Printing to ... aluminium

[Ted]

Hi everybody. First message on the forum.
First, Julia thanks a lot to help us to improve our Zortrax printer.
Second, 0xDeadBeef, many thanks, RaftAway is the perfect companion of Julia products.

Well, since I own Z-temp and Z-hotend, I can print PLA with success. But raft was always a pain ! Then come RaftAway. I decided to print directly on glass, making electrical contact with aluminium foil. Perfect. But the aluminium foil needed to be removed before printing.
So, I bought a 2 mm aluminium sheet, to replace glass and alu foil.
And here I am. When I try printing, a z-code model with raft removed by raftaway of course, the first layer can't extrude. There is just no space between the aluminum bed and the hotend, or may be so little that the extruder is not able to push filament. DeadBeef, I don't understand, because in the help file you wrote "the first layer height is set to the slicer-selected nominal layer height". The models I tried where sliced at 190µm (0,2 mm) : for sure there is not 0,2 mm between hotend and bed.

Any idea ?

By the way, instead of glue stick, or hairspay, or ... I use spray mount from Scotch 3M, it's the same glue as post-it. It works perfectly for glass and aluminium. Models are easy to remove and it last for many many prints.

Ted

[Julia Truchsess]

Hi Ted,

Welcome to the forum!

The best solution is to use Z-Sense. Then you don't need an aluminum plate or foil, you can print on glass or PEI or BuildTak or whatever you want, and set the initial layer height to whatever you want. If you are in France, Atome3D or Machines3D should have Z-Sense in stock.

If you don't want to use Z-Sense, then you can use the brass shim that was included with your Z-Temp (or any other kind of metal shim) to increase the first layer by 0.5mm. Just put it between the nozzle and your aluminum plate during the height sensing, and then pull it out when sensing is done. But really, Z-Sense is much nicer because you don't have to hang around and do the shim thing, you just hit "Print"

[MikeHenry]

Z-Sense works a treat for me.  I switch frequently between ABS and PLA+PHA prints and Z-Sense makes it easy to accommodate either.

[Ted]

Julia, I know Z-Sense and had already think of buying it. But it's not really my question here : whith my aluminium sheet, I should continue to use the electric levelling of the M-200, nothing to change and very easy to switch from perfoard to alu bed. I don't understand why the first layer is so close to the bed. I hope DeadBeef will have my solution.

And, Julia, I know that my english is terrible , but I do not live in France anymore ! Now in Miami 

Ted

[Julia Truchsess]

Your english is perfect, but in your profile I saw a French email address, c'est tout!

Julia

[Ted]

Deadbeaf suggest me to use another tool he wrotes : ZTool : it's perfect as you can change the height of the first layer, exactly what I needed. And it works !!

Ted