I have an Ender 3 S1 that I use every couple of months at this point because it’s just such a pain to use. I have to adjust the bed tramming and z offset and run auto bed leveling for every single print and often times that’s still not good enough.
It will often take 30+ minutes just to get the first layer going down successfully.
Is this a me problem or did I lose the creality lottery?
Bit of both really. Ok, the bed tramming is normal, even GREAT printers need it done every few weeks or so. The physics and mechanical properties of how the bed is held down mean changes in temperatures and normal shifts even in an ACed house mean they loosen naturally a little every day and after a few weeks they will be bad enough someone who likes a really level bed will need to clear them again. After a few months any bed that isn’t welded down is going to need to be redone.
Z offset and bed auto level follow from that. You need to redo them when you do the tramming anyway.
I would say run your printer more often but that won’t fix it. You’re running against physics and nothing can stop that. Maybe you can store up prints for say 6 months and then do them all in a week or so and you only have to do this once?
I will go months between prints on my prusa and then print back to back for several days.
I haven’t leveled my bed since 2021 but still get perfect first layers.
I brought my current printer assembled in 2020 (thus, with the bed adjusted). And I have done it once since then.
But I do run auto bed-leveling for every print.