Already used teaching tech calibration site to help dial in esteps, flow, extrusion, temp and retraction settings? I use the site when ever switching to different filament manufacturers or types. Some people go so far as to calibrate for different spools of the same manufacturer and type; to each their own.
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Good call @azab2c . Excellent resource. There is also this tuning guide meant for Voron ans Klipper users but can be applied to any printer.
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Material: PLA
Bed Temp: 68C
Nozzle Temp: 225C
Print Speed: 50mm/s
First Layer Speed: 70%
I use a BL Touch with physical and mesh leveling on the Repeat V4 and I use a BL Touch with Mesh leveling on the Ender 3.
I will go through the calibration steps from the Teaching Tech website and see if I can get everything right. It’s just weird that I only recently started having this issue on two different machines. So hopefully calibration and altering my slicing settings will get rid of the issue.
I also just tried microstepping during the print. I microstepped up in 0.01mm increments while it was doing the perimeter lines till it got the point where it wasn’t stick very well at all. Then I went back down about 0.02mm to where it was sticking again. So logically, this was the right spot. So I left it to continue. Once it finished the perimeters, it started infilling on the first layer and the same issue appeared.
I will some calibration and report back. Thanks for all the input!
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I advise you to clean your surface bed very good with IPA Alcohol. At first i had your same problems, then i cleaned with IPA. In the past 4-5 years i never had a failed print. I manually set the bed. Al prints have a high quality bottom. Only with a lot of force i can get the prints from the bed. Ender 3 PLA 60/210 Celcius 50 mm speed. Some 500+ hours of printing on the same bed
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Be careful cleaning with IPA if using PETG. I had prints stick to the glass so well they took up chips!
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Be careful if you have an acrylic enclosure too. If IPA evaporates from a hot bed inside an acrylic enclosure it will fill your nice clear panels with hundreds of micro cracks. Ask me how I know!
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Appreciate this info. Thoughts on Polycarbonate panels instead of acrylic, or apply a protective finish/sealer? Would like to use something transparent, but not glass.
Am searching the web on hot bed options. But am curious what folks here love and hate, PEI, Glass, G10, something else?
All my BIQU B1’s have that stock flex steel magnetic removable with crinkly surface, and with some hairspray on them, they work pretty much flawlessly for me. On my big Ender Extender 400 XL I upgraded the print surface to a flex steel magnetic removable with PEI coating, and I also use a coating of hairspary. It’s been working flawlessly too.
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From what I understand acrylic is more transparent and less prone to scratches and PC is more durable? Not really sure of any downsides to using PC if the price is comparable.
Personal preference I like textured PEI spring sheets. They work with about everything and are convenient to remove. Need to try some garolite for printing nylon on. The nylon I have doesn’t seem to like PEI too much.
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Not sure if this will come through after compression but this is what you should be shooting for. You can see (hopefully) the lines in between the extrusions. But if I glide my finger over it it’s completely smooth.
Ignore the kind of bumpy look. That’s some compression weirdness. Doesn’t look like that in the actual photo.
Does this change anyone’s thoughts on my z offset? I sliced the same exact part for my Ender 3 using Cura Slicer instead of PrusaSlicer and it resulted in a much better first layer. The slicer shouldn’t have anything to do with how close the nozzle is to the bed right? That is all EEPROM and BLTouch functionality.
This is the bottom of the part. A few ripples in that left corner but other than that is perfectly smooth. This was using the smooth side Fula-Flex PEI magnetic bed again.
It might be worth starting with a fresh PrusaSlicer profile and go from there. I just feel like something is weird.
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Improving! No idea why a slicer change would fix an offset issue. Maybe something hidden in your start gcode? 
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Do you have a different first layer height in either one? Both can set a different thickness for the first layer. I used to use a thicker first layer to accommodate more error.
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I am using a 0.4mm nozzle on the Ender 3 and a 0.5mm nozzle on the Repeat V4 for reference.
Cura: 0.32 initial layer height
PrusaSlicer: 0.3 initial layer height
I’d look at all the settings that have “Initial” in them and compare between the slicers, Initial flow, speed, temp, etc…
Out of ideas here.
If your meshing and probing when the bed is fully heated and you’re sure the offset is correct and is being stored and applied correctly then there could be some sort of mechanical issue.
If it were me I’d just shut off any automatic leveling and meshes and do it manually with bed screws and babystepping. Then once that’s right go back to automatic leveling and see if it effs anything up and go from there.
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Do people generate new meshes for every print job? I run the full G29 process when I make changes, but otherwise I just “tilt the mesh” in my start gcode.
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I know some who do but it’s usually because they disengage the stepper motors after a print.
I do it every time I power on as part of a pre_print_prep macro.
My Z leadscrews are connected via a looped belt. I leave the mesh stored. The current one is only a few weeks old, but the one before that was probably a year.