Better Build Plate Adhesion

When 3D printing, build plate adhesion is critically important. If you have a poor build plate adhesion your print usually fails. Therefore it is important to make sure that your prints are stuck to the build plate as well as possible. There are 3 options to improve build plate adhesion in your slicing software: skirt, brim, and raft. And we will have a quick look at how to use these.

When you enable this option, your printer will make a line of plastic around the object you are printing. It makes this line before it starts printing the actual object.

This unifies the flow of plastic from the nozzle and therefore prevents any under extrusion on the first layer of the thing you are printing.

You can also spot any problems with the bed leveling on the skirt. Then you can pause your print and level the bed properly.

The brim is great if the base of your printed object has a small surface area. This would obviously not stick very well to the heat bed. With a brim you will increase the surface area of the base and your prints will hold nicely. The width of the brim naturally depends on the object but I usually find 3-5 mm to be enough.

It is the most powerful option to increase your build plate adhesion. It is very useful when your printed object has a lot of tiny features on the base. It can be challenging to stick those features to your build plate. But when you build a raft underneath it sticks to the raft much better. Because the plastic to plastic connection is easier to pull off.

But raft can be very time and filament consuming option. Therefore I tend to use it very rarely when I feel that the other options would not work.