With the ‘backlash from hell’ problem solved the printer’s printing really well, enough that you can actually print useful things with it.

I’ve been experimenting with temperatures a bit, trying to find a happy medium that will print well, and still stick to the heated bed. I’ve found some settings that work quite well.

To start with, I set the heated bed temperature to 130 degrees. This results in about a 115 degree temperature at the top of the pyrex sheet. I also set the hot-end to 230 degrees. Once the first layer is complete, I turn down the hot-end to 220, and the bed to 100, which results in about a 90 degree top temperature.

These settings work great. The first layer sticks really well, and the object stays really stuck for the remainder of the print. Once the print’s finished, the bed temperature usually has to drop below 60 degrees before the object can be removed without major force. The base has that nice ‘glossy shine’

The first objects on my list of ‘real prints’ are some LM8UU Linear bearing parts to put onto the printer, and a spool holder for the filament. Here’s the first spool part: