Days of straight print time

Hello everyone, I have had my X1C for about a year now ( 3000+ hrs print time ) my longest time printing has been 4 days straight. I have a print job I’m about to start, that will take about 20 days, I was wondering if anyone has had a print time that long, if there’s any concerns. I will do a full maintenance just before the print.
Thank you

I am genuinely curious, how are you processing the filament spool changes?

Do you have a UPS attached to the printer? I ask because for that amount of time invested, a power glitch is absolutely the last thing you can afford.

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Yes I have a UPS ( I have had power failures before when printing. ) I also 2 AMS units I will have 5 color changes, with auto refill set up.

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…and I thought 3 days was long. :grin:

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Can I ask what the final model weight is as shown in Bambu Studio? 20 days seems pretty crazy.

For reference. A 250x250x250 cube with 100% infill only takes a little over 11 and a half days to print.

image

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Retractions on a model that isn’t solid would increase the time considerably.

As would adding colour to that mix.

I have never got close to this time frame though.

That’s a fascinating tidbit of info. It would never have occurred to me to try that experiment with the slicer. But consider that this is 15.4 spools. Even with the OP 2 AMS, it will still require at least two full spool swap-outs. Then consider the cost. At my current personal best of $10 per PLA spool, that’s still $150 of plastic.

I hadn’t considered this point too. Just simple nozzle movements can quintuple time. I once printed a grid that was only 150x50x3mm and it took damned near 5 hours to print because of all the micro-movements that were in the model. BTW: I later cut that down to less than 60 minutes but using the slicer to print the grid. Just goes to show you that CAD isn’t always the solution.

I even wonder if it would be possible to actually complete. There has to be a point where the weight on the bed overpowers the stepper/leadscrews and gravity takes over. The part would drop and it would be spaghetti everywhere… If I was more adventurous and had 16 spools to burn up it would be a very interesting experiment.

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Does anyone have a small child around the same weight they would be willing to test the strength of the printer with?

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OK just thought I’d let you all know, I will only go though 8 rolls of filament the time printing is because of the color change almost every layer the normal print time is 14 days, but I have to slow it down to 50% ( silent mode ). Upon my testing I have had to slow it down, do to some fails. I have test printed it with .24mm draft setting with color change, I also test printed single color at .16mm high quality to see how things went, No fails. Now I’m about to start the finale print at .08mm high quality. I’m not sure but I think there’s about 1600+ filament changes. I already have over $300 just in filament for testing, and yes a LOT of waste almost half, But we got these to do color change on the fly right? I started this project December, lots and lots of tests. just the finale print will be about $180 I don’t know about you guys but I didn’t buy the X1C to paint the model. that said, this will be the longest print I’ll probably do, But I may have to print 2

Please post some pics of your progress.

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You are doing a print that long, with 1600+ filament changes and you may print it a second time?! The furthest I sliced and printed was around 550 changes without issues.

While queueing up in line of the curious, may I ask you for an extra detour?

Are you willing to document your slicer settings, the predicted time and flush amount predicted by the slicer vs. the actual time and amount of filament (weighed) that the print took → and for the second run, print the same model with G-code modifications and document the results as well?

If you are inclined, please take a look at

and let me/us know :slight_smile:

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OK I had to look back at some files. Here are my first few slices and prints.


.24mm Draft


.16mm High Quality

I’m having to Re-slice My older test prints, I’ll post them when there done. Also the slice of my final print. And I was wrong about the waste, it’s much more on the final print, and was over 7000 filament changes.

This must be the coolest, largest, articulated dragon print EVER…

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OK I’m just showing the final slice. And the model is Moon Knight I bought it on 3D Cults from NachoCG it’s his design I’m posting some pictures. I got it for my son he wanted it as big as I could get it, I printed the base and gargoyles back in January. I wanted to print the body all in one piece no seems and no paint. Everything is at 100% size


.08mm High Quality

This is the first draft of coloring it. but it was too small, the model did come in parts, so I printed the Base and Gargoyles first


Base final print

gargoyles
Gargoyles Final print


Moon Knight will be Final print.

Did this to show you the Size

I am going to print it, If it fails I’ll just do it again.
I have to do a full maintenance, Installing a new nozzle, clean the everything like it was new. Oh remember I’m slowing it to 50% (silent mode)
I’ll let you all know how it did when it’s finished .

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I forgot to show you the one with supports

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@AMT_MW I’ll have to read up on this before the print, But I can’t purge into model I tried that and you can see the infill because it’s a bright white.

With such long prints, you should keep an eye on the ambient conditions and ensure that they remain constant. I have other printers apart from a Bambu X1C, such as a Cr-20, which I have just started using again (I want to use it as a second printer in parallel, but need to recalibrate it and the filament). Due to the low extrusion rate of this and similar models, I also had long printing times. The longest was once just over 7 days. As these are open printers, I also had to pay attention to the environment here. Since you have a lot of filament changes, you will probably only print with the X1C for so long without problems if you leave the door or at least the lid open. Filament change + high purging temperature + poor cooling during filament change = risk of nozzle clogging. I would even predict that this is exactly what will happen with 20 days of printing. I would therefore suggest the following:

  1. leave the printer open or add additional cooling during filament changes.

  2. keep the ambient temperature below 40°C.

  3. do not set the pressure temperature generously high (even if this works), but find the necessary low temperature to counteract clogging of the nozzle here as well.

  4. avoid draughts, as the printer no longer has a closed installation space (avoid intermittent ventilation during printing)

  5. use glue stick for good adhesion to the build plate.

  6. ensure that the waste bin at the back of the X1C is emptied regularly. Preferably at around 10 o’clock in the evening and again at around 7 o’clock in the morning, this should be enough overnight so that you can sleep peacefully. During the day, you must also remove the waste at regular intervals.

  7. store fresh desiccant in the AMS.

  8. put the filament rolls you will need in the dryer so that all the filaments used are dry. This is important for a good printing result. This is because you cannot recalibrate the filaments every time you change them. You do this once before printing with dried filament and retain these calibration values for the entire 20 days.

I wanted to write something else, but it just slipped my mind. They say that if you forget it, it wasn’t that important :wink:

I hope this will help you to print successfully for 20 days in a row.

Kind regards and good luck!

Thank you for your suggestions,

I have 5 printers the X1C and 2 AMS units, was my last purchase. ( I plan on buying at least one more X1C).

I have been printing almost 3 years now. I print every day, I’m not sure why but I have my best prints with the room temperature at 32°C. I found I cannot open the window at all, and can’t run heat or a/c in the room, or I have problems with the prints.

When I print on the X1C I always leave the door open when printing pla. I have made a poop shoot slide to go into a tall box, I only have to empty it once a month. I have been printing with the X1C for almost a year now, almost every day, and 99% of the time have been color change. The only thing I was wondering about was printing continuously for 20+ days. My AMS units have extra containers for silica beads, It stays at 10% humidity for about 45 days and at 60 days I change them, it’s about at 15%

Like I was saying I was only wondering if someone has ran a print for that long on the X1C.

Could you share an image of finished print?