At times the printing of these headbands gets monotonous, especially when they print well without any issues. On the other hand, when the printing starts to go badly, it gets really frustrating really fast. At that point, you start to change your procedures trying to find the "optimal" settings to regain the "it just works" scenario.

Yesterday, Easter Sunday, was one of "those" days -- I was trying to have a more family day, than babysitting the printer day. However, the printer had other plans. I was able to get 4 halos created, but each had issues and I had one complete failure. Also, I had to restart 2 others before I finally took a break and walked away from printing for a while.

So this morning - Monday, April 13th - I was ready and figuring on a fight to get a good first print. To improve my chances, I returned to printing from the printer instead of using Octoprint just incase this was part of the issues - he said grasping at straws. I washed the glass plate, positioned it so the logo was at the back, then started the print of number 76, ensuring the filament was unrestricted.

Wonders of wonders -- a near-perfect print. WTF!

So what are my procedures to print:

1. Wash the silicon plate removing any fingerprints and or other foreign objects.
   
   
2. Rotate the plate in the printer to a previously unused position -- same position every 4 prints.
   
   
3. Heat the hot-end and bed plus plate.
   
   
4. When bed/plate is at temperature (or almost there) level the bed.
   
   
5. Start the print of RC2 version 2 G-code file.
   
   
6. Ensure the filament is loose and unrestricted.

So the perfect print printed version 1 of G-code file and was run from the printer. Hmmm.

While number 76 was printing, I re-sliced the STL, this time moving the headgear on the bed to the right, and toward the front. The idea is that we need to use a different part of the bed.

So on to printing number 77, using Octoprint and the new version 3 of the G-code file after following the above procedure.

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I am now printing 78 ... after an even better 77. So Octoprint is not the issue. I believe that printing on the same spot over and over -- remember we are printing the same file here -- will ultimately cause the plate or mat to lose adherence. The best defence then is to vary the location of the print on relative to the base. So the V3 of the G-code, is the "magic" of the moment.

I can live with that!

/Paul