Bambu Cool Plate SuperTack - I'm Losing My Mind

May I suggest you update the “Considerations” section for this plate to include not using both Acetone and IPA, since IPA is a very very common product used to clean most other plates?
I think this would help users not make that mistake in the future.

Thank you.

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Noted, thank you

I will add however, that I have been using 100% Isopropyl to clean the Cool Supertack for a few weeks now with many many prints on it all witthout any issues, the surface still looks brand new and the adhesion has been great. In fact I have only washed it with hot water and soap once or twice when I first got it, the rest as been Iso to date. :smiley:

You might be having the same issue as me: Z-Offset. In fact reducing the flow essentially is reducing the pressure on the nozzle. Changing the z-offset higher is also reducing the pressure. However mine is too far away from plate and yours is too close to the plate.

It’s been a minute, but wanted to give a final follow up. Even though changing the initial flow ratio seemed to help with PLA adhesion, I still had issues with the first layer having the “cat’s tongue” texture described by OP, and I continued to have extremely poor success with PETG. The following picture shows the kind of results I got with PETG using default settings:

This next picture is as good as I could get it when tweaking the initial flow ratio and selecting “Textured PEI Plate” in BambuStudio (basically just to raise the bed temperature to 80C) – but keeping the SuperTack on the printer. Even though it was somewhat passable, the adhesion of the PETG was still not great and could be peeled off easily, even while the bed was still hot.

After continual print failures (even with PLA), I found this article which has instructions to tighten the 4 screws on the back of the hotend heating assembly.

When I checked, all 4 screws were loose on my A1 :scream:. After tightening the screws, my first layers were noticeably better, but still far from perfect. Long story short, I ordered a new hotend heating assembly. The first test print with PETG after installing the new hotend turned out beautifully when using default settings.

And for reasons I don’t understand, the layer adhesion was surprisingly strong – a complete 180 from before replacing the heating assembly – and I struggled to get the test print peeled off the plate.

So, at least in my case, it seems as though I needed a new hotend heating assembly.

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Tightening the screws also improved my first layer quality. It was a pretty simple fix, thank you!

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I never had issues with the SuperTack plate on the A1 mini, but I upgraded to the A1 in the past few days. I noticed I was getting the cat tongue effect and waves on first layers. I had a couple of larger prints warp at the point where the first layer was wavy.

So I took on board all the advice in this thread.
Took off the hotend and tightened those 4 screws.
Washed with plate with hot water and washing up liquid and scrubbed with a hard sponge.
Ran active bed calibration.
Reduced Initial layer flow ratio to 0.8. Print came out with underextrusion and poor adhesion between lines.
Raised Initial layer flow ratio to 0.9. Improved quality but still with some poor adhesion holes.
Raised Initial layer flow ratio to 0.93. Much improved but not perfect.
Raised Initial layer flow ratio to 0.94 and bed from 45C to 50C.
Perfect! No waves, holes, under or over-extrusion!

Everything I’ve printed since has stayed put on the plate and not had any adhesion issues.

That was great, right until I changed from PLA basic to PLA metal.

Some of the print lost adhesion after about 3cm height. One part bumped into another and only 1 of the 4 objects managed to complete.

So I’m doing the verification all over again with PLA metal now.
Tried ILFR of 0.95, some under-extrusion holes but no waves.
Tried ILFR of 1.0 with default 45C and bed levelling. No issues.

One thing I did notice when peeling off the test was that it is easier to pull PLA metal off on this A1 SuperTack plate than it was on my A1 mini SuperTack plate. A LOT easier!

Thaaaank you!! I have already lost all hope

What do you mean the fix?

See https://forum.bambulab.com/t/bambu-cool-plate-supertack-im-losing-my-mind/122680/35?u=bradley_chuter

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Hope this helps but i used steel wool pad and soap and water on mine and it helped. I can print petg on it now but before i couldnt print anything on it with an X1C brand new both printer and plate.

lol same XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Has anyone tried modifying the starting gcode to add a z-offset only for the supertack plate? I haven’t been able to get it to work. It doesn’t recognize the bed type name, with or without brackets.

;===== for Cool Plate SuperTack, adjust Z offset ====
;curr_bed_type={curr_bed_type}
{if curr_bed_type==“Cool Plate (SuperTack)”}
G29.1 Z{+0.1} ; for Cool Plate (SuperTack)
{endif}

Yes, I tried exactly that, figuring that the slight contours of the plate was causing mine to print too high.

It didn’t seem to make any difference at all. I didn’t want to go too crazy with the offset, as I didn’t want to damage the nozzle.

It seems like changing the plate type is changing the flow rate, as I get repeatable underextrusion with the Supertack plate.

I ran into (or noticed) the same issue as many of you guys today on my A1 Mini. My screws are all tight, and still I’m getting overextrusion with the SuperTack, while PEI gives me a nearly perfect first layer.

I also decided to try to modify the start gcode to create a “set and forget” solution, and from inspecting gcodes the value for curr_bed_type seems to be “Supertack Plate”. I asked an AI to do this though, so I’m only 99% confident. :stuck_out_tongue:

My first attempt with this block added looks very promising. Still, use at your own risk! I have not done any tuning or systematic tests to see which filaments suffer from this issue and what happens if you print one that doesn’t.

;===== for SuperTack , raise the nozzle to fix overextrusion ==
{if curr_bed_type==“Supertack Plate”}
G29.1 Z{+0.01} ; for Bambu Cool Plate SuperTack
{endif}