NP got it in the end 
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Keep in mind this is ALL completely new to me so I have no exprience to reference as to what’s normal and what isn’t. I’ve been playing around and some things remain attached and some not with no rhyme or reason I can detect.
I’m curious about the use of painters tape. I leveled the bed using a piece of regular paper as a ‘feeler gauge’ at the corners and in the center. If I decide to use the tape should I relevel with a piece of the tape at each leveling point or???
And in general, rafts/brims usually a good/bad idea?
Then it is better to get familiar with 3D printing before doing such a big project. There are big parts that took me 13+ hours of printing and if those will fail you’ll cry!
Properly level your bed and make test prints. Check the bottom surface that it is clean and properly molten together without separate lines of filament.
Check dimensional accuracy so that the EMT and ball bearings nicely fit into the respective holes.
Often it needs good filament to get good results. And with bad filament you can check every setting but won’t see good results and give up…
I only use a brim for parts that have a small/thin surface touching the print bed. The brim then increases the overall surface touching the bed and should help increasing the adhesion if the bed is properly leveled.
Rafts can be used as well for such topics but I never used it. Some use rafts with auto bed leveling if their bed is not flat.
I’ve used my camera so infrequently lately I just can’t seem to get a good pic. The bottom’s a bit rough looking, Here’s where my inexperience makes me wonder, will increasing the initial layer line width to >100% result in a smoother bottom that may adhere better?
You can slightly increase it but better is to get the nozzle closer to the bed.
Thanks! I spent part of yesterday afternoon watching a few YouTube vids about improving the bottom layer and printing just the bottom of a file or two and line width, layer height, nozzle height, speed all came into play with encouraging results.
Wider line width seemed an improvement yet a sample file of a small fox that came on the SD card has a very well organized bottom layer with very fine line widths so like most things I see there are many possibilities. I’m thinking it may be educational to download a different slicer or two and print small samples with the same settings just to see the differences.
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An important guideline to keep in mind is that your layer heights shouldn’t be more than about 80% of the nozzle diameter. This ensures that the layers bond together properly. So, for a 0.4mm nozzle, layer heights shouldn’t exceed 0.3mm. Also, it can help to make the initial layer height smaller (like 0.2mm) so that the layers stick to the bed better. But ultimately, you’re going to have to work on adjustments to get the best first layer adhesion you can.
Good luck!
Thanks! I’ve been printing stuff today with good results thanks to all the help available in these forums as well as YouTube. My luck improved considerably after learning to set the initial layer specs.
Funny, I couldn’t find my painters tape but a few months ago I’d ordered something from WallyWorld and the box included a few goodies like an energy bar and the best for me right now____________a glue stick! It’s nice not having something that’s 75% done detach itself from the table.
Looking forward to ordering the parts package, need to decide if I think I might feel the need for the dual end tops in the future or not. Input on this subject more than welcome from anyone. Right now I’m leaning towards ‘no’ but figure I have a week or so before I want to place my order.