Taz 5 Poor Adhesion

Working with my Taz 5 that I inherited awhile back and running into issues. I replaced the PEI sheet and had good success with prints. I haven’t used the printer in a few months and just tried using it again. I got one good print using PLA then the next print won’t even start printing. It looks like the first layer is almost clear then if there’s color it starts to drag it around. How can it change between one print to the next?

i read somewhere here about sanding the PEI. Is this a possible solution? I’m printing PLA at 230 with the bed at 60 I believe. Should I change my temps?

any help is appreciated.

Sanding the PEI shouldn’t be necessary, but a quick spray with window cleaner should take any dirt and/or oils off that would ruin adhesion.

Past that, some pictures or video of what’s happening would help diagnose what’s wrong.

I wipe it down with IPA before each print at least. I’ll try a print again and get a video.

Here’s a couple videos.

CuraLE wants to use 205 for PLA, and that extrudes when I load the filament, but it just seems very low.

Printed at 230 and this is what it looks like.. maybe I am doing it too high..

Lowered to 205 and got this mess.

Another update. Cleaned out the nozzle and dish soaped the bed. Adhesion looks good, it is just uneven. How can the corners be level but not the middle?

Nozzle looks too close. increase z offset by like .15mm. It’s barely clearing the bed if at all, so nothing is coming out.

The bed may be heating unevenly to cause the center to be a bit higher than the edges. Allow it to heatsoak at like 50c for about 10min before a print. The bed might level back out.

I went back through and releveled everything. The print started out great. First layer was clean. But zero adhesion between the rest of the layers.

Here’s a video of it

That’s heat creep causing underextrusion.

PLA with that toolhead is a bad match. 2.85mm with a hard, brittle filament. Single hobbed bolt for a drive gear with a brittle filament. Bad part cooling with that single axial fan. Bad heatbreak cooling with the small blower fan…

The Taz 5 in stock configuration works pretty good with ABS, it was not designed for PLA (which wasn’t even that common that long ago).

Ah…. That makes sense then why there was a bunch of ABS with it and not PLA. I will try to print some ABS instead and see if that is part of the problem.

Also, I was checking the esteps with the PLA and only 20mm extruded when I commanded 100mm. Would that be because of the single drive extruder and PLA combo?

You should still have 100mm of filament go through when trying to do 100mm. Single drive gear doesn’t affect that unless it’s malfunctioning due to heat creep, or the gears fill of chewed up filament from heatcreep jams.

Okay. I got rid of the PLA, cleaned the gear, and loaded some ABS. Gonna give it a shot.

This thing loves ABS…

That is what it was made for.

Just be sure to use in a room with adequate ventilation. Styrene fumes aren’t the best.

Put it next to my bed. Great dreams.

/s