How to address bed scratching on a Creality Ender 3

Question

So bed scratching seems to be a real thing, and not a single post I've come across (I've looked at more than 30 by now) actually answers the question on exactly how to stop this.
Now, I have an Ender 3 and this is becoming enough of a headache that I want to just give it away. I thought that the old bed was just wrecked so spend £30 on a new glass bed .. Guess what .. Wrecked that too.
Please don't suggest I level the bed - it is levelled, not gravitationally, but mechanically.
I have tightened everything up.
I have tried altering the XYZ axis on the actual printer.
I have tried adding some numbers to the Z axis in Cura, but it just snaps back down to zero.
I have played with base layer thickness, with no difference.
I have run nine different test prints, with every single one coming out perfectly.
I have ABS at 250 °C and bed at 90 °C. Sticking to the bed is not a problem.
Why .. Why, why why, is it scratching the bed when I then go to print something? Nothing has changed!! I even zero'd the test prints in Cura the same way I did my parts prints.
Would seriously appreciate some help before I just toss this thing.

povk · Answer

Most likely your print surface is uneven. You can try rebuilding your firmware with mesh bed levelling that allows you to manually probe and store n*n grid bed mesh setting the height offsets at each point manually (however, on stock setup you might need to disable certain features for the compiled firmware to fit). Other option would be to use some kind of ABL as mentioned above. You can also try installing Z offset plugin on Cura and raise it up a bit.
The last thing to check would be comparing the test gcode to your slicer generated ones (via any text editor) looking for differences in G0/G1 Z movement in the beginning of the gcode. If there are ant differences, that would give you a hint where to progress further.

How to address bed scratching on a Creality Ender 3

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