At wits end with first layer issues

[JonIN3D]

I have the steel nozzle, not the brass one that comes with it.

Three different brands of PLA all look like this.

I have tired Cura, Slic3r, KISSlicer64, and Matter Slice

I loosened the top, pushed the bowden tube in, and tightened it down.

All three towers are square.

When I spin the bed, the problem does not follow it.

My extrusion is calibrated. When I tell Matter Control to extrude 100mm, it extrudes 100mm.

I have tried extruder temps from 170, 175, 180, 185, 190, 195, 200, 205, 210, 215, 220 C on three different PLA filament brands and they all look like the attached picture.

I have calibrated using the built in auto calibration followed by the online calculator.

I also tried calibrating x, y, z, and center with a .20mm feeler.

I also tried calibrating x, y, z and center with a piece of paper.

I also tried turning auto calibration off and using the 13 point calibration in matter control with a piece of paper.

I have slowed my first layer down to 10 mm/s and have been playing with retractions settings as well, no matter what they ALL look like crap.

I can't get this thing to lay a good first layer. I never was able to. I gave up for 4 months and I am back at it again. The attached picture, left is first layer, right is where it started a second layer.

What am I missing here?

[geneb]

It almost looks like you've got a loose belt on the Z axis. That might explain the two spaced perimeters in the "front" of the photo. Could be the gear is slipping as well.

[edit: Nevermind. The 2nd ring I saw was a reflection of the first from the 2nd surface of the glass bed. *facepalm*]

g.

[timskloss]

I think your flow of filament is stalling. This used to happen to me quite a lot on the HE280. I consider it a design weakness. Filament flows OK at first but then becomes almost impossible to push through the extruder. In my case the bowden tube was partially backing out creating a gap in the heat brake where material would collect and just wreak havoc with filament flow. See my write up at the link below. I can say that once I solved this problem it opened up a whole new world of printing for me. I use a combination of three tricks: (1) I use a short piece of bowden tube to just come out of the HE280 and a 4mm union to join to the long bowen tube back to the extruder (2) the short piece of bowden tube is screwed in under pressure. Loosen the nut on the top that contains the bowden tube lock ring about two turns, insert the bowden tube until it hits bottom, then tighten the nut back down. If it goes right, the bowden tube is captured and held under pressure so it can't back out again. (3) a tiny amount of super glue (gap filling) on the end of the bowden tube helps secure it in place before tightening the nut. Since I did this a few months ago I haven't had any problems. Good Luck!

http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=11337