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in my opinion there's nothing more critical to a successful 3d print than a good first layer the success of your first layer can be the difference between a print looking like this or like this there's a lot of different settings you can tweak to dial it in so in this 3d printing 101 we're going to discuss how you too can get the perfect first layer let's get started [Music] welcome back to 3d printing 101 here on makers muse so before we begin I'm going to assume that you have leveled your print bed and set the correct nozzle height as accurately as you can every 3d printer does this slightly differently some machines manually level with thumbscrews while others use a probe to automatically compensate I go into some detail in this video on how to level a print bed on several of my machines I recommend a large flat print to verify that your print bed is dialed in before attempting a complex print to avoid any failures this Square and circle from fever's user C brunner is a really good one to use and you can find the link for it in the video description but in this video we'll be focusing on the settings you can change in your slicing software to get the best first layer possible there are many different factors that can influence if the first print layer sticks correctly looks uniform and comes away cleanly at the end of the print such as print speeds first layer settings the use of skirts and brims and rafts using these techniques will ensure that your print will be built on the very best first layer foundation giving the very best chance of success finally let's make sure you're using the correct profile for your 3d printer in my case I'm using the one how I three version two in this example however I've disabled anything special about our first layer for our testing I designed this very simple disc with our logo this is a great test as it incorporates a variety of patterns which the extruder must traceroute in order to lay down our first layer I've linked this file in the video description if you'd like to use it yourself when darling in your print settings as you can see the print head dives straight in and it takes a little while to start extruding and really doesn't have much of a chance at sticking with a nozzle pulling it off even though our settings are perfect for the rest of the print something has to change for our first layer which is why we have access - first layer settings honestly these settings are magical as you can alter aspects of just your first most important layer without compromising the rest of your print here I had them all set to 100% previously so there's no change between the first layer and the rest of the print so instead of going with that I'm going to go ahead and change our first layer speed down to 50% half the speed it was going before I'm also going to bring the nozzle a little bit closer to the print bed for the first layer I'm gonna change mine to 90% nothing too crazy and lastly we can also increase our first layer width if we like to increase the amount of plastic that flows from the nozzle for the first layer only I'm gonna leave mine at 100% for now but it's useful to know that you can increase this if needed that affecting the rest of the print in addition to the extrusion settings we also have fan speed settings located under the cooling menu in simplify 3 D although cooling is critical to help call your parts quickly and improve 3d print quality you actually usually want your first layers to lay down hot and cool slower so they adhere better to your printing surface with this setting you can allocate different fan speeds to different layers simply enter the layer and the speed you want the fan to go out from that layout onwards so for us instead of the fan being on 100% from the start of the print I'm going to tell a fan not to turn on for that first layer and only start up from layer 2 onwards lastly there are what's called additions you can add to give challenging 3d prints the best chance of success these are called brims skirts and Raths skirts can be used to prime the extruder by drawing a line of plastic around the print that isn't actually touching it actually doesn't matter if this line looks any good because its sole purpose is to prime the nozzle so it's ready to go when it starts printing your first layer and it greatly improves that first layer quality if you find a certain shape needs more surface area to keep it attached to the print bed you can change in the settings that it will touch the part by changing the skirt offset to zero and increasing the skirt outlines to four or even higher this will help give you a first layer a much higher adhesion to the print surface and can also help prevent warping as well as stop tall or unstable prints from toppling over during 3d printing the terms brim and skirt are kind of interchangeable but if the line is offset from the part it's usually called the skirt if it's touching the part it's usually called the brim and finally we have personally I love reasoning rafts as it takes away the need for a lot of the fine-tuning on bed leveling that you need to get a perfect Rattlers print and the raft is essentially a rough sacrificial surface that the part is then constructed on this is designed to be broken away like support material once a print is complete if your friend has lots of complicated supports or is very delicate or unusual in shape a raft can actually make a huge difference to making that print succeed just keep in mind that it does add time and material to your 3d printing and also it does need a lot of efforts to be removed once the print is completed so here's my final result after the twigs already this is looking way better than before there's no gaps or wispy lines and the print has excellent adhesion to the print bed notice also that when how fan pulses randomly despite being told to be turned off for the first layer this is just one of the firmware quirks of the warehouse and nothing to do with my slicing settings now this could be improved further but it's a case of diminishing returns from this point the layers overlap each other slightly in some areas so I could reduce either my first layer height from 90 back to 100% but honestly the machine I'm using is a manually level bed and I'm never going to get it perfect so a little bit too much flow is actually preferable for me to ensure I get good layer adhesion for the first layer it's worth noting that the finish at the bottom of your print will also change depending on what print surface you use glass or this print bite surface gives a glossy almost mirror-like finish while build tech will give you a matte effect and just in case you're interested this is what a raft looks like so for our part a raft is not very useful and the bottom surface will be rougher than if we print it directly onto our print bed but it's useful all the same for printing much more complicated models and I do like to use rafts as I said for those sort of prints I've discussed a lot of different settings in this video on how to get your perfect first layer on your 3d print but honestly this is just scratching the surface it takes a combination of many different factors working together to get the best possible result out of your 3d printer and knowledge is power so if interested in seeing in advance video dedicated to any of the settings discussed in this video be sure let me know down the comments a big thanks to simplifies relief for sponsoring this episode of 3d printing 101 on makers muse and if you care to learn more about 3d printing be sure to subscribe to this miss any future 3d printing reviews tips Trix thanks for watching guys and I'll see you again very shortly here on Magus muse catch you later bye [Music] [Music]