I would like to request a feature for the Bambu Lab printers.
I recently was prototyping a lot of models across my printers. In the middle of all the stress I forgot to remove a model before the next print.
I heard a weird noise and noticed that the extruder had jammed into the previous print that was still on the print plate.
Everything seemed to work fine afterwards, but then I noticed that my filament flow and alignment on the print bed was off. After some investigation I noticed that the 3.5mm misallignment I had noticed was caused by a bent extruder. Thankfully Bambu Labs has made the extruder nossle a weak point so that it bent before damaging anything else, but this made me think that the printer has all the bells and whistles to prevent this from happening.
I would like to recommend / suggest a feature request to save the layer height of the last printed item, then on the next print enable a option to check for models on the print bed.
If the feature first just check if the previous model is still on the build plate then the feature can rise the print bed to the previous print height +1 and check for foreign objects. If anything is identified by the lidar, then pause the job with a warning.
The next option is to use the built in camera. Use a reference image of a empty build plate. Then check the build plate before prints by comparing the build plate to a picture of a empty build plate.
This feature might need to use a user input picture based on lighting or choice of build plates.
I printed something last night and forgot to take it off the bed. This morning I started a new print and the print head ran into the existing print, and tried bed leveling with a piece of the print wedged under the nozzle.
If the machine learning can detect spaghetti prints and other failures, surely it can be trained to notice that there is something on the plate before it starts printing.
More explicitly:
I want the printer to notice that there is still a print on the bed. I want it to pause printing (before bed leveling) and notify me that there’s a problem in the same way that it notifies people when it discovers an unexpected plate.
I want this to protect my forgetful from breaking the printer or existing prints.
I would say we had the same experience and same feedback
At least for the X1C/X1E which has the lidar functionality this should absolutely be possible.
For P1S,P1P, A1 standard and mini they would be limited to the camera which could make it more complex. But definitely possible.
I have 3 (soon 4) BL printers which increase the risk of me forgetting to remove a print.
I would highly appreciate that additional warning before a print.
Or a checkbox in the print settings I could tick on or off if I knew the build plate was clean.
Not with the LIDAR it isn’t. That only works over very short distances (but with high resolution). So without knowing if there was something already there, the print head would end up getting smashed.
But, the chamber camera should be able to do it, without having to move the print head or build plate. All it needs to do is sample the empty build plate once, and compare the image to see if something is there for any subsequent print. Might not even need “AI” to figure it out.
I have a little AI vision development board I bought a year or so ago, has its own camera and processor and UI. It can easily tell the difference between whether what it’s looking at is a flat empty surface or there is an object there. (it can also tell which one of my dogs it’s looking at, though how that relates to 3D printing I can’t say ).
In terms of using the Lidar functionality I was thinking that they could store the Z height value from the last print and check from that height on the next print. But that might not work as the Z height calibration can change from one print to the next.
If the cameras can detect the difference between an empty plate and a plate with a model that might be the best solution which should work with all printer models.
This should be a fairly simple test, if supported by Bambu.
When we change the build plate, inform the printer that it’s a new / different build plate…
Verify it’s empty and take a photo of the build plate with the built in camera (in X1C).
Then at the start, before warming anything up, look at the build plate and compare it to the previous photo. It will have to allow slight color differences for different lighting since some ambient lighting affects the build plate lighting.
Ask the user to verify that the build plate is empty before pressing continue…
I am in favor of this request, as it would be great peace of mind check, as well help protect the printer from human error is very prone to happen, we all forget.
from breaking the printer or existing prints.
).