Wanhao Printer Owners

I have see elsewhere (and the problem I have is that I cannot remember where) a printer owner that demonstrated that as part of every print he has the printer first print a line at the front of the build plate before moving to the main print. This helps to get the filament flowing before starting the main print job.

I like the idea but can't figure out how to do this in RepRap GCode. I am very new to GCode so am somewhat nervous about adding commands to existing print jobs.

Has anyone else seen this done? I seem to think it was in one of "Teching Tech" videos on YouTube?

Thanks for any assistance.

I am using a Wanhao Duplicator i3 V2.1 with a Duet3D Wifi board.

First off, let me just say I do not own a Wanhao Duplicator i3, I do however own a Monoprice Maker Select V2. I know it is not nearly as high quality as the Wanhao, but the design is based on it. This is my first time printing with PETG, I have had a ton of successful prints using PLA. I was attempting to print https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3495390 but I already was having trouble just with the prints skirt. So I switched to a more troubleshooting friendly print, benchy,

I had to tweak a lot of settings just to get the PETG to print. My printer had a lot of trouble sticking the first layer to the build plate (I am using the default heated metal bed). It also had some trouble with globbing up in certain spots. Once it did stick, I felt that the speed of the print was way too fast, but I let it continue because it was printing alright. As you can see from the print, everything is super jaggy and there is a lot of stringing.

My settings are:

Layer Height - 0.2 mm
Wall Thickness - 0.8 mm

Infill Density - 40% (I can take that down)

Printing Temp - 245 c
Printing Initial Temp - 250 c
Build Plate Temp - 85 c
Flow - 100%

Retraction Distance - 1.5 mm
Retraction Speed - 35 mm/s
Retraction Minimum Travel - 0.8 mm

Print Speed - 35 mm/s
Travel Speed - 80 mm/s
Initial Layer Speed - 10 mm/s

Fan Speed - 50 %

Thank you so much for your help!

The original settings on my 3plus.
Im asking for the original setup, the 3 axis height settings, PID and all other stock settings.

I lost them and now I cannot get the first layer to print, BUT the brim will print perfect.

I botched something when I set the new profile. All input welcome!

I just completed upgrading my Wanhao Duplicator i3 v2.1 from the factory to a Duet3d WiFi board. Having finished with the guts of the job (calibration of everything) I am ready tom start trying to print.

My first print was the "Bed_Level_test_Square_Circle1mm2mm" test print.

It wasn't pretty and I wonder if the slicer I am using (Cura v4.1.0) will need settings changed in order to get the best from this new board.

My test was done using Cura's "Extra Fast" setting with the Wanhao profile (I upgraded the board but everything else is stock).

Here are the settings I used;

Resolution: 0.3mm
Print Temp: 190
Print Temp Initial Layer: 190
Initial print temp: 180
Build Plate Temp: 60
Flow: 100%
Retraction enabled
Retraction Distance: 6.5mm
Retraction Speed: 25
Print Speed: 60
Travel Speed: 120
Initial Layer Speed: 30.0
Cooling Enabled
FAN Speed: 100
FAN Regular Speed: 100
FAN Max Speed: 100
Support: No
Build Plate Adhesion: Brim
Brim Width: 8.0
Print Sequence: All At Once

So what am I seeing?

The brim had almost no filament cohesion and started to separate as I took it off the board.
There is a weird "pulse" to the filament extrusion (I re calibrated e-steps of the extruder and they are right on what they should be).
Some of the filament looks like it may have been over-extruded (but I'm just getting picky here).

I was wondering if anyone else had been down this path or whether you though it likely that the board upgrade would result in me needing to use different settings on the slicer?

First of thanks to all the great folks here on the forum that write their experiences and answer questions, which has helped me tremendously in the past.

I have the Maker Select Plus variant of the Wanhao i3 Plus. I have had it for about 6 months now and have done a lot of mods to it overtime & right about now it is printing as best a machine could.

The last mod I did was to put in the MS Hot-end to start playing around with PETG, but somehow putting that in made the "salmon skin" effect ( and diagonal lines) very-very prominent, which were almost negligible with the standard hotend that came with the machine.
At first, I was disappointed that my supposed upgrade made the print quality worse. But then through my reading on this forum, Reddit and youtube, I got mixed reviews on putting in the TL-Smoothers to fix it.
Some said it works, some said it does not, some said only with E, some said with XYE. There is a lot of mixed info out there. So I decided to test it myself & what I found was that it works fantastically.

So I have to say that if you opt to go for the all-metal hotend mod, you should go for the TL smoothers as well.

Attached Photo is all the proof for anyone struggling with this issue.