Because the Bambu Lab printer ecosystem is highly optimized for sending prints remotely, it is possible to try and send a print to a printer with already printed items on the bed. I almost did this yesterday, and when the camera showed my the printer I hurried into the other room to clear the bed before printing started.
This will also be necessary when Bambu Studio suppports queuing prints. It can send the next print until the bed is cleared from the previous print.
How I would implement it.
Printer makes bed status/ready to print available to Bambu Studio
Bambu studio won’t send a new print if the status is “not ready”
when the printer starts printing the status changes from ready to printing.
when a print finishes, or is aborted, the display on the printer should say “Clear the bed” and wait for the user to press okay which will go back to the home screen and set the printer status to ready.
Actually thinking about it the printer may have several statuses and Bambu studio should be able to display them all. In addition it should refuse to send a print unless the printer is ready to receive a print.
I was watching a print that I just started and it showed some of the preparation states, such as “waiting for bed to heat”.
I’d kind of like to have an automatic part removal plow that would push finished parts off into a bin and continue printing. Actually, if a full-width belt was integrated, that would take care of part adhesion issues; the parts would separate from the bed/belt when the belt reached the belt roller and flexed. Finished parts would be in the bin.
By the way, why does the slicer want to center everything on the plate? It would be handy if the slicer could track objects printed and move to empty spots for additional prints. That would allow for easier remote printing by not requiring human interaction between prints. I could print stuff I need while out of the office and someone else could collect the parts if needed before I return. Once the parts were removed, the operator could indicate “plate cleared” on the screen and a quick 2D scan could confirm it.
The P1P/X1 has a low clearance on the horizontal carriage, especially compared to other printers.
Part of the startup sequence brings the carriage both to the back and front of the print area, making that low clearance critical.
So, unless you’re continually printing low-height parts, it is critical to remove the parts before printing the second job.
One can work around this by printing multiple parts in one go, given that during a print the carriage does not deviate from its work area. This only works if the material does not need to be changed, though.
So really … Should the printers indicate that you have to remove the imprint? YES, I’ve forgotten that too and it’s really annoying. But do you also want the printer to point out that you should put on your underpants in the morning? There really are things you should still be able to think of yourself…
It seems like it shouldn’t be that hard to do with the AI camera. Take a picture of the bed, and if it looks like there is a print still there, pause with a warning.
It doesn’t need a camera. The printer knows when it prints something. When the print finishes it knows.
All that is required it to put a message on the screen “press ok when print bed is clear” and then set a status that bambu studio can see so it knows when the printer is ready to accept another print.
I have to agree with Jim-Knopf. Starting a new print when you have not cleared the bed and damaging either the printer or your last print = stupid fee.
Don’t see anyone else complaining about all the other brands of printers on the market when you can send a job wireless to print not warning you to clear the work surface.
Stick a postit on your desk/monitor/screen that tells you to do it.
It turns out that I am not perfect. I forgot that I had sent a print previously and I was so focused on the design that I am currently working on that I send a test print and went right back to Fusion 360. A few minutes later I heard a terrible banging and ran into the room with the printer to find it trying to print with the previous print still on the plate. I got lucky and the nozzle assembly doesn’t seem to be bent.
Just because no one has asked for it does not mean that it is a bad idea.
Bambu Lab has tried to make their printers usable by novices. They have tried to make it bullet proof. That is why startup for a 2 minute print takes 7 minutes. They are trying to make sure nothing can go wrong.
The startup code for most printers doesn’t do 7 minutes of prep before printing. My Prusa never wiped the nozzle or made it hard for me to turn off bed calibration before every single print.
BTW, having used a Prusa for a couple years I was used to carrying an SD card in to start the next print. That is why I never had a problem remembering to remove the previous print. Being able to send right from the slicer is great, but different.
In addition, I am hoping for the ability to queue prints in the future. If I cue up 10 items to print, the scheduler has to have a signal from the printer that it is ready for another print. It can just send when the previous print is completed. And with multiple printers, someone is periodically going to walk around and remove prints. After removing a print, pressing the ready button would be a logical action and then the printer would notify the print queue that it is ready for a new job.
Admittedly I just did this for the first time today as well. Haven’t had a decent print since so I’m thinking the nozzle might be ever so slightly bent.
I’ll know here soon. I agree with this though. Even if there’s a second confirmation screen to clear the print space before starting the print from a PC would not be a bad or inconvenient idea.
I changed out the nozzle and the issue resolved. If this happens to anyone else in the future, and you notice your bottom left corner is not completing even after ABL, the nozzle is bent.
How do you make the slicer center everything. All my files are partly off the plate when imported.
In Prusa slicer there was a setting to choose center or not, but I can’t find it on Bambu Studio.
I didn’t like Prusa with it set to auto center, because that meant always, so if you manually position an object it just jumps back to the center.
What I want is not auto center, and certainly not when I manully move something.
I want auto-arrange on import. That way if I import one object it is placed at the center. If I then import another the plate is auto arranged so the don’t overlap. Prusa just puts them all at the center on top of each other and Bambu Studio (for me) just puts them all at the left front corner. Now that I am thinking about it, in CAD I typically use the origin x=0, y=0 as the corner of my part and I use STEP files from CAD to Slicer. I guess the slicer is using the position from CAD on my models.
@tsmith35 you just helped me understand something. Thanks.
You can put multiple objects on the plate to print them, which would allow part of your solution.
The slicer does have the logic in it for sequential object printing (off by default) which checks for collisions. So you could also put an object on the plate, slice it and send it to the printer. Then add an object and position it so that the slicer doesn’t complain about collision then remove the first object, slice and print.
To make that work, you would also need to have a printer profile with most of the current startup gcode removed so that it doesn’t move the print head all over the place. Just heat the nozzle and bed, print a nozzle load line in an accessible place and then start printing.
There are many videos of solutions to auto clear the bed after printing. You should search for them. Some use the print head to knock of parts, some use a conveyor belt for the plate, some have broom like mechanisms. Of course, you can’t print any nozzle load line or flow calibration lines because they would get left on the plate with most methods.
Use this to search youtube and you will be inspired. 3d printer automatic part removal
Well, I personally would hate to press another button for each print just to tell the printer I have removed the stuff from the plate. I would see it as highly ergonomic from a UI design perspective. But then I never have forgotten to remove the stuff from the printer yet.
An AI detection might be the solution, and might sooner or later be added, but I wouldn’t count of it being anywhere in the near future. It is a rather niche problem and there are bigger fish to catch first.
It’s not even about remembering it yourself, it’s about people showing up at the office, leaving their prints on the table, and you not getting any notification it was finished because you don’t get those, you go to print, walk downstairs, and by the time you’re there you see the printer went and rammed itself into whatever was on the bed before you can even determine something was printed or not, because this is your view remotely even though you can see something was printed.
All the printer needs is gcode to re-home or a prompt asking if the previous print was removed.
I’ll play devil’s advocate here and give you an example in a photo.
Prints when finished should raise Z-axis until prints are detectable on camera, IF a camera exists.
I’m not saying I can’t do this myself, I’m saying for your average snarky Joe more concerned about blaming Bambu than anything else, it is always a design benefit to make things as streamlined as possible because everyone thinks, or doesn’t think, differently.
One has to ask how we ever survived when wireless print, or remote printing first came about.
It sucks when it happens, but it is the responsibility of the operator to make sure the printer is ready. Not the printers job to tell us we are having a stupid moment.
