Does the printer/Studio remember/store bed leveling and flow calibration?

Bambu Lab X Series General discussions
1

I found a few other posts asking a similar question, but not specifically THIS question. The other posts ask for OPINIONS on whether to perform bed level and flow calibration on every print or not.

I want to know the technical details of what the printer or Bambu Studio software actually do, to then make my own decision.

  • Does the printer remember bed leveling results beyond the one print it’s performed with?

    • If yes, is it a permanent memory, or until power off, or until some other event?

      I know things can change over time and it’s a good idea to do bed leveling periodically regardless. But again, how long, or until what event, does the printer remember the results from the last bed level that was performed?

  • Does the printer remember flow calibration for each filament? For this, I’m referring specifically to the option presented when initiating a print. If yes…

    • Does it remember calibration for each and every brand and type indefinitely, or again, until when?
    • Does it send this calibration back to Studio somehow to save permanently with the filament profiles that are in Studio?

  • I know there is also the explicit Calibration section within Studio. I THINK that saves the calibration back to the filament profile? Is that correct?

    • Is calibrating using this section in Studio somehow different from the flow calibration option when initiating a print?

Thank you.

2

The unsatisfying answer is we don’t exactly know what the printer does because BL doesn’t publish those details, that I know of. “Auto” (leveling and flow cali.) lets the printer decide, and that’s about as much info as we get.

I can assure you that none of that data is sent back to the slicer or stored anywhere within that. Keep in mind the printer can work w/out Studio entirely, eg. via Handy app or g-code loaded directly from just about “any” source, and those options are still present when initiating a print. I/one can also examine the Studio source code to determine this.

Regarding the separate flow calibration procedures, there are two… the Flow Rate Calibrtion and Flow Dynamics. The former is meant to determine a flow rate value for a filament profile, which stays with Studio. The latter produces a special “K” value which is then actually stored on the printer as well (again, so a print can be initiated from other sources besides any particular slicer installation/config). It would then replace the “auto” flow calibration, which you have to disable in order to use manually calibrated values. It’s a bit complicated TBH, but is mostly described in the wiki.

HTH,
-Max

3

I have recently read about the bed calibration and will try to replicate back what I found.

Bambu printers use kind of mixed calibration flow. One master map + next small calibration maps merged.

First you have mechanical/physical calibration of the bed to some level, in the factory or after some fixes like replacement or removal of the bed.

Then you have auto calibration and high temp auto calibration, which seems to be mandatory after putting the printer out of the box or after maintenance. Which seems to be slow process, multistep and probes a lot of dots/places/spots on the bed and at low and high temp. Which seems to be used as something as master map. Or this kind of resets the master map.

All this should have established some base line, and it is written in the printer flash memory. No easy way to read it or modify it.
Then after you have this base line, by selecting the type of the plate in the software + auto calibration before the print - you have the options auto/on/off - the software calculate some offset which should be the “right one” - master map + plate offset + autocalibration before the print.

Now the plate offset is hard coded in the software, not in the printer as far as I can tell.
And IF you run the autocalibration right before the print ( or if on auto the software/printer may decide the last one is still good so may pass it, or run very short one - like just few steps ) the printer will use all the calibrations + offsets to get to the “right” bed level map for the print.

So the short answer is yes - it does remember the first high temp + some of the last low temp autocalibrations and from them it has ready map to go. But if you touch something like, put off the plate, flex it too much, change the plate ( same type but different piece) and etc, I would imagine one autocalibration would be helpful. But in any way the printer will have some baseline already.

Now on the flow rate, I am not sure what option do you mean here:

“For this, I’m referring specifically to the option presented when initiating a print. If yes…”

The printer has loaded some very basic profiles like brands, names and colors, but the actual flow rate and many other parameters are passed over from the Studio software.

So I would say the printer does not remember the flow rate, but expect to get all the parameters at the time g code is generated and job is passed to him.

And I do not have the option to run filament calibration in the printer menu on X2D.

So ideally you need to have filament profile for every filament you have and dial in all the parameters including the flow rate.

Bambu really created amazing mess with syncing printer profiles all over the place between the printer, Studio, mobile app and the cloud. For sure I can sync my custom profile names to the printer, but at the same time I can select very different profiles from the studio for the same slot and print with them, and it will go right. This is why my impression is, the printer own profiles are more like slot holders with names, then full profiles. So for the process and the filament parameters it always matters much more what you have selected in the software. On the printer you need to have only pressure advance set. See next.

Now Bambu printers store one filament parameter, and this is the pressure advance - pa/K BUT it is per slot - AUX, or given number of the AMS slot. And does not manage or tie them to specific filament> Or at least I did not saw so far they to be somehow tied or synced to the filaments. So they stay with the slot. Which means YOU need to set them, and remember every time you switch the filament in the given slot …

Hope this will help.