my P1S is currently printing its 722nd hour. Apart from a few pieces of PETG and PLA matt, I have only printed PLA basic so far and the filament is always put in the dryer for a day or two before printing.
Over time, the first layer has gradually deteriorated (top picture). It now looks a bit scary. If all layers looked like this, I would have suspected the hotend (or the filament). However, none of the remaining layers show any abnormalities (bottom picture, 3rd layer), so I’m now leaning towards first layer issues.
Maintenance is carried out regularly. The last one was this morning. However, it only involved cleaning everything, relubricating the spindles and checking whether the cutter and/or the wiper need to be replaced. The hotend is still the first one.
Surely one of the old hands here has a tip for me?
P1S
FW 01.06.01.00
Nozzle stainless steel 0.4mm
High temperature plate
Bambu Lab PLA
Aux fan is deactivated (because of warping), otherwise all standard settings
I’m getting similar issues on my end.
It seemed to be overnight that this happened. Other than the first couple of layers, my prints have been flawless.
Have you come up with anything?
I’m trying a few more things to get this fixed. If I come up with anything I’ll let you know.
You appear to have checked all the boxes except two.
Did you thoroughly wash your build plate with dish detergent and very hot water? The detergent of choice is either Dawn Dishwashing soap or it’s EU version Fairy Liquid. If you’re using IPA, don’t be lulled into a false sense it being clean.
Did you perform a true first layer test, this image is not a true first layer test. One can see that the filament is more than one layer thick. Don’t bother with the downloadable first layer tests as you can create a custom one quicker than it takes to download and open a file from the web. Follow these steps.
Right Click in the slicer and select cube primitive.
Scale the cube to something that will cover enough of your plate to expose any contamination. 150x150x0.2mm is enough to guarantee a single layer is deposited. Make the plate 250x250 if you want to cover the whole plate but 150x150 is more than enough and takes only a few minutes to print.
Here the layer has a lot of ripples. I noticed that at the end of the test print, the nozzle hit the (printed) insertion aids of the build plate. So I removed them and the hotend and inspected it. Apart from a small bead of plastic, the hotend / nozzle looks good. Nothing is broken, loose or bent. Removed anyway I cleaned it straight away of course.
Thanks for posting. These photos are what we should have started off to begin with. In all candor, we wasted a lot of time had we started off with these as they tell the whole story.
Again, don’t overthink this, stick to basics. Just because you read this on the web doesn’t mean you should waste your time trying this new shiny solution… stay focused.
Tramming is only if you were getting imbalanced contact with the build plate and your first layer test is not indicating that otherwise one corner would be different.
This “flaking” of filament could be caused by two factors. Flow rate is the most likely “primary” contributor but pressure advance is the second possible factor. Once you calibrated for flow rate, then you can move on to pressure advance.
Also, it would behoove you to move over to Orca and use the baked-in calibration tools that can be found there. The two tools are flow rate and pressure advance, more specifically PA Pattern. Perform the flow rate first and pressure advance second and then re-run your firs layer test — without the friggen hole!!!
If you followed the instructions carefully, in the slice flow submenu, you will get this gradient of flow confirming that the Gcode was modified upon slicing. This is why we use Orca because the calibration tools automate Gcode variance needed to modify flow rate.
Then move on to Pressure Advance. The PA Pattern is the faster but PA Tower is more precise. Refer to the 1,001 tutorials found here. Or simply go to the tutorial on the calibration menu.
WOW Olias – thank you SO much for taking the time to share all this in depth, including photos, graphs, everything else – I’m not OP, but this is very helpful and I learned a lot!
Well … sorry I don’t have enough experience with the printer to immediately know what is needed, test it and provide the results (including meaningful photos).
A flow calibration later the surface looks very good and the corners have also improved considerably. So thanks a lot for your valuable advice and helpful tips.
I am sorry to tack on this, but I can’t post a new topic yet and I’m new to the community with a new P1S. I’m trying to wrap my head around what’s going on with mine. Using the (green) filament that came with the printer I’m getting something similar (I don’t know if it’s the same thing). On the same plate I have the black filament which is Inland filament and that does not have the issue. Can someone point me in the right direction?
Also for some reason I can’t upload images. Maybe I’m too new?
https:–imgur.com/a/p0GedNc
https:–imgur.com/wsafztw
You are listed as having read 7 Min total. Just 3 more minutes and, as far as I know, you should be able to simply copy-paste pic’s so that we can have a proper look.
Maybe go back to @Olias post above (First layer issue or time to replace the hotend? - #5 by Olias) or simply browse and search the forum for your failure case. Plenty of problems described and resolved here.
Welcome to the forum,
Eno
PS: There are plenty of posts linking the discord trust levels for background on forum posting abilities.
Thanks I had been here for months lurking, but hadn’t created a user until now.
“Sorry you can’t embed media into a post” is the message I get. I will try again later.
No worries. We have all been there. You reading time should be enough so you may just need to enter a few more topics.
This explains levels as well as the why. Not much a chore required though.
