I have tried 3 different kinds of ASA, the last being Bambu.
i am printing a 9 inch disk. the top layer is very rough only around the edges.
i am using stock settings on my X1c. room temp is 60F. the last one I turned the bed temp up to 100C
I am trying another one, i have changed the top layer pattern to
Archimdean Chords to see if it helps
any suggestions what to do different?
Assuming you have dried and tuned your filament profile, have you tried to positionally isolate the poor results?
Some suggestions:
- Change the orientation of the model on the bed by 180 degrees. If the defect remains in the same region of the plate, It might suggest either a bed leveling issue or perhaps a temperature issue as in leaving the door open on the printer. Unlikely? Yes, but rule it out. Otherwise, it’s the model.
- Have you run a simple first layer test by placing a 1 layer cube primitive for the length and width of the plate? This will help identify any first layer issues or perhaps filament flow issues.
Can you share with us a screengrab of the sliced model as it appears on your bet before print?
I had the same problem, it was the warping for just a small mm, the project will lift up a little and the nozzle hits the project, and scratch the top.
Put your project on a table to see if it warped.
I guess it’s a big object ?
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I think mine is warping also.
I am assuming my new filament out of the box is dry, but is does look that way. I have printed maybe 20 smaller parts out of some of the same filament and they look good except for top flat layers. i have been turning up my bed temp to increase the chamber temp, but maybe lower my bed temp to prevent the warping.?
I guess i couldn’t see the warping from my phone. my son checked the printer and notieced it lifting up the build plate and stopped it.
soooo… less plate temp?
Thanks!
Do you have cooling turned off…??
Yeah, you shouldn’t assume that. But before you dry it, make sure to weigh it before and after drying in order to confirm a moisture problem. Just drying it without confirming moisture content does not help in diagnosing root cause.
I’m looking at your photo. Did this warp while the plate was magnetically adhered to the bed?
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yes the cooling is off. is the right thing to do?
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yes, it warped or came unstuck while printing from the plate
I would open a ticket for that. It sounds like you may have defective bed. I can’t conceive of the amount of force required to uplift a section of a magnetically held plate but it wouldn’t surprise me if your bed had some missing or defective magnets.
In the meantime, you might try securing the plates to the bed with some Kapton tape, sometimes generically referred to as Polyimide tape. It does stick to the engineering plate and is thermally resistant to 400C.
Here’s a search term for Amazon. I’ve used this to secure some items to an engineering plate and it stays in place pretty well and resists heat. I first came across this as a laminate for protecting bar code labels that had to go through molten solder bath.
Thanks! I already have tape and will try again.
so to be clear, leave the fan off?
what would you do about the bed temp?
I don’t know for sure, but once my plate was also moved after my object was warped,
even pushed my door open, I guess that the filament was really tide glued,
and the nozzle pushed the object including the plate away.
I still got warping, but only after my object is longer than 15cm, I also use Bambu ASA.
It only gets better if I turn off the fans, let the plate warm up for one hour at 100 degrees, en de room must be warm, no drafty room, en using a glued textured PEI plate for more adhesion.
Thanks! I have read other places stating the higher chamber temp.
Yes, ASA fan off or maybe 10% if you need bridging.
Elmer’s Purple glue works for me.
Shrinkage as it appears to be occurring in your photos happens as the upper layer cools faster than the lower layer thus pulling the lower layers inward. This might explain why your upper layers may not be completely flat and could explain the roughness you’re seeing. By turning off the fan you slow the subsequent layers from cooling too quickly and allow the whole mass of the model to cool more evenly. Or so the theory goes. 
What you might try doing in this order is the following below. But as I suggested above, make sure your plate is secured.
- Flip the first layer temps in your filament profile to lower temp on first layer and higher temp on subsequent layers. This should force a bottom up cooling affect as opposed to a top down cooling affect in the hopes that the lower layers shrink faster than the upper.
- After you try that, revert back to the original temps and print with the fan off.
- Try both 1 and 2 at the same time.
Stefan at CNC kitchen posted a pretty good explanation. Play the video at time index 0:26 where he uses electrical tape laid down in layers to illustrate how this occurs.
He’s a bit of a dick in this video because he never explains how to fix it and says “tune in later” but I’ve never seen a follow up but it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out. If you’re top layers are shrinking faster, then add heat to the part that is shrinking to fast and remove heat from the layer that is cooling too slow… within reason of course.
Rather than lower plate temps which might work against you if you set the temp too low, another trick you can try is to also use rafts. I find them annoying so I tend not to use them. But yours might just be the perfect use-case. While it may seem counterintuitive, by providing extra layers of open mesh rafts, you could force the lower layers to cool at the same rate as the upper layers do, thus mitigating the shrink deviation. That’s only a theory and I haven’t tested it.
I have taped it down and trying again . fan is off and has been off.
I need to print a lot of these so I have to figure this out. I will try the raft if the tape doesn’t work. I will try lower temps on the nozzle also.
thanks!
Just an idea… rough top surface might also be explained by something called “pillowing” (means basically the top layer is printed, creating a lot of small airtight compartments. Hot buildplate heats up these compartments, air expands and pushes the top surface upwards where it can be damaged by the nozzle later).
What could help in that case is gyroid infill because that kind of infill doesn’t create these small compartments but rather one large connected space. Wouldn’t explain the strong warping though, so not too sure about that. Maybe it’s two separate issues
interesting, the center of these pieces the print is smooth like it should be. we had discussions about whether to use Triangle or Gyroid. we choice triangle. we’ll give that some thought.
Thanks!
failed again. my build plate didn’t come up with the tape but the part came loose on one side. it is warped for sure.
I admit, when I’m printing with ASA…I rarely do a test print, they are mostly small parts I need for a printer or something.
Unless you’ve already done this & haven’t posted anything…I think you should try printing this in PLA to see what the results are. PLA print & PLA supports.
You have more then 1 problem with your print & it might not just be an ASA issue…JMO