In this wiki article, you can find the most common print quality issues you can experience with your 3D printer, with suggestions on how to solve them
https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/knowledge-sharing/common-print-quality-problem
We would love to hear your suggestions for new potential print quality issues to be added on this Wiki, to make it better.
Additions:
For the extruder clog it would be nice to include the fact that some filament have severe heat creep issues.
Like glow PLA for example.
Here the issue is not the chamber temp but the inability of the heatbreak to cool the filament, especially during lots of retractions.
The only feasible way to mitigate this is by using a lower print speed and by trying to get away without retractions.
If retractions can’t be avoided they should be rather slow and limited to the shortest lengths to prevent oozing.
Nozzle cleaning procedures…
I would NEVER use metal inside my hotends to clean them.
A wire to check for a block, fine, an aluminium ‘needle stick’ to get some crust off while hot, maybe…
The hotened is all metal.
Heater off, temp sensor off and then a good soaking in the right solvent.
Heptane or MEK for most filaments, Acetone for ABS and not too bad PLA issues.
And with a traditional glass syringe one can even flush the hotend…
Metal tools can scratch or otherwise damage the insides and so far I have to encounter a blocked nozzle/hotend I could not clean up to mint condition - wear and tear excluded.
Only doing it now for about 20 years though…
Overhangs…
3. Properly reduce the nozzle temperature. When the overhanging part is printed at a slower speed, the nozzle temperature can be lowered for printing, which also helps to reduce the requirement for cooling.
^^ That is a great start!
However I would love to see the relationship between print speed and ACTUAL filament temperature and properties explained in more detail.
Perhaps in a dedicated section ?
I can print with an average speed of 450mm/s with no issues if the model shape/properties allow for it.
But that means I need a rather high nozzle temp to make it happen.
IF the little heater is able to keep up for lower temp filaments then a model area where the speeds have to go down IS ALWAYS a huge issue.
The filament gets overcooked and runny while the hotened overshoots - very bad for small details as by the time things stabilise the layer is often done.
Then things run fast again for the rest of the layer - but it again takes too long for the hotened to level out.
Resulting in often nasty looking transition effects.
Unless you even out the speeds quite a bit an accept longer print times the suggested fixes are just not enough for high flow nozzles and/or filaments allowing for high print speeds.
The relationship between what happens inside the hotend during speed/flow rate changes is very important and would help beginners to avoid a lot of issues.
Bridging…
The nozzle temp is also vital for bridging.
Again I have to refer to printing things fast here to make sense.
If I need a higher nozzle temp in order to print fast an option to reduce the nozzle temp for low speed sections of a layer or islands would be great.
Especially if a bit automated and including the option to ‘pause with slow movement’ over an infill area or such.
For example:
If the RECOMMENDED nozzle temp for PLA would be 195 degrees Celsius in order to print at the normal 200mm/s settings, then all bridging setting one has tuned in go out of the window if a model is printed at just 300m/s as it already requires to increase the nozzle temp.
Sadly bridging ONLY works if the filament is coming out just hot enough to still bond - just…
Any higher or with insufficient cooling means the bridging is likely to fail or get messy.
Model warping, falling off, or collapsing …
PLEASE do include proper cleaning procedures for the plates in this sections.
Like warm soapy water with a soft sponge followed by window cleaner or as a last resort IPA.
The forum is full of posts with problems only caused by badly cleaned plates.
Filament sticks to the nozzle…
I take the sock off, heat up the nozzle and use a tight grip on some cotton cloth the get the filament remains off all vital areas.
If used for far too many rolls already I follow up with some solvent to be left with just the metal.
The sock I clean in a tiny glass jar placed in ultrasonic cleaner.
In the jar either some solvent or just plain water.
Once done I use a lint free cloth to rub a bit of silicone grease on the nozzle and exposed parts of the sock.
The nozzle is then dragged over a piece of leather to clean the flat part of the tip so the filament won’t be contaminated.
Inappropriate PA value …
Did I miss something here?
There is no CALI button in my Studio, just load and unload, guide, retry and the AMS settings.
For what Studio version is this section of the guide ?
Gloss…
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an option the slicer to try to use a flow rate as consistent as possible ? 
While I realise that doing this properly would require significant additions to the slicing engine…
Why not provide a print profile optimised for the best SURFACE quality ?
Maybe with some internal trickery added to also reduce the impact of the remaining flow rate changes…
Thing that could be added:
A proper filament calibration routine.
As it is impossible to properly configure custom filaments (they stay based on the generic profile) and even the build in ones are far from perfect we need a fix.
Assuming is great, confirming is better.
With the calibration routine gone, at least for me, the beginner needs a way to fully calibrate a filament.
Be that a Bambu or aftermarket one.
A flow ratio calibration in vase mode won’t work for a real model, especially not for solid infills.
Calibrating the flow ration to produce a proper infill, surface and seams means that in vase mode the wall width is too wide.
Clearly there is a flaw here that needs addressing as those results should match.
I calibrate with a solid infill cube at 0.1mm layer to get the low ratio, then some temp checks and a confirmation of the flow ratio if I had to change the nozzle temp.
Last but not least the k-factor and max flow rate.
For the later there is no real way to deal with high flow nozzles in Bambu.
All this should be automated in one single test print to calibrate the filament.
Corners gone badly wrong…
Again a problem often for high speed prints…
The pressure advance calculations often seem way off.
A prefect straight on the outer wall, a great corner and then the mess begins.
Or the corner gets messier with every layer while the surface quality around goes down the drain.
Most of this can be fixed by tuning the acceleration settings a bit.
Sadly this usually means LOWERING them by far more than what seems right.
Until we can have a flow rate for the extrusion LINE in the slicer there is no real way to tune this manually.
A nice addition to the slicer/firmware would be to better predict those very harsh flow/speed changes better.
Slow down earlier and ramp up a bit slower after.
The best way right now to avoid most of this is to reduce the print speed for the walls.
Bad quality first layer with lots of over-extrusion…
Can’t find a fix for that one except for some manual g-code work.
As far as can see all that these plate selection setting do is to change the z-offset for the first layer.
If there is a change for the flow ratio then it is nothing I can find.
Without this common and vital option certain prints are doomed to fail.
Only workaround I found is to print with a raft, which is a total waste…
Some filaments and plate do better than others but if things keep failing…
This is a very well put together tutorial. Hats off to the folks who authored this. I wish I had this when I first got my printer.
The only two contributions I might offer as far as suggestions is maybe an example of wet versus dry filament results. The explanation provided just speaks to drying and some of the benefits but a visual may also help. Here is my two contributions to the cause. Feel free to use them if they seem to help.
We appreciate the feedback provided.
We will look into implementing it and improving the guide.
Good one!
Certainly a lot of people new to this would value some examples for various filaments and moisture states.
I would also appreciate and more detailed explanation on the physics involved here.
Like the water causing steam in the melting chamber once too high or ‘foaming’ issues at lower levels.
