I’m getting excessive elephant foot on my A1 with PLA, even with 0.25mm compensation. Using polymaker panchroma starlight neptune with the Polylite PLA profile. The top surface looks great, so I don’t really want to mess with calibration. I’m running a test right now with 55C bed temp (down from 65C) to see if that makes a difference, but if it doesn’t, I’m not sure what else to try.
Ideas? Thoughts?
First layer messed up like this usually means the filament is badly calibrated or the z-offset for the plate is too low.
For most of my PLA I have a value between 0.05 and 0.1, the later however is for my clear PLA, which for some reason seems to not like being printed with a first layer LOL
As for your calibration statement >
I can print perfect surface with a totally rotten finish below…
Not saying YOU do it but I have seen quite a few people who just print and compensate where needed.
Never bothering about the calibration.
Can work out fine, but sooner or later you get a more complex model and struggle because the messed up settings won’t allow to fix things without wrecking other areas 
Well, as I expected, the lower build plate temp didn’t make a difference. Running calibration now.
In case you still get a flatfoot after the compensation >
It is possible to adjust the flow ratio for the first and top layer in the advanced settings for the quality.
So if all parts of the model come out fine but the first layer is always a smeary mess you can reduce the flow ratio for it a bit.
What you want is a first layer that is clean, smooth and free from defects.
The elephant foot compensation should not have more to compensate than the unavoidable ‘rim’ around the outer wall.
That’s the thing…the first layer is great! It just squishes too much. What plate setting should I use for the BQ Glacier plate? I’ve been using textured for a while, but something changed within the last week or so and now I’m having this problem. It’s really bad on the calibration tiles that I just printed. I tightened the heater block screws a while ago, but haven’t checked recently. I’ll try that when this test print is done.
So the 4 screws weren’t falling out loose, but I was able to get about 1/2 turn tighter on each. We’ll see how it goes.
Hmm, would have been nice to have those detail in the first post LOL
Well, for a smooth plate one should select a smooth plate for the print settings.
Except for the available temp range and maybe filaments the main difference is between smooth and textured.
Textured means different offset and different flow ratio for the first layer.
Is that is set and a smooth plate is use thing can get ugly quickly.
Loose screws in a printer are a nightmare.
Once touched it really is best to clean them with a fine wire brush and to use some thread locking glue before putting them back.
Pay attention to select one that is not extra strong or requires heat to let go.
The weak ones meant to just prevent screws or nuts from rattling loose will do fine on those tiny screws we deal with.
Especially after having replaced failed hardware there can be a lot of screws that go loose over time if not secured properly and using brute force to make sure is NOT the best option, so don’t get tempted
Well, tightening the screws didn’t help. Calibrating didn’t help. It’s the same whether I pick textured or smooth plates. Going to try with an actual smooth plate lol.
Actual smooth plate didn’t change anything. From what I can see, the start gcode only has an option to modify the Z-Offset for the textured plate. How can I do this when using something else?
This is what I’m trying to fix. I have a ticket in with bambu as nothing I’ve done so far has fixed it.
To test if its a z offset problem, print a primitive cube or whatever only one layer thick, let it cool and measure the thickness.
In Orcaslicer you can easily set up a printer profile with a z offset which covers all plates.
I had a similar problem, most noticeable with 0.2mm nozzle. I suspect over time the printer just develops a slight amount of play. So between bed leveling and actual printing, first layer gets too low which was only fixed by z offset for me.
I don’t use orcaslicer. I just ran the bed tramming and full bed leveling calibration. Testing…again
No dice. Same over-squished 1st layer. Flow problem maybe? I calibrated that manually, and it still happens when I let it auto calibrate. I’m running out of ideas!
To update this, I discovered something kind of interesting. This issue didn’t start until there was an update to bambu studio. I kept clicking cancel on the pop-up. I didn’t actually install the update until 3/5, and since then, it’s printing perfect.
I do still have the previous version of BS on a different computer. I’m going to try to run a print from that and see if it’s still giving me the elephant foot. If it IS, I have a feeling there’s some shady stuff happening behind the scenes. I’ll report back with what happens.
That’s very strange, yes it does point to something weird going on behind the scenes with their software.
