Layer issues with Anycubic I3 Mega – Any advice welcomed

[cypher2009 2001xp 0]

So, I bought the Anycubic I3 Mega 3D printer as I know it is a reasonable good printer and it has been recommended to me as well.

My issue is that when the print starts, it seems to start about a layer or two too high. I have levelled the bed manually using the piece of paper technique, but every time I set the printer to test print, it seems that it is almost missing the first layer or so. This means that half way through (sometimes not even that far along) the print, the item becomes detatched from the bed.

I contacted Anycubic during the Chinese New Year and due to the Coronavirus issues, the New Year was extended, but still haven’t heard back.

Has anyone else had similar issues? Any fixes about or should I get on to Amazon and try to get a refund?

Cheers in advance.

[blinky465 17208xp 1]

Firstly, check your slicer settings.

A quick-and-dirty way of solving most bed adhesion issues (if it’s only a single layer height, for example) is copious amounts of pritt stick on the bed. I have a Tronxy X3 with bed level detection, but even that would (on a rare occasion) give me problems with one corner peeling mid-way through the print.

Since smearing the bed with pritt stick before printing, I’ve never had a problem.

(though your model will really, really stick to the bed – the pritt stick only needs be applied every now and again, not every time, unless you fastidiously clean your bed with alcohol between every single print)

[shingen 13941xp 1]

What @blinky465 writes above should be the first step.

You may also check in the menu (or your slicer) if there is no some Z-height offset.

Have you printed anything apart from demo print? It always prints it in the very centre of the bed, you may want to try slicing something to be printed in the corners.

My I3 mega (I had it in 2017) had warped bed it that very way, that the central part was almost a millimetre higher than the corners. There is no easy way of fixing that other than replacing whole bed altogether. In my case anycubic sent me replacement from China after I sent them this photo:

EDIT: one more thing. Check if your X-axis rails are perfectly horizontal. This machine has rather poorly designed micro-switches turning Z-axis motors off when It reaches lowest point. They sometimes stop each motor at different height casing those X-axis rails to move not parallel to the bed plane.

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