Just a random idea, taper off babystepping?
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Okay so if you have a bed that only gives good adhesion with something like ABS if you squash down the first layer, you might notice a few (slightly) undesirable effects, such as changing the z dimension of your print, possibly an over-extruded first few layers.
I often use babystepping to get exactly the first layer I want. But I suppose this could be used with a set first layer squash down.
Why not have a m-code to taper off the squash over the first x layers? In a similar way to tapering off grid/mesh compensation. So restoring the extrusion per layer to normal, faster (it gets back to normal eventually just by the filament filling any spaces between extrusion lines more fully) and having a much smaller effect on the part's z-dimension.
So if layer one is 0.3mm and I squash it down 0.1mm by babystepping, I'd accept tapering it off over 3 layers 0.033 mm per layer.
Thoughts?
(I appreciate in a perfect world first layer squash is not desirable but in the real world it is necessary with some materials/beds).
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I guess it all depends on why you are babystepping. If you are doing it to get extra squash, then tapering it may give you a slightly more accurate Z dimension. If you are doing it because you didn't get the Z=0 height quite right, then it could be counterproductive.
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Have you tried simply increasing the extrusion width for the first layer? Something like 0.8mm with 0.5mm nozzle. I find it has a very similar effect to "squashing" the first layer.
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Yes I do and with some surfaces I don't use squash but inevitably squashing results in over-extrusion of the first layer and lowering the overall part z dimension.
Having it as an option to fade it back to the correct layer height might be useful but it presupposes as David pointed out, that the nozzle was at exactly the correct height for layer one. Which mine is.
