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Hi,

My printer (Flashforge Creator Pro) has been working fine for 3 months. Yesterday I found that at the start of the print, the printer won’t extrude any plastic on the first layer (the extruder motor doesn’t move at all), but it will print like normal from the second layer onwards. I haven’t made any changes to the printer settings or slicer software but this problem just happened. I have tried slicing with Simplify3D and MakerWare on two different PCs, printed through USB cable and SD card and the problem still occurs. The nozzle is not jammed because I can load the filament just fine using the load filament command on the printer, it’s just the first layer that fails to print. I am printing PLA at 200C extruder temp.

Please help!

Thank you

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Re level your print bed had this issue couple of times and that seemed to fix it

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Hi Asiploa. I have just a few quick questions for you about your problem.

Does this happen with every file you try to print from or only a specific one? Have you tried moving the mesh bottom just a bit below the build surface? Have you tried printing with a raft on? (if so does the raft print but still not print your first layer of the model?) Have you run the model through something like netfabb to check it? Have you checked you gcode header?

To me it seems most likely the model is to blame for the issue and not your hardware or software. I honestly don’t think it sounds like a hardware issue. And whatever slicers you use it should catch that it isn’t on the plate before slicing, but the model may still be slightly above the build plate, (poorly built models can sometimes have orphan vertices or edges and if a few are just below the bottom of the mesh then you can end up with the slicer using an orphan the bottom of the model and having it hover above the build surface, without a face to print then there wouldn’t be any gcode commands for the first layer so the print head may not move, or could more between points but not look like it is extruding anything.) That is where I would start checking.

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Hey guys, thanks for all your kind help. I solved the problem after releveling the build plate, turns out the build plate just got a little too close to the nozzle thus blocking the plastic from extruding. Nothing wrong with the model or software.

Happy printing!

Cheers

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I always assume bed leveling is done right before a new print. (But then I treat leveling as a religious ritual that must be preformed daily.) I’m glad you found the problem… make sure you haven’t damaged your print head or scratched your build plate if it was running that close on that first layer.