Introduction

I was having trouble with warping with PLA+ on my printer. I’ve tried different troubleshooting techniques on my glass bed such as lowering the z-offset and raising temperatures, but I couldn’t get any results. I heard that PEI sheets could help with bed adhesion. I also wanted to redo the wiring on my printer as wires that went into terminal blocks were tinned.

PEI Sheet

I bought a PEI sheet from AliExpress during a sale. I had ordered a 220mm by 220mm sheet, which was too small for my Aquila. I forgot that the print size was 220mm by 220mm but the actual bed size was 235mm by 235mm. I couldn’t return the sheet, so I decided that I would install it centered on my bed. I never went beyond the print size, so it shouldn’t be an issue. After applying, I tried printing some more models, but I still had issues of warping. I decided I’d try raising the temperature of my bed on the first layer from 50 Celsius to 60. This ended up working and I didn’t encounter any warping on prints that I previously did.

Ferrules

With the abundance of budget printers, I do expect manufacturers to cut some corners. One of the things cut was the use of ferrules for wire connections. The ends were tinned and inserted into terminal blocks, which wasn’t ideal. I decided to purchase a ferrule kit with a crimper to redo my wiring. I followed Bryan from EB3D’s video on the Ender 3 V2.

The ferrule sizes I ended up using were white, blue, and black. According to the sizing guide on the box, these were 22 gauge, 14 guage, and 18 gauge respectively.

I did a test print and it seemed everything was fine.

Conclusion

I’m glad that I was able to fix my warping issue and fix the wiring on my 3D printer. Hopefully, both of these upgades will increase the reliability of the printer over time.