Hello all,
can someone please explain me how to read the table for the flushing volume?
I currently read this from/to as “from the material currently in the hotend, flush x amount before going to the next material”
I’m asking since I’m confused when replicating the technique to use PETG as support for PLA, where PETG is used only for the interface layers.
I have PLA in slot 1 and PETG in slot 2. So far so good.
As default flushing volumes in the beginning let’s take 200 for each pair. Multiplier set to 1.00
From my understanding the most important is to have a high flushing value of the PETG/support material to avoid e.g. instability in the PLA layers.
Like such I would set e.g. 800 in the first column, second row, i.e. flushing 800 PETG before switching back to PLA.
Well, here comes the confusion. If I increase the flushing volume like such and slice the plate it shows me an increase in the PLA flushing volume - PETG stays at the previous value.
Thanks for the reply.
210, depends on the filament and pairing.
If I look at my table - and as long as I had the automatic calculation turned on - Bambu Lab re-calculated the value whenever there was a filament/color switch.
The initial question was more about, if I set the values myself, do I actually read them correctly, i.e. is from actually the current filament and to the one which will be loaded next?
the left is what you are on, the top is where you are going.
Where they meet is the amount from left to top.
210 is what BL sets their purge for their PLA/PETG support material. I suggested they may know more about purging support material that doesn’t stick to either PLA or PETG, and your suggested 800 was excessive in comparison.
You do you, but I still think you’ll be fine with 210. Has never let me down.
I strongly disagree. Even at 500 I still experienced slight weakening of PETG after an interface layer of PLA. It might be slightly different the other way round. But no way, 210 is sufficient.
If you make lots of prints with support material, I would perform a test series to find the optimal flushing volume. If its just occasionally, I wouldn’t bother and go with 800.
Exactly that happened to me as well when I didn’t set it manually to such high value. I had (automatically set) 566, it was visible in the print that the interface material wasn’t clearly flushed and finally I noticed the instability since the print broke in half right at the PLA layer above the (PETG) interface.
Though, it’s still not clear to me. Does it also happen to you guys that if you increase e.g. the “From” value that it will actually increase the amount of “To” material - and “From” still uses same amount?
I can tell you that with PLA/PETG support and PVA I’ve never had that issue.
I’ll add that I dry the support material thoroughly and feed it from the dryer. Given that the color is different (as well as no other issues) I can clearly see nothing is left over and contaminating the next layer.
Strength remains across PLA, PETG-HF, PETG-CF, PLA-CF, and the various flavors of PETG.
When I mentioned support I wasn’t referring to the Bambu Lab’s official Support for PLA/PETG.
It’s about using “normal” PETG filament as support/interface for PLA prints and vice versa. You can do this since both filaments don’t merge.
Simply have a look at this posting:
Actually it’s that Youtube clip which made me start asking questions because the creator of that clip used a much higher flush value for the base material and not the support.
The next days I will get the official Bambu support for PLA/PETG and I can’t wait to confirm your statement. Didn’t try yet PVA but that’s also something I’m interested in.
In the meantime, coming back to my original question if the table values are flipped or not.
Please see the following image:
Be sure to dry your support filament throughly. Believe me, it matters. Especially for PVA.
The color on the left is what would be loaded. The number at the top is what you’re going to.
So in your first image, line one, you will be flushing 200 going from gray to white (think those are the colors, my eyes aren’t what they used to be)
In the box the Flushed volume is what amount of filament will be flushed when you go from that color to the next (in a 2 color print such as what you show).
If it were 2 or more colors that number would represent the total amount purge from color swaps.
So in the picture you’re showing how much gray will be purged in total, and then how much white will be purged. You’ll always purge less white and light colors when going from them to another color, but much more when going from a darker color to white/light colors.
I sincerely hope I understand what your asking. If not there are far smarter folks than me around who will get it.
Thanks for your reply.
I get the idea of flushing more material when going from dark to bright and less if vice versa. I also see that behavior if I let Bambu studio do an automatic flushing volume calculation. Since I’m using Bambu Lab filament only, it reads that information from the RFID tags and it will do exactly what you described.
What I don’t understand is the fact that if I set everything manually - there can’t be any assumption that I want to go from one (either darker or lighter) color to another. The behavior is the exactly the same if I have 2 rolls of identical filament loaded, i.e. with the values showed in the image it will always increase the flushed volume for #1 although the table values should result in the complete opposite.
Regarding setting different amounts manually and have them stick - at least as long as you don’t resync the AMS - that’s something you can change in the Bambu Studio options. It’s actually two checkboxes which can be deactivated. I didn’t yet try it out with more than 4 different filaments but all my (4) filaments in the AMS keep their flushing volumes, even if I shut down / restart the printer or Bambu Studio.
After some more tests I guess I meanwhile know better and clarified my confusion
The table values are right and make total sense. My initial thinking was that if I want to switch from e.g. PLA as support material and to avoid instability in the PETG layers, I need to flush out lots of PLA, which for sure isn’t achieved by increasing the PLA flushing volume but the one of PETG, i.e. the table cell “from PLA to PETG” should have the increased flushing volume.
