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I am relatively new to 3D printing and there are 3 main issues I keep seeing in my printing that I can't figure out how to fix.

1. Anything that is thick/large tends to rip off the supports no matter what I do. If there's anything else in the build, it seems to ruin anything close as well. No idea what is causing it nor how to fix it. I've tried throwing down a veritable forest of thick supports and the best I've gotten is it ripping off the top half at some point.

2. I am also seeing what I can only describe as "slipping" on bases even when they otherwise successfully print. It's fairly random so far, but some bases will just show layers as they start "stretching" towards the end of a print. Even pre-supported bases have had this.

Both of these suggest to me that the prints are somehow sticking to the FEP to much, but I don't know how to fix that. (I know how to change the FEP, just not the "stickiness")

3. The side of any print that is facing the build plate always ends up with poor definition, as if more resin is somehow curing on top of the print and "watering down" the detail. Kinda like over priming or too thick paint.

Between 2 & 3, I'm at the point where I'm planning on getting one of those magnet/metal sheets combos and printing anything with a flat surface directly on the build plate (metal sheet). Bases especially are like the bane of my existence as a 3D printer hobbyist and have only printed reliably directly on the plate, which of course makes them super annoying to remove.

Any help or suggestions on how to fix these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Hard to say without knowing your machine nor your settings.

As above, but I think main culprit is over exposure and lift speed.

First up, as noted please state your printer, resin and your settings. Chances are you are having exposure problems and might have several settings which are not ideally set and could be contributing to your problems.

Another important thing to check is the temperature of your printing environment. Most resins need at least 20C to print reliably and some need 30C (they normally have that marked on the product page when buying). Note that 20C is the baseline min for most; ideally 25C or a bit above is about the sweet point - and you don't want to get too hot as they start to degrade in performance again. Varies resin to resin so these values are very rough.
A cheap thermometer that records min-max temp over time as well as current temp is a good investment to help you monitor things; esp for noticing if you're getting cold or hot spikes in temp (eg printing overnight)


Best thing to do after that is to get a calibration print and print it - the ameralabs town is a very popular one. You just get the model; slice it and print it (no supports or anything). Then review it when its washed but NOT cured (because curing changes the properties a little when looking at fine details). Of course as its not cured when checking do keep your gloves on.
https://atlas3dss.com/learn
There's a download and a video to watch on that link


As for point 3 this is normal. Any surface that faces the build plate will have slightly more muted detail over those facing away. It's a weak point of 3D printers. That said if you are having exposure problems it might be that you're seeing a much more marked effect instead of a slight one.


You idea of the magnetic plate and only being able to print flat on the build plate are work arounds that won't deal with the core problem. So I'd set aside such thoughts and focus on your settings first. Get them nailed down and good and then you can look at other things - eg the supports might not be good enough to hold properly. Or you could be using a resin like ZMud which requires the addition of a lot of little light supports to regular support work in order for the resin to print well.

Before doing any troubleshooting, get your exposure settings right.
There are many different tests. Some prefer the ameralabs town. It can be downloaded from the creators site or many other ones https://ameralabs.com/blog/town-calibration-part/.
The one I prefer, because it prints faster is the XP2 validation matrix. Available on Thingiverse and other sites. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4707289

Both are meant to print directly on the build plate without any supports.

After you dialled in the exposure, try to print the model you want and if it fails we can go on from there with the knowledge that the exposure is correct.

Thanks everyone! I'll try one or more of the print tests depending on how they go.

For the record, I have an Elegoo Mars 3 and I'm using Elegoo ABS-Like Photoplymer Resin Grey. As for the settings, I've used both the recommended settings in the printer manual as well as recommended settings from Lychee.


To be honest there's another problem I have, but I'm not sure anyone else would have had it. I started using Chitubox as it came with the printer, but after an update a month or so ago, any file I create with my computer has seemingly random layers where a whole section of the screen gets cured instead of just the intended model. It creates rather hellishly annoying sheets of wasted resin throughout the print, making more complex prints a nightmare to clean as the sheets stick to and seemingly self cure to the print. Unfortunately, Chitubox support was zero help and switching to Lychee changed nothing. I thought it was something wrong with the printer until I tried printing files from before the update followed by using a different computer to make the files. These both print just fine, which means the problem is somehow on my computer. I have uninstalled Chitubox in the hopes it would fix the problem, but no such luck. If anyone has any idea what's going on and how to fix it, it would be amazing. Here's a link to a couple pictures of the first print to show the problem: https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-126735-65649_Print%20Problems.html

These are separate issues and I will be focusing on the print failures first, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to throw the other out there in the small hope someone knows what the heck is going on there.

 SergentSilver wrote:
Thanks everyone! I'll try one or more of the print tests depending on how they go.

For the record, I have an Elegoo Mars 3 and I'm using Elegoo ABS-Like Photoplymer Resin Grey. As for the settings, I've used both the recommended settings in the printer manual as well as recommended settings from Lychee.


To be honest there's another problem I have, but I'm not sure anyone else would have had it. I started using Chitubox as it came with the printer, but after an update a month or so ago, any file I create with my computer has seemingly random layers where a whole section of the screen gets cured instead of just the intended model. It creates rather hellishly annoying sheets of wasted resin throughout the print, making more complex prints a nightmare to clean as the sheets stick to and seemingly self cure to the print. Unfortunately, Chitubox support was zero help and switching to Lychee changed nothing. I thought it was something wrong with the printer until I tried printing files from before the update followed by using a different computer to make the files. These both print just fine, which means the problem is somehow on my computer. I have uninstalled Chitubox in the hopes it would fix the problem, but no such luck. If anyone has any idea what's going on and how to fix it, it would be amazing. Here's a link to a couple pictures of the first print to show the problem: https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-126735-65649_Print%20Problems.html

These are separate issues and I will be focusing on the print failures first, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to throw the other out there in the small hope someone knows what the heck is going on there.

This sounds like a bad USB. Are you using the one that came with the printer by any chance? They are rubbish. Get a USB 2.0 with <16GB. These seem to be the most reliable ones.

Your problems in the OP sound more like a lift height/speed problem though.

+1 to what Hanskrampf said. Slices being bad like that sounds like minor data corruption. Sometimes just formatting the USB works otherwise replacing it with a fresh one.


The other source can be a screen failing or a loose cable to the screen, but those would happen all the time or totally at random and wouldn't create the effect you have where earlier files are fine and later ones have the problem

Hanskrampf wrote:

 SergentSilver wrote:
Thanks everyone! I'll try one or more of the print tests depending on how they go.

For the record, I have an Elegoo Mars 3 and I'm using Elegoo ABS-Like Photoplymer Resin Grey. As for the settings, I've used both the recommended settings in the printer manual as well as recommended settings from Lychee.


To be honest there's another problem I have, but I'm not sure anyone else would have had it. I started using Chitubox as it came with the printer, but after an update a month or so ago, any file I create with my computer has seemingly random layers where a whole section of the screen gets cured instead of just the intended model. It creates rather hellishly annoying sheets of wasted resin throughout the print, making more complex prints a nightmare to clean as the sheets stick to and seemingly self cure to the print. Unfortunately, Chitubox support was zero help and switching to Lychee changed nothing. I thought it was something wrong with the printer until I tried printing files from before the update followed by using a different computer to make the files. These both print just fine, which means the problem is somehow on my computer. I have uninstalled Chitubox in the hopes it would fix the problem, but no such luck. If anyone has any idea what's going on and how to fix it, it would be amazing. Here's a link to a couple pictures of the first print to show the problem: https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-126735-65649_Print%20Problems.html

These are separate issues and I will be focusing on the print failures first, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to throw the other out there in the small hope someone knows what the heck is going on there.

This sounds like a bad USB. Are you using the one that came with the printer by any chance? They are rubbish. Get a USB 2.0 with <16GB. These seem to be the most reliable ones.

Your problems in the OP sound more like a lift height/speed problem though.

Overread wrote:+1 to what Hanskrampf said. Slices being bad like that sounds like minor data corruption. Sometimes just formatting the USB works otherwise replacing it with a fresh one.


The other source can be a screen failing or a loose cable to the screen, but those would happen all the time or totally at random and wouldn't create the effect you have where earlier files are fine and later ones have the problem

So even though the same USB works fine with other computers and the problem only started after an update of Chitubox, it could be a problem with the USB? I'll try finding another and see how it goes then.

 SergentSilver wrote:
So even though the same USB works fine with other computers and the problem only started after an update of Chitubox, it could be a problem with the USB? I'll try finding another and see how it goes then.

Yes, it could absolutely be. Many printers' usb ports are really picky, and the first best thing you can do is to buy a small, good usb thumbstick. Even if only to be sure that's not the problem.

 Albertorius wrote:

 SergentSilver wrote:
So even though the same USB works fine with other computers and the problem only started after an update of Chitubox, it could be a problem with the USB? I'll try finding another and see how it goes then.

Yes, it could absolutely be. Many printers' usb ports are really picky, and the first best thing you can do is to buy a small, good usb thumbstick. Even if only to be sure that's not the problem.

Weird. I still don't get why it only bugs with files made from my computer and not the even cheaper laptop, but I suppose it could be something about the hardware. Alright, I'll look for a new USB then. 2.0 and >16GB shouldn't be too expensive for a test.

You should be able to check each slice in your slicer. Check if there is a slice where it's all fill. If there isn't, then it's corrupt USB. If there is, then it sliced wrong. Sometimes non-manifold surfaces, open geometries, and overlapping/embedded geometries confuse the slicing operation. A lot of the meshmixed files are poorly made where they hide geometries inside rather than deleting them.

I had tried a cheaper resin from Amazon and had the issues of prints ripping off of the supports - ruined a number of print runs. I went back to my trusted brand and no issues. The resins that always work for me are Elegoo, Siraya Tech and Shine Sing.

Since you are already using Elegoo resin, and if your exposure test looks good, try upping your exposure by .5 second or so, as sometimes some resin seems to be thinner (cheaper) and just need a tad more cure time or it is too weak.

So I printed the print test along with a few other objects I was testing manual supports with. I kept the print test object in the exact middle of the plate to hopefully provide the best print. Unfortunately, it had a problem despite printing directly on the plate as instructed. One corner appears to have pealed off the plate sometime into the print, pulling one whole edge off. What's strange is that while the print closest to that corner completely failed to adhere to the build plate, the right next to that one is completely fine, bar a few tiny supports I was testing. The tiny supports failing happened to all of the other prints I was testing though, so I doubt it's directly related.

Here's a pic of it still on the plate:


I'm guessing I probably need to change the FEP again, since it seems like maybe that area is a bit loose/sticky.

In better news though, I adjusted the settings to seemingly good effect. I lowered the initial lift speed by 10 and raised the exposure time by .5. As stated, only one of the other test prints failed completely, and the rest appear to have been successful. I haven't gotten to removing supports yet though, so some minor failures may show themselves at that stage.

I‘d try the following.

Print the calibration piece alone to check that it also peels off when printed on its own.

Double the lift height.
If the calibration print in the last step peeled off, print the calibration piece on its own, otherwise reprint the last job that failed with the doubled lift height of course.

If the fep isn‘t tight any more the result should be better than before. Prints rather slowly.

Yes, you do need to make sure your FEP is drum tight. However, if the print is peeling off of the plate, it is not being exposed enough or the build plate does not have enough texture, as it should hold. You can set the first couple of layers to expose considerable longer to help with this.

You might also want to double check your build plate is fully parallel to the screen.

 MDSW wrote:

<Snip>However, if the print is peeling off of the plate, it is not being exposed enough or the build plate does not have enough texture, as it should hold. You can set the first couple of layers to expose considerable longer to help with this.

That's only true to a certain point. If you have a large area like the raft of a large model or overlapping rafts of smaller models, overcuring might lead to peeling. The resin shrinks when cured and at some point it will be pulled from the build plate, starting at the extreme points. Different resins shrink a different amount.

If everything seems alright and the peeling is always in the same area the build plane might not be plane. Check with a metal ruler or a carpenters angle whether there are any dents.

brumbaer wrote:

 MDSW wrote:

<Snip>However, if the print is peeling off of the plate, it is not being exposed enough or the build plate does not have enough texture, as it should hold. You can set the first couple of layers to expose considerable longer to help with this.

That's only true to a certain point. If you have a large area like the raft of a large model or overlapping rafts of smaller models, overcuring might lead to peeling. The resin shrinks when cured and at some point it will be pulled from the build plate, starting at the extreme points. Different resins shrink a different amount.

If everything seems alright and the peeling is always in the same area the build plane might not be plane. Check with a metal ruler or a carpenters angle whether there are any dents.

Good to know, as that may be the issue I have at times. On some prints I need to adjust the basic exposure times and not the initial layer times.