the optimal temp for me. I have a gut feeling that humidity, pressure, and other climate related things may be at play for the optimal hot plate temp.

If I have something that doesn’t stick (which 95% of the time I don’t anymore). I put one smattering of a glue stick layer down and have the printer ready to go before putting the glue down. It dries very fast, so I highly recommend putting the glue on with everything preheated and ready to go.

Lastly, I just replaced my QIDI print plate self adhesive cover. Usually the blue Painters tape like surface was too smooth for it to stick in the past… I tried a print overnight last night, and it stuck just fine and came out even more amazing than before. (No glue residue stuck to the bottom of the pieces.)

In fact, the initial outline of plastic stuck too well, I couldn’t get it off, but all the pieces came off just fine and looked great!

I’ve been printing almost nonstop now for around 3-4 weeks and so far the only mistake prints were my fault. Or that 1 in one hundred of 1 piece not sticking.

The final piece of this is leveling. I found after a power outtage that the leveling was off. Was fine before the outtage, but, it brought the printing plate too high and too close to the nozzle. It was almost digging into the hot plate. There was one other time, it was probably 1/8th of an inch away from the plate, for no apparent reason, and had to adjust then as well.

It may be a good idea to build in a leveling maintenance task once every 2-3 weeks.

Overall I’m very happy with my QIDI 3d printer now that I got the settings and optimal print environment.

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I had similar issues, the scraper included with the printer made it impossible. I then went to our local dollar store looking for another scraper, same problem. Then looked around on Amazon and found this Amazon.com

It’s freaking awesome! I promise, you’ll have no issues removing your models with it. The metal is thin (but sturdy), just enough to slip under the model with ease. I bought two of these, one for my desk and one near the printer. I also use a Qidi Tech I, so hope this helps you.