I’ve noticed that both extruders use the same retraction settings by default, viewed in the filament settings. This is super strange, as bowden extruders always need a lot more retraction. Is there some algorithm in the machine that multiplies the direct drive extruder retraction and applies it to the aux extruder? Or has Bambu just been a bit lazy so far with this half baked machine?
The X2D firmware and BBS profiles are a bit half baked. I don’t think there’s a firmware retraction, and if there was, I believe slicer values should overwrite it (in case you want to change it yourself, that makes sense to me).
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Thanks for the reply.
This ■■■■ is like having an old reprap bedslinger again…
Bambu released it too early. What is interesting is that the P2S was pretty good from launch, and they aggressively released several firmware updates and made it a super dependable machine. I’ve had my X2D since launch and there was one update out of the box, and still heaps of bugs and issues.
And yeah, it seems that they have forgotten about the aux extruder in BBS…
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You say that, but right after buying my P2S, I went through the forum and it looked like it was also plagued with issues, especially VFAs and other print artifacts. But yeah, it feels like it got polished off relatively quickly. We’re only in month 2 of the X2D launch so hopefully they’re cooking up some polishes for it.
Like, I don’t want to cut Bambu any slack because of the way that they position themselves but realistically, users will find ways to “break” things that aren’t necessarily going to be caught in internal testing.
The firmware though for this machine really is half baked, and the timing of the AMS feed issues that are bundled with it also doesn’t help it. I come from reprap for the most part so I’m all good with fixing things up, but having a black box firmware really isn’t helping…there’s only so much you can do in BBS and even then it’s all messed up in how the settings are presented.
You’d think that with the H(x) series machines they would have got the UX of dual nozzle machines polished off a little bit more but…no 
I did actually just check out of curiosity in the printer settings for the Aux extruder retraction setting and it does seem to be higher than the main extruder, at 2mm.
I reckon I’m gonna up it to 4-6mm because 2mm seems really short for a bowden. The retraction and de-retraction speeds do look good at 20mm/s so props to them for almost getting there 
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But what is the retraction in your filament preset overrides? I habe a bunch of filaments based on the generic filaments and the main/aux retraction is the same…
Theres all sorts of retraction test models you can use to fine tune your filaments for this.
Was doing this way back in the Bowden tube extruder days. Sounds like we need to do it again for this one as well.
I don’t enable that setting per filament. I’ve found that in my experience, changing the temperature is a little more effective at dealing with stringing than trying to fine tune retraction.
But when I do enable that setting it defaults to 0.8mm. It’s a little annoying but I personally doesn’t matter much since you’re likely to change it anyways.
I think realistically this kind of further underlines that the aux hotends main purpose is dissimilar support printing and maybe a second color for small things with few layer changes like text or what not. Anything more than that will likely need proper calibration of filament profiles.
Yes. It’s just a lot more work than I was expecting. I’ve also tried running PA calibration on the bowden extruder and the results aren’t good. I guess that’s why there is no auto calibration option.
Yes, bust out the calipers and measure all your filament diameters again lol. I bought this machine to try and get away from all that…What a mistake.
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Yeah, I guess I knew that when I bought the machine, but it looks to me like there is a lot of potential performance left on the table, and unfortunately I am not satisfied unless I know things are tuned to their max potential. After all, we managed to get some pretty decent results from dumb old bowden extruder machines back in the day.
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