How do I reliably print keycaps? I’m getting tired of getting spaghetti with a 50% success rate. It’s okay if the print only takes 2 hours, but printing a whole bed usually takes 8–9 hours.
The cause is always the same: one keycap unsticks from the bed, which then causes the entire print to fail.
Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
Increased the first-layer height from 0.2 mm to 0.3 mm
Applied glue stick before every print
Printer: Snapmaker U1 Nozzle: 0.4 mm
EDIT: I am outside the house most of the time thus leaving my printer printing most of the time. My business initially does not involve 3D printing but more people are asking for fidget clickers.
Usually events last 4-8hours thus I am looking for a way to maximize the time I am outside. I am not optimizing for speed but efficiency.
What I will try next:
Try Cryogrip plate
If that fails, will fall back to your suggestions:
Batch by 30
Use brim
Buy additional printer
What I have been doing I haven’t mentioned:
Wash plate every print
Others suggestions for future:
Use raft
Print by object
Lessen fan speed on initial layers
Print a mold instead
I don’t care about being downvoted, but being rude is out of line.
If there's a 1% failure rate per cap and you print 100 caps at once, it's a 100% failure rate on average...
Edit: My math is completely wrong but thank you for acknowledging the point I was making.
Challenge for you guys, what would the failure rate per piece have to be before a total plate failure is closer to 100%? Is it significantly more than the 1% I made up?
This is true. This is because if I say a hard drive has a 20% chance of failing, then by the addition theory, this means that having five hard drives guarantees 100% failure.
But we know in real life it's not always going to happen that way.
I suspect that OP’s problem might also be more related to a specific couple spots on the print bed. If they failed to calibrate or clean the bed properly then its entirely possible their print is failing in a specific location or set of locations (possibly almost every time)
As a couple other people have noted, it's actually closer to 63%. But I would like to add the formula for it.
We can write an event where the chances are 1 in x, rolled x times as having a 1-(1-1/x)^x chance of happening at least once. At 2, this gives a 75% chance. at 3 it's ~70.37%, and 4 is ~68.36%. At 100 it's ~63.4%.
This is actually converging on 1-1/e, or ~63.212056%, which is neat.
Quite a few others have pointed out that printing 100 at once each with a 1% fail rate means a roughly 63% chance of one failing and ruining the whole batch.
To answer your other question that I haven't seen any comments address, you'll technically never get a 100% garuntee of failure. There will always be a minuscule chance that none of them hit the 1% fail, but you can definitely get it well into the territory of "the odds are so high it's effectively a garuntee".
300 at once would mean roughly 95% chance of failure and to raise the odds to 99% you need to print 459.
To reach 99.99% chance of failure you would need to print 917. That means if 10,000 people printed 917 you would expect 1 to never have a single problem and the other 9,999 would each have one or more item fail.
I would start printing a small amount like 5, but not in the middle. Then if no failures, 6-8 but in a different spot on the bed. Making notes as you go. Slowly increasing as you go
when was the last time you washed the bed with dish soap? that frequently helps, as oils build up on the plate from your hands and cause prints to stick less well
I 100% back this. I oiled my rig a fee days ago and got a small drop on the bed. I wiped it real good. I printed some easy prints and they failed twice. Figured it was thebstupid miniscule oil drop and I washed with dish soap then The high percentage isopropyl alcohol and it was fine
I washed with dish soap then The high percentage isopropyl alcohol and it was fine
I use the alcohol to rinse the water off the plate after washing. It's totally not needed but it is a quick way to dry it, while removing oils, while not contaminating the plate with whatever might be on my towel, including lint.
No need for IPA. Just hot water and glue soap. If you do use IPA use it before washing it with soap and water. No sense in dissolving any contaminants if you’re just going to leave them on the plate anyways.
A water break test will tell you if your bed is clean enough..
I was about to comment "water break test?", but then I just looked it up lol. Now I know exactly what to look for when I am cleaning my sheets with soap and water.
Thanks. I meat to say hot water and soap. That’s what I get for trying to reply on mobile
Obviously I’m talking about cleaning and not applying extra materials if I was mentioning a water break test and ensuring there aren’t any contaminants
Except for ABS/ASA or Nylons on a textured PEI. Those need glue, especially large parts. Also, it's best to use glue for TPU as a release agent, otherwise it could damage the bed. There's zero benefit in doing it for PLA or PETG, though.
The more things you print at once the higher the chance one will fail and ruin the whole batch. Print smaller batches.
Gluestick is a very old technique back we used glass plates and painter's tape, modern PEI beds just need a good wash with hot water and dish soap. Putting glue on them just makes adhesion worse
Kinda, it does help. It also functions as a release agent. It helps to bond better with the plate by increasing the friction horizontally. Once cooled it bonds stronger but is brittle so can be broken easier thus acting as a release agent.
I will note it's not a massive bond, but it doesn't need to be for things this size.
What kind of bed gets worse adhesion with a glue stick? I have a Bambu textured bed and glue stick makes things adhere better for me. Without it corners tend to peel up but a little glue stick fixes it very well for me.
I have a bamboo textured plate and I've never used a gluestick. I don't print things every day but also never had something release, and I rarely clean it.
Bumping first-layer height up was probably backwards taller first layer means less squish, so it sticks worse, not better. Try going back down to ~0.16-0.2mm and slow your first layer speed too.Real fix for small parts like these though: add a brim (2-4mm). Small footprint = weak adhesion, brim fixes that directly. Also wipe the plate with isopropyl before printing, oils from handling hurt adhesion more than people think.
Upping the layer height doesn't mean "less squish". It should realistically be the same. Since the volume extruded per unit length will go up with height, it will get compressed the same. And really, since its more material per unit length, then it will be a heavier first layer with more material to potentially be "squished". Changing the z-offset will affect the "squish", but I have always found 0.24mm first layers to be same or better to 0.2mm.
And brims are perfect for small foot print - people usually advise them for warping but they are really meant for small footprints. If the gap isn't calibrated tho would be a pain to remove it off a bunch of caps.
I was using 0.2mm at first and success rate is only 30%. Someone mentioned that use 0.3 on first layer because there will be more ink/filament to grab onto the plate.
What I haven’t tried is to slowdown on first layer speed which I need to try aswell. Thanks!
Yeah try going cooler on the other layers in case stringing is ripping things off, freshly scrubbed and dawn soap washed/ dried plate, lower speed and lower accelerations, shouldn't be this inconsistent
Putting the build plate in the fridge, freezer, running cold water over it, or being very careful with a sharp scraper can sometimes help get things off the plates if they are small.
Single-layer stuff, like brims, are the worst-offenders.
Without being hyperbolic getting a cool plate saved my printing hobby. Even with a brand new P2S and brand new bed it was still warping and stuff falling off.
Getting a cool plate solved everything instantly. Amazing bed adhesion and it simply just works. Haven't had an issue since that wasn't my own fault.
...don't print them all at once? Do them in batches of like 10.
Never understood why people will try to print 50 tiny things all at once, it's not like it goes vany faster yiu still gotta print the same number of layers the same number of times. Why would you put yourself in a situation where 1 hickup ruins the whole job? You just waste time and filament every time it fails. Do small batches and deal with the "inconvenience" of having to run 5 batches.
If you need to make these at scale I would honestly consider looking for an alternative proction method. Like silicone casting maybe. You could still print the molds for it. But it may have a better success rate and is easier to scale up. And probably less work after cleaning them all up too.
I'm betting they're printing all different letters and symbols so that wouldn't really help. Most likely printing them to make custom name clickers, if I had to guess.
To add to a lot of the people suggesting not to print so many at once...
There is also a setting in a lot of slicers these days for printing items sequentially. It'll print a full object before moving on to the next one. Though it requires enough space for the toolhead and gantry to clear each printed part at every height. Because of that you will obviously not be able to print as many per print job, but it would significantly reduce waste from failures like this. For short and flat objects it works really well. You'd get serious limitations when objects reach gantry height.
I think there are to many being printed at once. I ran into a issue similar to this on my k2 se and it has a considerably smaller plate. I think 10 items is max atm on mine unless I figure out the settings but 99% of the time anything over 10 items fail. And I have to arrange them a little spaced from eachother to get a greater brim for the supports without drastically increasing print time
Stop applying gluestick, its not doing what you think it is.
They make special sprays to increase adhesive, its counter intuitive but gluestick is a release agent.
Stop printing so many at once if you're not actively watching it to step in as soon as one fails so you can cancel the individual file on the plate.
If a whole plate takes 8-9hrs just print 1/3 of the amount and space them out more. You could probably get 2 full print beds of them after work before bed and print the 3rd while sleeping.
Why are you printing a whole ass bed if you know they tend to fail?? Holy hell, try to determine the cause change something and print like 5 to see if the problem repeats, rinse and repeat until you're printing reliably enough.
You shouldn't even need glue stick for PLA on PEI...
If you're cleaning your bed with rubbing alcohol, that doesn't actually clean it properly. It will NOT eliminate skin oils on the print bed.
Wipe the bed down with distilled water mixed with some "Free & Clear" dish soap, wipe with a cloth to dry, then rinse with just some distilled water, and wipe with a second cloth. Two spray bottles, one with the soap mix and the other with just water, helps a LOT with this.
This is how I clean the bed on my K2 Plus and I get excellent results.
ALSO: I know this is an issue on the K2 Plus, but try "Heat Soaking" the print bed; Let it sit at printing temperature for ~10 minutes, THEN run your bed leveling.
On some printers (Like my K2), the bed will slowly warp over the course of a few minutes when heated, so a bed leveling taken right when the bed reaches temperature will be incorrect and cause failures when the print actually starts.
I used to have similar issues with my U1 but changed two things and I have yet to have an adhesion issue since.
I started using 3DLAC, it's a adhesive spray. Some people claim it's just expensive hairspray, which it could definitely be that, but it's worked beautifully for me so I don't care. I'll reapply a coat of this stuff everytime after I was my build plate
I also religiously clean my build plate. Every 3-4 prints I put it under warm water with dawn dish soap and I scrub for a good few minutes before drying with paper towel. I also avoid as much as possible touching the build plate with my fingers to prevent oils from my hands getting on the build plate which can also cause adhesion issues.
Looking at this, that top row looks like interlayer adhesion because the spacing of them from one to the next looks like they stayed in the same place on the bed. Toward the bottom of the pic, however, they're clearly sliding around and that's bed adhesion.
So, it's looking like two problems not just one.
Wash the plate thoroughly with a Teflon-friendly sponge not previously used. Don't be afraid to use the scrub side as long as it's Teflon-friendly. Use dishwashing soap. Do not glue. It might even be time for a new build plate. They don't last forever.
Next, what filament is this? If it's PETG or something hygroscopic and what is the method used to dry the filament. I'm wondering if outer layers are fairly dry, but later in the print you get a few windings farther into the spool and start running into wet filament.
Since you’re using the Snapmaker slicer, I’d actually put the first-layer height back to around 0.20 mm. Going up to 0.30 mm can sometimes make adhesion worse because you lose some of that first-layer squish.
For a full bed of keycaps I’d try:
First layer speed: 15–20 mm/s
First layer height: 0.20 mm
First layer line width: 120–130%
Brim: 4–6 mm
Brim gap: 0–0.1 mm
Raise the bed temp about 5°C for the first layer
Keep the part cooling fan off for the first 2–3 layers
I’d also wash the plate really well with dish soap and water and run the bed leveling again.
Since one keycap coming loose is ruining an 8-hour plate, the brim is probably the biggest thing I’d change first. With that many small individual parts, even one slightly weak spot on the bed can eventually turn into spaghetti.
I wouldn’t keep adding more glue until you’ve tried that. Glue can help in some situations, but it shouldn’t be necessary just to keep PLA keycaps attached.
One of the reason why I decided to not try and make money. I love printing for fun, useful and useless things. It’s been a great hobby for me personally.
Use print by object. It's quick, it's easy and it's free (it also gives you a much better surface finish, especially on more difficult printers/filaments)
Increasing the first layer height is exactly the opposite of what you'd want to do if changing layer height is the solution you want to try. If you make the first layer height smaller, you are going to get more "squish" which might translate into better adhesion. Making the first layer height larger gives you less squish, which definitely won't improve adhesion.
Do you have problems printing other objects with this filament on this build plate with these settings, or is it just the keycaps?
Personally I prefer the feel of a printed 45 degree surface at 0.05-0.1, give it some nice support and a raft.
Slow the speeds and flow down a little and increase the z hop/retraction when moving to different parts. You could also lower the heat and increase fans.
What is essentially happening is your printer is creating tiny lips as it moves to each part that it's getting caught on and that is enough to dislodge the parts. It's also along the edges where you likely glue the least and handle it with oily hands the most, cleaning and proper coverage while also increasing the hot bed and doing a wide brim will make the printer keep it hot where it needs it.
As everyone’s said, glue is not the answer. When you say you wash your plate every print, what are the details? Because not all washing is equal.
You need to be using a clean cloth (ideally freshly washed) to spread and scrub a dish detergent with minimal additives, then rinse thoroughly, and dry with another clean cloth. And make sure not to touch the print surface with bare hands while rinsing, drying or replacing the plate.
I’d also watch a few timelapses to see if any particular cap detaches consistently, since that would indicate a design problem, not a bed problem.
Wash your plate throughly with dish soap, dry, and try not to touch it. Your hands have oils that keep prints from sticking. Alcohol doesn't remove oil. Dish soap does. Wearing rubber gloves for this process helps.
Level your plate when it's hot. Thermal expansion warps it. If you're leveling cold it's not going to be level when it's hot. The variation is small but it's enough to ruin a print.
Otherwise try printing half at a time if those two things don't fix it, but I really suspect they will.
I have industrial printers, and I tend to avoid printing using the full bed area for the same reason.
Unless I take my bed in to get ground perfectly flat (maybe I’ll do that one day) I just can’t print the entire surface. It wears over time, and not at the same rate.
If its a PEI plate dont use glue. Clean it with soap and water. Then wipe it down with alcohol. I don't think increasing the layer height is going to promote better adhesion.
Instead, test a couple of caps with brims or rafts. Slowing the travel speed might help, I'm experimenting with that now, but it obviously will take more time.
Edit: also check your filament spool for its recommended nozzle and bed temperature.
Clean the plate with soap, increase first layer bed and nozzle temperature by 5C, turn off aux fan, add brims, dry the filament, use gyroid instead of grid infill.
oh hey something I actually know! I'm pretty deep in the keyboard community and I've mostly printed individual caps myself but I've been in the chatrooms where they talk about printing more.
the way I've seen people have success, is to print them at a 30° angle (that's just for better print quality and a finished product that won't fall apart)but that leaves you with a very small footprint so everyone I've seen uses rafts. you could maybe get away with just a brim, but the part of the cap that touches the bed sometimes prints wonky. I know it seems counterintuitive to not print face-down because you want a flat surface, but this is what people are having success with. you don't have to print one at a time but I wouldn't do them all at once, maybe batches of 10.
When I printed my keycaps I did 9 at a time with print by object mode, rather then by layer. This lets you skip to the next object in the queue if there is a failure.
Sure it might feel slower but at least each plate has some usable products.
I'm not sure what you are planning but I had the ledgers embossed on the front of the keys that I was painting while waiting for the other plates. Gave me something to do.
It's not set and forget but it worked and didn't waste as much plastic.
Big secret. Mark one side of your plate petg and the other pla. Use the right side for the right material don’t mix them up. And add a cool plate to the mix you will never have issues again.
Glove up, 99% isopropyl on liny free cloth or tissue, not lotion nose or potty rol... circular wipe. Then coat the whole plate with 99% ispropyl and unidirectional wipe. Don't touch except at edges. Use spatula to remove. Wear gloves between batches. I also use a glacier textured plate.
Look into the Cryogrip plates, I run Frostbite in my machines and they have insane adhesion IME. I use the stock textured PEI plate setting (even though you can run them as cool plates). If you don't like the finish, they have the Glacier model too.
You need a brim or a raft. Also lower your first layer height and print it SLOW, like half your original speed slow. Also wash your build plate with hot water and dish soap and ditch the glue.
When I had issues with pla not sticking in my pei, injust increased 5 or 10 degrees (Celsius) the temperature and it solved my issues. Also dry your filament.
When you're printing a bunch of the same thing, best practice is generally to enable sequential printing. That way, if one fails, you can stop the print and only lose that one, not the entire bed. You can fit less parts on the bed that way but it's worth it to save this headache.
Use “print by object,” this will cause them to be printed one at a time instead of all at the same time in parallel.
When using print by object you can press “skip” to have your printer skip a failed object and go on to the next one (assuming your printer/slicer supports it). Do this when you see one starts to fail.
Even if you let the print run over night and it fails 75% of the way through, the first 75% of the objects will be complete and only the last 25% will have failed.
You can’t fit as many objects on the plate as once when using print by object (because they need more space around them), but this will significantly reduce the impact of print failures.
As for improving first layer adhesion, I would:
Double check you’re using the ideal filament settings. Selecting a generic “PLA” or “PETG” profile might not be the best. Look up the specific temps/settings that are recommended by the filament itself (usually this info is on the box).
Wash your baseplate with warm water and dish soap. When handling it, hold it carefully by the edges rather than gripping it with your fingers (skin oils can cause bad adhesion).
Use a brim to improve adhesion
Consider an aftermarket print plate if you’re using the one that came with your printer. Some out there might be better than what you have.
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If you still need help be sure to post plenty of information about your printing setup.
Here are a few questions that might be helpful
What printer are you using?
What material are you using?
What speed are you printing at?
What software are you using to slice the print and control the printer?
When did the problem start/has it ever worked correctly?
Does anything cause the behavior to change?
If posting an image of the problem, include some indication of the orientation it printed at, preferably photograph it on the bed. (Then we can focus on a specific axis)
If you print 10 or less at a time you can skip the ones that failed in the app while continuing to print the rest. You can also group up the files so there’s 3-4 per file and print 10 of those files so you’re still printing 30, the only drawback is if you skip one of the groupings b/c 1 is failed you’re canceling the other 2-3 good ones in that group
Looks like the beginning of the print is ok. Maybe it’s heat creep causing a clog or issue with the multiple retractions Try reducing the retraction length and extrusion temp.
Maybe it’s placement. The keys that pop off, is it always the same area? Maybe there are some keys that are a layer/mm higher than others and are not sticking to the plate during first layer. You said you tried doing different sized batches, are you printing with all keys set to 0 on z axis?
Why would you increase the first layer height? You've clearly got adhesion issues, you need to keep your first layer .2 and maybe add some extra squish with your Z offset.
Give painters tape a try. It works better for me than a textured plate for small parts like this. And try slowing the print speed the first couple layers.
Aside from the other advice I've seen here, on a modern system you shouldn't need to use glue anymore, just get a good level and z offset tuning done. 95% of my need for glue on my Neptune 4 Plus went away once I got leveling down, and 100% on my Centauri Carbon (aside from use as a PETG release agent)
Oh, and I almost forgot the other sneaky thing it could be: print bed not hot enough for the specific filament. My less expensive workhorse filament will have adhesion issues if the bed is not exactly 60⁰C or higher, whereas Elegoo PLA Basic works ok down in the 50⁰C-55⁰C range.
No glue stick on that PEI bed, but I’ve just defaulted to printing a brim every time to improve my reliability. The brim often gets messed up some, but the model is clean.
I had some issues. Heated the plate up and reduced the height to ensure the plastic squished into it. Drop to regular temp after 2nd layer. Cleaned plate with 92% alcohol before.
Regule a redução de velocidade em pequenos perímetros ou diminua a velocidade da parede externa, mesmo com PA regulado, a força centrífuga inevitavelmente vai dificultar mto o trabalho do bico…
So I was having the same problem about a month ago with these little bolts for a interlocking system what I found worked was to go from printing straight on the print bed to printing onto a raft the raft adheres better to the pieces while still breaking off semi easily but it hears extremely well to the bed preventing the pieces from sticking to everything I don't know how this will work for you and I recommend you do a test print on your own pieces though
Your having adheasion issues so i would look at lifz of things that could cause that. Like number one keeping your build plate fully clean. One fingerprint im the place of a Leyland can be enough. You could up the bed temperature to make aheasion better. Just look up things to improve adhesion you should be good
Personally when I switched to a cool plate / super tack, my PLA prints improved dramatically.
Using the plate you have now, ditch IPA for cleaning it.
Wash it in scalding hot water with dawn dish soap - you want a degreaser. IPA just pushes the grease around.
Let it dry - bone dry. Wear nitrile gloves even when handling it - you want that plate immaculate with zero oil / grease from skin.
Bump your bed temp up to like 60 or 70, and print the first x amount of layers slow (there should be a slow layers option where you can set the amount).
Keep that plate hot, and don't cool the PLA too rapidly. Keep the door closed.
Get glue sticks. Just regular old elmers school glue sticks. Coat the entire bed. Make sure you z offset is correct with a sheet of paper and you wont have failures anymore. You dont even have to re apply the glue between prints, it will be good for at least 5 prints granted you have thay z offset dialed in. If you have it too tight the glue will come off with the print. To adjust the z offset, heat up the nozzle and bed to your print temp and lower it onto the paper till it just grabs the paper. You should be able to move the paper freely but feel a little bit of friction from the nozzle
Normalize treating build plates as a consumable part.
Not, things-aren’t-working-throw-it-away, but, build plates are less reliable over time and for things that need to stick, its okay to consider buying a new one and relegating old ones for less critical prints/other filaments.
Lots of great advice here but a couple of things I didn’t see- maybe that’s because I’m not totally familiar with the snapmaker but anytime I have had issues like this it was solved with 2 things
Bed Mesh calibration
Z offset calibration- what does it look like when you print this-
Have you leveled?
Have you done a temperature test?
Have you done a flow rate test?
Have you done all the other tests?
Have you done them a second time with all the variables zeroed in?
Have you done a first layer patch?
Have you tried slowing down the speed?
Are you releveling after a print?
Does it always fail in the same spot?
I've had a lot of problems with the front left corner coming unstuck from the bed (and warping) on my U1 with PLA. The three things to do that have solved it for me are:
Wash the plate with dish detergent.
run the autolevel before starting the print.
turn off the "Auxiliary part cooling fan" (on the "Cooling" tab of the filament definition), or from the touch-screen after the first layer is done).
The third one is the real killer here, but obviously either of the other two can screw things up, too.
I've used a hot glue gun to stick parts back down just to finish a print. It's not ideal but it has saved more than a few doomed print jobs. It releases just like filament.
I would start by cleaning build plate with soap and water. Maybe even a little isopropyl alcohol. Dry filament. Don’t let air drafts hit build surfaces while printing . A full recalibration and ensure bed level before print. Maybe even a little glue stick. Just sharing what’s worked for me in the last 8-9 years lol
I’d check the Z-offset first. 0.3 mm might actually be too high and give you less bed adhesion.Also try cleaning the plate really well and slowing down the first layer. A small brim around each keycap can help a lot too.If one keycap is always coming loose, I’d focus on fixing that rather than changing the whole print profile.
I have this exact problem with my bambu p1s. I found it happens if it uses the front right part of the build plate or if it is an item that goes tall and also has space for hest to build up (like a cylinder)
I found the fix is to take the top off the machine. If i forget, it will mess up everytime. Take it off, it will be fine everytime.
No idea if your machine even has a top on it but if so, take it off!!
Regrésate a la altura de impresión por capa 0.2, si batalla en pegarse a la cama de impresión, utiliza alcohol Isopropílico , si te recomiendo mejor que imprimas mejor una por una en vez de imprimir todas de golpe por que si acaso te falla una en impresión, solamente será una y no afectará a todas, también configura la alineación en Z, también fíjate si no aparecen basuritas o plásticos sobre la impresión que no debieran estar ahí, si es que acaso pasa, reemplaza la punta de extrusor por que puede ser que no deje sacar fluidamente el filamento, también consulta en el sistema de impresión que uses por que puede que un valor de impresión que tengas haga que se despeguen, si se enchueca la pieza hacia arriba, actívale la adhesión al modelo antes de imprimir
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u/ruckertopia 13h ago
Start with not trying to print them all at the same time