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I think you already have your answer, but let me elaborate a bit.
The places in the middle where the filament is missing - those places are either dirty or too high.
The area in the back where the filament is sticking, but isn’t filling the area correctly, those areas are too low.
Most likely cause for both is the build plate on an Ender just isn’t perfectly flat. You can try to adjust it to get it closer to being level. But I’ve always found I’ll have sections that just aren’t right. And so, I just don’t print on those sections. Find the areas that do print well, and locate your prints there.
Last note - try putting down a layer of painter’s tape. I find that helps tremendously with both of the points you’re fighting.
Things that have worked for me:
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your bed is probably not level, i installed self leveling on mine ($30 but well worth it)
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if its adhesion, try a glue stick. It looks like a PEI sheet but that alone was not enough for me. My routine is: wash with soap and water, spray 90+% IPA (before bed is heated) and wipe with microfiber (paper towel leaves flakes behind), then apply gluestick before printing
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maybe check your bed is warm enough/preheat for longer to allow the whole bed to get to temp, though i doubt this is the case but it doesn’t hurt to try
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for your first layer: slower speed, higher nozzle temp, higher bed temp
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Have you tried gluestick adhesive on the bed? Sometimes it’s all it takes for that first layer to properly stick.
Too close, level the bed and increase the Z offset until the smoosh is right.
Also since it looks like it’s in different places you should do a probe calibration to adjust for uneven surface.
Also preheating and waiting before bed leveling helps. These beds are wobbly. I’ve put a glass bed on top of the factory one on my K1
I will never regret getting rid of my Ender 3. It’s basically a self-imposed challenge mode. People are proud that they can print things on it despite the printer, not because of it.
After twenty years of self-built printers, I got an Ender 3 to stop having to fiddle with the printer every time I went to print. It was glorious. Not sure why the Ender hate, they work well, especially for the price.
I’ve been rocking 2 ender 3s for 5 years now. Both are ship of theseus though. I get beautiful prints on them but I do miss out on some modern features like multi color.
I have abandoned my ender 3, it is finicky and needs a lot of tuning all the time for sure.
What do you recommend I could get? Like in the same price range lol
Ender’s 3 price point is tricky, because the initial machine is so cheap there isn’t a whole lot else in the same sub-$200 bracket that’s particularly great. Realistically, if you can step up to $300 (which you’d probably spend in upgrades for the ender anyway), you’ve got the Bambu A1 and Elegoo Centauri Carbon. I’m not personally a fan of Bambu, but they are very set and forget folks that don’t mind being in an ecosystem seem to love them. Centauri is on the newer side, but from everything I’ve seen, it seems to be a very strong contender for best budget printer (also worth noting that there’s rumblings of a version 2 coming out early year, so you might be able to snag a clearance sale or some shiny new features).
LAUGHS IN BIQU
I would check that the print bed is heating evenly. Everyone has mentioned cleaning, that’s definitely a good start, too. But it looks like bands where it’s not sticking. From the image’s perspective, about 1/3 up is a band of poor adhesion, and then at the far end of the plate. IDK how the heating elements are designed, but that could be a. Issue. Otherwise the build plate is warped in almost an “S” shape. Some leveling will help, but not fix a warped bed.
Also, the material deposition looks very thin in general. Make sure the z-step is set correctly, slow down the first layer print, and make sure the temperatures of the bed and hotend are right.
I have an older printer with a warped bed and basically brute force the adhesion with a slightly thicker base layer and then normal layers after that.
There’s grease from fingers and the first layer calibration done wrong.
Put dish soap and water into a spray bottle and use that mixture with fresh paper towel(s) to clean the bed. IPA doesn’t really work as it evaporates quickly and mostly just moved that grease around.
Also check if the bed is straight as it’s Creality.
That last bit, as the proud owner of a Ender 3 V2 I can confirm the bed isn’t as level as one would like… And mine is glass 🙃
I didnt know about the soapy water cleaning, thanks.
Do you have a ruler or something else that’s straight for sure that you could to pull on the top of the bed (possibly with some power) to see if the bed actually is even close to straight? If its a wave like it looks like it is then you shoul really replace it.
Seriously tho Creality is known from these problems.
Dirty build plate. Greasy spots causes the filament to not stick. Use a spray of soapy water and a microfibre cloth to clean it. Just water and dish soap works amazing for degreasing. No need to use isopropyl alcohol. Nozzle height looks okay on the front left I think. Maybe a tad too close, but shouldn’t be a problem. On the back it’s way too high. Make sure your bed leveling is a bit better
This is my guess too. I clean mine with soap and water and rince it in the sink. Like my dishes.
I have an ender 3 v3 plus and I’ll get the same issue every once in a while on the first layer. Sometimes I just restart the print and it works. \o/
I don’t know creality, but have you checked your first layer calibration and bed levelling?
I have 2 ender 3s, and they were awesome. I learned so much about engineering, gcode, and flashing firmware. I spent so much time fine tuning print parameters and installing mods, and I was able to get decent prints. I moved and picked up a bambu P1S, during a black Friday sale a few years ago. My enders are still packed and my P1S has just worked, giving me prints quality and consistency I only could have dreamed of using my enders. Now, I just need a project to recycle my enders parts into.
Long story short, use teaching tech ender 3 calibration guide, dry your filament, and install auto bed leveling probe that will account for warped build plates. https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html
Adhesion and bedmesh calibration should solve the explosions/under extrusion in far back. The stringiness/ bad line-line adhesion is from bad z level calibration.
Creality. (Sorry, I had to)
Could be a few things. Bed adhesion could be an issue. Be meticulous in cleaning the bed. Also this bed looks open so it could be cooling off too quickly.
The tears look very specific and repeated so maybe tweak fill settings to be denser.
The top is really bad and may have a bed levelling issue.
Looks like head collision. Make sure the bed isn’t baked on the other side causing bumps. It’s odd that it’s multiple spots so definitely look under the bed and make sure everything is clean. If so then check out the bed for breakdown in the top layer. There’s not a great reason other than z collision for that tearing.
