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Recently I've been having trouble printing properly on my Creality Ender-3 printer. I ran a pretty long print (approx. 15 hours) that turned out really well. I then started printing an attachment for the original print and saw that it was printing layers that were extremely thin.

I first scraped off the excess filament left on the extruder nozzle. Then, I heated up the bed and rubbed off the layer with alcohol. I tried printing it again but it still didn't print right.

Thin layer
Thin layer

Weird thing
Weird thing

From the images above, you can tell it's noticeably hard to see the layer, which shows just how thin it is.

I sliced the model in Ultimaker Cura. I set the layer height to 0.15 mm. I've printed models before with this height but the layer wasn't transparent.

What should I do to fix this issue?

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    $\begingroup$ Check your bed height. The bed is probably too close to the nozzle. $\endgroup$
    – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
    Feb 22, 2020 at 3:15
  • $\begingroup$ Wait, what? Can you give me a quick walkthrough on how? $\endgroup$
    – Sapphethaz
    Feb 22, 2020 at 4:01
  • $\begingroup$ There should be a good canonical question/answer on bed leveling but I don't know how to find it easily. Stick around and see if someone else can. $\endgroup$
    – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
    Feb 22, 2020 at 4:08
  • $\begingroup$ 2 Things: first of all you want to level your bed to about a paper thickness from the nozzle in "0" position. Then, check your first layer thickness. I have set mine to always be 0.2 mm, which does aleviate problems with slight inconsistencies in the bed (like slight bends or kinks) $\endgroup$
    – Trish
    Feb 22, 2020 at 12:03

2 Answers 2

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You need to level you bed. Thin prints happen when the extruder is too low and is printing too close to the bed.

Example of printing levels

Download the following test codes from this address:

https://www.chepclub.com/bed-level.html

1) The first code is the most important you will want to run moves the extruder to five points on your board - Front Left and Right, Back Left and Right, and Center. Using a folded piece of paper - I use a business card - drag the paper under extruder of each of the four corners. You want to make sure you get a bit of drag when pulling out the paper/card. If you feel have enough of a gap that you can run put the paper/card under the extruder and that you feel a bit of tug when pulling it out. It runs the middle last - if you are having issue with the drag, adjust all four corners slowly until it is right.

2) The second runs the extruder in a square pattern on your board. You simply want to run your finger of the print - if it sticks to the bed, you are good - if it doesn't, adjust your corners up and keep testing.

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If your first layer is more thin than you expect it to be, the bed is too close to the nozzle. Note that you need to check the level an bed-to-nozzle distance once every few prints. Also, the first layer shouldn't be a too thin layer, the Cura default for a 0.4 mm nozzle is about 0.28 mm. Personally, I always use 0.2 mm.

The best solution is to re-slice the model with a thicker first layer. Next, re-level the bed to the proper distance of an A4/US Letter printing paper. You should feel some drag when you pull it between nozzle and bed.

Other solutions that also work include the redefinition of the Z=0 level, but this is not advised. Please fix the hardware.

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