ASA on X1C fails, yet PLA prints are fine, help from the pros needed!

Bambu Lab X1 Series Troubleshooting
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Dear community, I’m reaching out for some support from the pros, I’m having great trouble with ASA.

My X1C has run for about 200 hours of PLA printing since it was bought. Over those 200 hours I think I’ve had only 2 spaghetti failures, a great testament to the X1C, which has been excellent… until I introduced ASA to it!

I have recently tried ASA filament (Bambu official, and bran new), and roughly 4/5 of those prints have failed over the last couple of days.

To check the printer didn’t have a serious problem I subsequently reverted to PLA, and the prints reverted to working fine on the same models without any changes to the printer.

The first thing to mention is that the print is not warping or coming away from the build plate, I use a brim and it does not move during the print, in fact I find it hard to get it off.

What appears to be happening is the nozzle is catching on the print, sometimes early on (layer 3 or 4) and sometimes mid way through. The nozzle I think is getting stuck and the calibration seems to go out from that moment onwards. The printer makes a horrible noise and it attempts to print in mid air, slightly offset from the model which is what creates the spaghetti.

The 1 print in 5 that succeeds I can’t really explain, the two times it has succeeded was with a test cube which had failed 4 times before that and two times afterwards.

I am using the default Bambu ASA profile, I am using as mentioned Bambu ASA which was freshly opened and bed adhesion isn’t the problem which would be the first go-to option.

The latest attempt was to print the official Bambu labs spool from Bambu Studio. ASA got to layer ~50 and was working fine up to that point, and then spaghetti, but PLA which I tried straight afterwards on the same model worked fine first time through to completion.

Any idea why PLA works fine but ASA seems to catch at random points, both using the default profiles? Am I expecting too much of the X1C, or is something likely a bit off with my printer?

More info:

  • Two sided textured build plate
  • Slicer settings are default 0.20mm standard @BBL X1C for ASA
  • Bed temp is 100C and nozel temp is 270C I believe (default)
  • I pre-heat the X1C to 42C and the door stays shut throughout the print

If I haven’t provided enough information please let me know, thanks in advance (please see picture of the latest failed attempt in ASA to print the Bambu Labs spool this morning as a case in point)

Spool_Failure
Spool_Failure1920×749 175 KB

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Filament moisture if I had to guess. I haven’t printed ASA on textured PEI though. Just the engineering plate.

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Thats a big mess!!! I Hate it when that happens

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Disclaimer: I do not print ASA myself. Only PLA & PETG variants, Nylon, PC, BVOH and PPS-CF. So take my comments as well meaning only :upside_down_face:

It looks like the first layer printed well with problems starting when it came to the sparse infill? It looks like grid infill?
Crossing infills and surfaces like to create speed bumps. So for anything other than PLA, recommendations are to use non-crossing surfaces (monotonic, concentric,…) and infill patterns (honeycomb, gyroid,…).
And of course, as @MZip mentioned, make sure the filament is dry. One of the first moisture indication is curling.

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Thank you, I forgot to add that I did in fact change the infill pattern at around the point I began pulling my hair out on attempt 6 or 7, and used gyroid for sparse infill and rectilinear I think its called for the others to avoid the cross over issue. I chose not to use it for the spool print though to show the spool using the default profile and the lovely mess it makes. But, thanks v.much for the suggestion however TBH I found it didn’t really help in the end, at least not on the test cube which still failed using gyroid half way through.

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Thanks v.much, I am indeed registering a 4 on the little water drop moisture icon, so I’m off to get silica beads to test the theory and will dry the filament using the printer. However, the spool was bran new out of its vacuum packed wrapper just the day before yesterday and I printed within hours of it coming out, can it really get affected by moisture within hours? Is so - then you may be right! I’ll find out thank you.

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Are we ignoring the possibility that this is the designer’s concept, and it is you who thinks this is a failure?

Joking aside, ASA is far harder to print than PLA.

It is really hard to screw up PLA.

It is easy to screw up ASA.

One suggestion I remember was to pre-heat the chamber for around 30 minutes or so, by using the bed to heat the closed-up enclosure or any heated chamber you may have installed.

I have ASA, I have not used it much, very little need.

ASA is a variant of ABS, which is also much harder than PLA.

Silica will not dry the filament, it will absorb moisture from the air.

Moisture can be in the filament from the factory if the environment wasn’t hermetically sealed.

Any filament can have moisture from the factory and all filaments may need drying before first use and after subsequent uses. It depends on the filament and your environment.

If you haven’t already, print a set of AMS silica holders and buy at least a 2lb tub of silica to pour in. You refresh it (dry it, I use the oven, pop it in on a baking tray while using the oven for meals) when the indicator gets to 3 (in my experience).

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That’s not a good environment for filament. You should change the desiccant packs. They can dissolve in the water they capture and it can even leak onto the AMS guts below the spools.

You have to be careful with silica gel - it gives up water almost as easily as it absorbs it. The museum and archival storage industries use silica gel to hydrate things too. They just condition the silica gel to the humidity they want in an enclosure and it gives up or absorbs moisture as needed to stay around that humidity.

So if you load up with beads, get a hygrometer or so to keep track of the moisture content and refresh when needed.

Added - spools fresh from the wrapper/box and even fresh from being delivered can have a wide range of moisture contents. They can easily be too wet to print well even brand spanking new. Those desiccant sachets sealed in there don’t necessarily mean the filament is dry.

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I agree that moisture is a likely culprit here. Also check for a bent nozzle, which should not have been hitting the model in the first place.

Avoid Grid and other crossing infills. (I have a theory that Grid is the Studio default to boost nozzle sales)

Your print might be warping and hitting the nozzle even if you do not see a separation between the plate and the model. With good adhesion, a warping model can lift the plate off the bed enough that a nozzle collision can occur.

Preheating is essential for ASA, set the heat bed at 100° and the aux fan at ~40% and wait for at least 45°C in the chamber before starting the print.

If you are using OrcaSlicer this is a very useful change you can make to the Machine start code which will delay the print start until the chamber has heat-soaked for 15 minutes.

This is for the X1C only, only with OrcaSlicer. Studio does not let you set a chamber temp for the X1C, the P1S lacks a chamber temp sensor, and the X1E and H2D models already have this ability.

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I’m not even close to a pro, but all I have ever used is ASA. Print layer height is 0.20mm. I use the textured plate. I calibrate every spool, level the bed on the first 2 prints and make sure the filament humidity is under 8%. My AMS is packed full of desiccant.

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In fact, the bags filament is shipped in only reduce moisture ingress, they do not stop it. So having travelled the seven seas, it is actually quite common for new filament to arrive like this:

Wet Filament
Wet Filament1024×1024 156 KB

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When I print models in ASA that don’t have small or very thin details, I turn off every fan I can, lower the speed, and use grid infill if needed.

I use a Carbon Fiber Plate that really needs proper heat soaking to perform well.

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Amazing thank you, I naively didn’t realise drying ASA before use was a requirement, I have clearly been somewhat spoilt by the convenience of PLA to date.

I assumed since the ASA was bran-new moisture wouldn’t be a factor, consider me educated on that score, thanks.

I will give your suggestion a try and dry the filament, silica is on its way and I’ll get a small hygrometer to monitor moisture content in the container (currently the AMS unit). I shall feedback if this works (if the thread stays open) to help others who may come along with a similar issue

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Thank you, I believe I may be missing the ‘packed full of desiccant part’ with a moisture score of 4, and the inconsistency I am seeing may well be moisture related, which is an embarrassing fact if so, since this thread is showing me just how common knowledge this is! Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it, I’m going to be drying filament and packing with desiccant shortly, and no longer assume new filament = dry filament, big mistake apparently!

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Thank you, immensely helpful, I shall take your advice. New filament != dry filament, and ASA must be very dry. I shall live by this mantra next time the ASA comes out! :smiley:. Hygrometer and silica are on their way, and thanks for the headsup on silica, I actually didn’t know its full use and possible flaws.

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No problem and hope it helps. There’s a number of things that can cause similar issues but the “4” is what suggests water to me along with how it looks. But it could be something else too.

Silica gel is used a lot in various applications and there’s a fair amount of good information that can be found on the web. Reading up on how it’s used in archival applications can explain a lot of what people see with filament moisture. Here’s a link to a preconditioned silica gel cartridge you can buy in 5% RH steps to help hold things at some humidity level as well as dry.

Here’s an article that explains a little about EMC - equilibrium moisture content. It’s just as humidity goes up/down, moisture content also goes up/down so you can use humidity to estimate moisture content. The curves are well defined for silica gel. I haven’t been able to find good curves for filament but you don’t need them. Just know you can use equilibrium humidity to keep tabs on if filament is dry enough to print well.

Good luck!

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