Alfawise U30 - Upper filament guide

thingiverse

I didn't quite like the mounting of my earlier upper filament guide where the mounting piece is put into the end of the aluminum profile. I had already designed a profile that goes inside of the aluminum extrusion and is free to slide back and forth, so I used it to design a new upper filament guide. I had already noticed that 60mm of that profile is too much to force in (as described here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3463219 although this mounts in the 20x40 double extrusion) and a 10mm piece moves easily but isn't tight (as described here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3468782), so I tried 30mm with this design and it's just about right (at least with my printer and settings). It moves easily enough so you can adjust the reach-out of the guide from the machine, but it's firm enough so it doesn't move or rattle while printing. I designed the ring a bit bigger than I've seen in other guides so there's plenty of room to wrap a piece of cloth or something on it to prevent that nasty plastic against plastic squeaking when retracting. I also forgot to add a brim or anything when slicing, and already at z=30mm I was really worried if the towers are going to keep up without falling. I decided to watch it until the end, and surprised myself there - it stuck really well and boy, was it easy to get off the bed! How about that bed adhesion? I suggest you use some kind of brim if you have any bed adhesion issues. Also, the wall line count should be at least 3. I used 4x 0.4mm here to get just a little more than the needed strength. Beginners' tip about bed adhesion: When I print a time-consuming print or a print that has any significance and must succeed, I usually print the first layer live-leveling at the same time, then abort and after removing the layer from the bed, start again with the same gcode (prints exactly in the same spot), and the bed adhesion usually is much better. This works good with the kind of bed that's seen in one of the pictures - I haven't yet tried any other kind of build plate.