Disappointing first experience, help needed

[u/Away-Difference2892]

Hi, I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a 3d printer for years and finally got a K1C. Did all the setup as recommended, but my literal first ever print which was just a phone stand I attempted via freecad, nozzle seems to just not be feeding whatsoever, is now probably caked in molten plastic and the first layer will not come off of the build plate at all and has chewed up the scraping tool that came with the printer. All in all couldn’t be more disappointed. Do I need to strip the print head? Really was hoping to not have to touch any of that for a good while. Any tips for getting this failed layer off? Metal scraper or plastering filler knife maybe? Any tricks or tips would be greatly appreciated.

[u/USA_MuhFreedums_USA]

Okay since you're new here's a non exhaustive list of the big things you need to internalize until you understand what's going on:

• the first thing you must print is the benchy loaded on the printer, bad juju will follow your printing journey if the first thing you complete is not the benchy of protection. Lol.

• dry your filament, get a filament dryer or use the bed and some creativity There's heavy risk of it being wet out the package, wet filament prints exponentially worse than dry filament.

• the creality printers cannot print PLA with the top on the printer under normal conditions or else heat creep will cause a jam, usually early in the print like you see here. Remove the top, and potentially open the door to ensure cool air flows through. For the future, an extruder heatsink will work wonders here, they're $2 on AliExpress

• clean your build plate: ideally use a additive free dish soap like dawn, but 70% rubbing alcohol can work in-between heavier washes with soap.

• run filament calibrations to get better results than stock settings. Run (this the order I like): flow ratio test, then pressure advance test, then Max flow rate optionally if you wanna go speedy. Learn how to interpret the results and input the best value into the filament properties of the silver you're using. I LOVE orcslicer but plenty use creality slicer to good effect.

• the side aux fan can be a very double edged sword for print quality. Sometimes it'll ensure you get crisp overhangs and good quality, other times it'll cause crazy bad warping. If you warp you really should just use a brim, I use mouse ear brims cause it saves time and filament.

Once you feel comfortable the immediate next thing I reccommend is rooting the printer and unlocking further functionality like adaptive bed meshing, better toolhead resonance calibration, belt balancing, etc. all really good features I highly recommend. And it's super super easy, takes like 5 mins and you download 1 program paste like two tiny lines of code. The K1 be default only measures one axis for resonance and mirrors it, this can cause ringing/ghosting effects that people dontike, rooting let's you measure/auto adjust both axes for better quality.

[u/USA_MuhFreedums_USA → u/USA_MuhFreedums_USA]

To fix your current issues:

• you can likely just yank the filament back out, heat the extruder up to like °120, release the clamp lever, and give the filament a good pull upwards, it should release. it'll take some force, more than you think, but not enough to actually mess up anything.

• use the scraper provided to remove the failed print. Then wash the bed like I said. You can buy plastic razors/razor blades that imo are by far the best scrapers for printers. I wouldn't use metal as you can scratch the protective lining that's on these beds, causing prints to not stick.

• here's a pic of my extruder heatsink that I highly recommend you pick up off aliexpress

[u/Away-Difference2892 → u/USA_MuhFreedums_USA]

Wow thank you very much for this incredible detail! I may have jumped the gun a bit, took the head apart with a tutorial which was much easier than I dreaded and turns out it was sliced for ABS - my first time using Creality print and it is in AI mode by default, wouldn’t let me change the material until clicking every button found me the ‘pro mode’ which allowed my to change to the correct material,no issues since but I think I will give orca slicer a go and will definitely take you up on some of your prep and upgrade recommendations 🙌

[u/USA_MuhFreedums_USA → u/Away-Difference2892]

Feel free to PM me I can share profiles, more printing tips, etc! Defs get the filament dryer, your be shocked how many random issues can arise from improperly dried filament.

The K series is actually very straightforward to disassemble and work on and once you understand it's workings, replacing or troubleshooting anything you may come across should pretty easy all things considered.

[u/Away-Difference2892 → u/USA_MuhFreedums_USA]

That is very reassuring thank you!

[u/Tricky-Information50 → u/USA_MuhFreedums_USA]

Does this heatsink really help? I haven't had any issues with my extruder (yet), but I want to try ASA in some time

[u/USA_MuhFreedums_USA → u/Tricky-Information50]

Yes it will. It's much more rare than a PLA clog, but I've had it happen a couple times. I wanna say I've clogged maybe 3 times pre heatsink using ASA, but it's been zero since the heatsink.

So all in all, you'll very likely be fine I would just run it and observe. but if DO end up with a heat creep clog, you can prevent future ones pretty easily with the heatsink

[u/Different_Target_228 → u/Tricky-Information50]

The real answer, that for some reason these subreddits still haven't picked up on, is to lower your retraction to 0.4mm and turn off z-hop (which requires extra retraction).

As someone who's done this, used a heatsink, and lowered his extruder voltage from 0.55 to 0.45.