I’m using an H2D, but my question seem more general and related to Studio itself.
I’m new with about 500 hrs of print time experience. I started with stock filament and process profiles and I know many are happy with them, but I’m trying to improve my print quality and increase my process knowledge and understanding. Which both of those are improving.
I’ve mostly PETG and PCTG, but I don’t think specific filaments really matter.
I’ve read a lot of posts here as well as other sources and found a lot of helpful information. But at times I have difficulty sorting out the good advice from the bad advice.
I also have struggled with realistic expectations, because up until 500 hours ago my only plastics experience was working in injection molding years ago, so I’m still trying to learn what is acceptable in 3D printing quality vs injection molding.
I guess I’d like some input about my current tuning process. One thing I’m not sure I’m performing my calibrations in the correct order. I’ve tried to think about how specific changes would affect other calibrations, but I’m not confident I’m tackling them in the best order.
If you are in the full calibration camp I’d be interested to hear about what order you proceed through your calibrations, or what other calibrations you perform or don’t perform.
Below is my current cheat sheet and references I’ve been using.
1-4 I’ve seems like a good standard procedure for all filaments.
8&9 are proving to be very helpful for me also and I’ve used them to improve my PLA and PETG print quality substantially. They have also helped me understand some settings better.
I admire your commitment to fine tuning.
I have one (not critical) question. In 500 hours are you sure you’ve accomplished enough printing to know what needs calibration and when?
Hear me out. One of the biggest selling points is these printers work out of the box. No tinkering like the bedslingers before it, and pretty solid filament profiles so it’s drop in and go.
I get your goal. You need to walk before you can run, and even then with these printers it’s more like having a car. Most of the PLA profiles work well with almost any brand. I’ve found nearly the same with PETG, and even some exotics, not all though.
I believe that unless you’re having a problem, then don’t go looking for one. If you’re seeing under extrusion or over extrusion, gaps, etc try the usual suspects before jumping to calibration on a filament.
My .02 is that either people come from machines that required tinkering, or they go looking for things to mess with because someone online found some reason to. Or are bored.
Dry your filament, keep your machine clean and well maintained, profit.
I think your question is very valid, and I’ll answer by saying no, I admit I don’t think I have enough experience. Partially I’m using calibrations as a learning tool.
I know it’s still not a lot of time, but I didn’t start calibration until very recently I used it out of the box initially. And I started because I was having print issues that I was positive could be improved or eliminated. But using random recommend conflicting settings changes I was seeing online didn’t inspire confidence or give me the results I was looking for. But I didn’t and still don’t fully grasp all the settings and interactions between them. Manual calibration have been a more methodical way for me to learn and understand the process.
At the moment I’m not really even having any major issues I’m trying to address. I’m just trying to learn. And I’m a hands on learner.
I get it. Good luck and hope your successful in reaching your goal.
Just as an addition, use the BL Wiki too.
Also pick a setting in the slicer, hover over it and use that link to learn some more while you’re at it. There’s always the trial by error method (my favorite!).
Again, have fun and enjoy!
There is nothing wrong with some trial and error either. I’ve made some extreme changes just to get a feel for how a setting will affect a sample print too.
I also did the Bambu Academy course before I bought my printer. It was informative, but it also helped me understand the capabilities and features so I was sure I was buying the model I needed’
All the resources that Bambu offers was one of the reasons I decided to go with a Bambu printer.
Or you can learn 3D printer and slicer in a natural progression, learn as the needs arise.
If you haven’t designed models before, I would suggest putting the time into learning CAD and 3D model design. This skill goes very well with a 3D printer.
There is always a learn as you go aspect to anything. It’s probably my background with industrial equipment repair, setup, and validation, but I’m of the opinion you can’t troubleshoot anything if you don’t understand how it works. I guess I would prefer to do a little calibration and validation and education printing small samples instead of using a 20 hour prints as a test. But like I mentioned, I suppose it’s my professional background that has driven that mindset into my head. For better or worse I approach everything on an industrial high production scale, and at this point I don’t even do it intentionally anymore, it’s just habit.
Many in the community have industrial background in hardware or software. So how one wants to go about 3D printing probably has more to do with what one wants out of it - a tool or a hobby.
I started with a Creality printer and learned quite a bit in a short amount of time (I had to ). But what I really wanted was a tool so I switched to Bambu Lab. Most of the skills that I learned are not being used now and I have happy to let them stay unused. I am glad I don’t need to babysit the printer and printing process anymore.
Sounds like you are learning towards the hobby direction which is a totally valid reason to go into 3D printing. I bet many in the same boat envy you for having the luxury to start with an H2D. Good luck and enjoy.
I’m always a bit sceptical about temperature towers for one reason: Due to the small footprint, they usually print very slowed down to hit the minimum layer time. But our actual models print a lot faster. So in my opinion, we regularly optimise temperature for the wrong print speed. I would put a cylinder next to the temp tower with zero infill and top layer and wall speeds set to 10mm/s. That allows to spend sufficient time on each layer without wasting filament so that the temp tower can print at full speed. In my opinion, temperature als doesn’t have one correct value. higher temperature allows higher speed and better layer adhesion at the cost of worse overhangs and bridges. I think for general use, a temperature a little bit in the higher range of the manufacturer recommendation often works perfectly fine. So I rarely print temp towers, but rather adjust temperature when I see problems in real parts.
VFAs: I think they only depend on the printer, not the filament, but I’m not entirely sure. In that case, it’s sufficient to do it once and reflect the results in the speeds tab.
What is completely missing in all the calibration guides is fan speed. There also are hardly any dedicated tests. Except for PLA, fan speed has an enormous influence on various attributes: too high can completely destroy layer adhesion (on polymaker PC, increasing fan from 0% to 10% caused layer adhesion to drop to less than 40% in my tests), too low can cause curling and bad overhangs. Even within the same filament type, e.g. PETG, different brands seem to behave very different. While some absolutely need sufficient fan speed to print nicely, others work great at very low settings and don’t like higher fan speeds at all.
For PLA, I only adjust flow. Everything else I just use the BambuLab PLA basic profile. I really didn’t see any differences between brands. On my most used filaments, I do the shrinkage compensation. For the others, I just use an average value. So far, shrinkage values have been very close.
For PETG, I do a bit more. Especially fan speed can be critical as I wrote above. suitable temperatures seem to also vary quite some.
PC has been working perfectly fine with recommended settings. here the key is sufficient chamber temperature.
TPU can benefit a lot from custom retraction settings. I had bad layer adhesion when I tried to print too fast.
I don’t print ABS or ASA, because the printer is close to living room and bed rooms. So no idea here.
Thanks for the detailed response, I appreciate it.
I’ve started developing suspicions about temp tower usefulness recently. I suspected any issues I saw on a temp tower I could be corrected by other methods, so essentially any temperature listed in the mfg’s TDS would work. So I’ve been choosing a temp towards the high end to promote layer adhesion and higher max flow rate. I planned to do that until I proved otherwise to myself.
It’s funny you mention the primitive cube, because I never updated my cheat sheet and I actually did switch to using your calibration tool. And I do like it much better than the cube. Shrinkage hasn’t been a problem for me yet, but I like having it calibrated before it becomes a problem because otherwise sooner or later I will regret not having it calibrated when I have to reprint something because of the fit.
Fan speed is something that has been in the back of my mind but not something I’ve spent much time specifically fine tuning. I’ve reduced speeds for PETG and PCTG because I was seeing some issues. Those issues cleared and I haven’t revisited it again. I break some parts to check layer adhesion, but nothing more than on the fly adjustments and random haphazard tests. I couldn’t really think of any fan calibration test I thought would be useful.
For me PLA has been flow and some speed adjustments for top layer and bridging improvements.
PA and ABS-GF I’ve used as is so far, I don’t think I’ve adjusted anything yet. But it’s only been a few small parts.
It’s really been the PCTG that pushed me down the calibration path because I was having a lot of various issues with it. I started with calibrating PETG and that went really well the print quality increased a lot. I messed with PLA just for practice, I don’t have much use for it and I only own two rolls so I haven’t used it much. But I found I was able to improve bridging and top surface quality pretty substantially over original settings. Then I moved on to PCTG and TPU from there, TPU has been interesting, but is still not crossed off my todo list, still a work in progress.
I find the calibrations a bit tedious and less than fun, but so far it has increased my confidence that when I hit print the outcome is what I expect or need and what the machine is capable of.
TPU and PCTG are the only two so far that I would consider as being unusable profiles. I started with a generic TPU profile and MFGs profile for the PCTG. But I have never used a filament that is brand specific preset in Studio, so I have made it a little harder for myself starting out.
). But what I really wanted was a tool so I switched to Bambu Lab. Most of the skills that I learned are not being used now and I have happy to let them stay unused. I am glad I don’t need to babysit the printer and printing process anymore.
). this video explains very good why: