If your first layer fails, stop printing towers
Hobby FDM owners burn days on retraction towers and “best PLA temp” charts while the bed is still wrong.
A temperature tower on a bad first layer teaches you nothing. The filament never had a chance.
Order of operations:
Clean the bed. IPA, not dish soap residue.
Heat the bed, then level. Cold trams lie.
Set Z-offset until a single line squish-sticks without scraping.
Only then print a retraction tower. Only then a temp tower.
If you cannot get a clean first layer in 20 minutes, the machine needs a live look — not another YouTube settings dump. That’s the work I do in a 1-hour remote session.
Calibration files first. Rescue session only if the printer still fights you.