Hi All - Octoprint was down when I came in to use the printers today.
Also, a print on Sunwukong had failed with “heating disabled by safety timer.”
I followed the instructions to reboot the control computer, but the 3d printers came up in the “wrong order”. This has happened to me in the past. If I remember correctly, it had something to do with the COM port order not being reliable.
Also, I had a lot of issues getting first layer adhesion on hermes. All strands immediately detached. I did the first layer height calibration which seemed to substantially improve things but I still didn’t get a successful print. I got my parts done on the other printers, though.
Hi Kyle. Out of curiosity, what filament were you using for the failed prints? There was a spool of black PLA that I attempted to print with multiple times, on both smooth and satin sheets, and even adding glue stick, and in all cases it just wouldn’t stay stuck on the bed. I then switched to some transparent orange PLA that I had had success with in the past and it adhered well and printed flawlessly the first time. I am still pretty new to 3D printing, so there may have been some user error there, but in my experience that particular spool of black PLA caused a lot of issues with bed adhesion.
Octoprint getting printer identities wrong is a known issue that we have a likely solution for (moving away from a central Octoprint server and instead putting a Pi on each machine). I agree it’s a very annoying problem. I recommend using the SD card instead if this gives you too much trouble- there is usually a little black SD card reader floating around the printer area.
For first-layer adhesion, I usually play with the Z-adjustment live while it’s doing the first layer (I do multiple skirt lines so I have time and multiple passes to see this go). For whatever reason, it’s not very consistent on our printers despite having automatic bed leveling, I wonder if different people are tuning the z-adjustment to their own preferences for squish.
Bed surface should be very clean, and use the glue sticks or hair spray or other adhesives to help particularly difficult prints. Sometimes, a bad roll can just really suck at sticking on though.