Otherwise capable coder/developer who just unpacked a TAZ 5.
I have printed three octopus. Adjusting the bed each time. Initially first layer adhesion was weak so I raised the bed and printed several bed calibration prints, tweaking each time.
Now I am printing a real object, but the support pillars are mush. I have sliced with slic3r. PLA, 3mm new roll, 190 Head, 60 bed.
Welcome to the club!
In the future use the Z-endstop knob to adjust nozzle to bed height. Adjust so that a business card can slip between the gap in the middle of the bed.
There is also a simple bed calibration gcode file on the SD card to check the levelness of the entire bed. A lot of folks also find a dial gauge to be useful in getting the bed level.
Not sure what’s going on with the supports. Do you have the original STL?
Thanks…I never considered a dial runout guage…but that would be perfect. I did run the built in test pattern to fine tune the bed. The part is an in-house item so I have the original file. The part is printing fine, but the support pillars are junk.
Based on research, I will try the Gizmo Dork PLA at 210 and repeat.
There was poor interlayer adhesion and limited output for the pillars. I will also mic it as it is published as potentially 2.85mm and my 3mm setting would result in far too little filament extruded.
Sounds like it’s going okay. The supports don’t need to look pretty… just functional. 
So as long as they are supporting what needs to be supported, it should be okay
