I’ll try to answer your questions in order and hopefully the community will chime in with additional data.
- Wondering how detailed the calibration should be (brand, type, plate type, color).
- One only needs to identify brand and technology. However, some filament makers are identical and therefore those profiles can be used on both. (Click on this post for one example)
- Considering whether it’s necessary to calibrate for different plate types (textured/smooth) and filament colors.
- Plate? No. Colors? Maybe. I have two colors of CC3D PC filament as an example, one clear and one Black, although the profile I tuned-in works for both, there was enough difference in the Black version where creating a more “Dialed-in” profile got me better results. The question comes down to, what is your time worth spending the extra time calibrating. In my case, it was worth it.
- Questioning if calibrating by brand and type alone is sufficient for all colors.
- Same answer as question 2.
- Curious if a calibration done on a smooth plate can be used for a textured plate.
- Plate is not affected by filament calibration although the filament profile allows for different heat settings based on plate. Don’t confuse this with calibration.
- Aiming to minimize the number of calibrations.
- There are few shortcuts in 3D printing. Often we will see posts here where someone will go to great lengths to save a percent or two on outcome. Truth be told, I am guilty of this myself but sometimes getting the printer to go to 11 is its own reward.
- Debating between using Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer for calibration.
- This isn’t even worth questioning. Orca Slicer hands-down. First, the two slicers can coexist on the same machine so there is no down-side. Second, Bambu doesn’t have filament calibration tools baked in so it’s no-contest.
- Leaning towards Bambu Studio but concerned about the inability to back up calibration values.
- This is a matter of personal preference, but I abandoned Bambu Studio when they force-fed us the MakerWorld feeds. Since then, Orca has leapfrogged by adding too many quality-of-life features to discuss here. Clearly, Bambu is uninterested in this aspect of their product and is on a “boil the frog” trajectory, slowly introducing advertising into the Studio feed. One of the most basic differences between the two is the ability to change the default opening page to “Prepare.” Studio forces you to the MakerWorld propaganda page. I expect forced ads to follow next.
Suggestions
At first, you may find filament calibration very time-consuming and wonder whether it’s worth the effort—at least, I did until one day it all clicked. In my case, I refuse to support Bambu’s poor customer service policies and overpriced filaments. Pretty AMS-friendly spools only go so far, and as a P1P user without AMS, they are useless to me. The satisfaction of being able to take almost any filament from Amazon and make it perform better than Bambu’s at one-third the cost is empowering.
If I may suggest at least one YouTube video in particular that I feel does a concise job on calibration, it is this one from Butter Pocket prints. There are others on YouTube but this one does a good job covering the basics of filament tuning using Orca.
And of course, don’t neglect the Orca Slicer Wiki tutorial page which is another great source
And last, if I haven’t convinced anyone to switch to Orca. I’ll leave these two screen shots.
Orca’s calibration options.
Whereas Bambu calibration for the P1P just leads to a lecture.
