HELP MATES! X1CC is in RIOT mode, H E L P!

[Silverbullit]

Howdy mates,
I’m at my wits end (not that much to brag about to begin with) and I desperately need your help!
My PetG prints suddenly went from flawless to this,

Full frontal…

From behind…

Theres no end to the disaster, whatever I do it keeps barfing out these abominations. They just keep multiplying just like in David Cronenberg’s “The Brood!”

Different AMS spots… oh yeah and different blue PetG (Stronghold “Sky”, 3DFils “Electric ■■■■”, R3D “Blue”, Azure “Blue” and one more butt I threw up, I mean out, tha packaging so I only know it ass blue now… )

I purchased, not ONE, butt TWO filament dryers.
Sunlu S2 since they released it with built in fan (And I got the old packaging without built in fan) and the dual Eibos Cyclopes (This is the first Cyclopes I seen with dual setup, just an afterthought) and printed all the aftermarket parts to get it working. Every roll printed is brand flong new, dryed a minimum of 12hrs on recommended PetG settings. The first pic is dried 24hrs and then an additional 12hrs making it 36 in total. I have all the Silica ■■■■ mods (silika centers for the rolls, silica containers, silica replacement boxes, silica bags, silica this and that and I think in between the pair of X1CC’s I prolly have 2kgs of fresh Silica at any given time (1kg/each at least!) I also got an air de-humidifier, sorry english, mebbe theyre called air dryers or something?
And I run that too above it beying winter here in the desolate northern wilderness of Sweden and at minus 20-30 degrees the air is already dryer than my sense of humor and then some! Dr DRY!

I did a full brand new spare parts change/swap,
Nozzle Wiper
Cutter
Hot End Assembly 0,4mm Hardened Steel
First Stage Feeder
AMS First Stage Feeder
Textured Plate (Goldie)
Hardened Steel Extruder Unit - X1 Series
PTFE Tube Connector
PTFE Tubing

Here I tried various prints/filaments/slicer settings along with previously saved .3mofos that run like a charm pr3viously, but that dog did not hunt either…

Second try, same thing…
Lacking complete Hotend assembly and complete Hardened Steel Extruder unit I popped out the provided spare part nozzle and mounted the ceramic thingy and temp dohickey + fan and changed the little yellow cogwheel/hardened steel thing in the extruder unit and tried some pointless runs.
Took apart more or less everything and cleaned out again…

I did the full maintenance ass per the man himselfes glorious teachings,

10 Bambu Lab Maintenance Steps You MUST Do!

Here I suddenly had some kind of loudly “ticking sounds” from within the printers inside?!?

Redid the belt tensioning part

Tried earlier saved .3mf’s that churned out perfect prints. Looked through the slicer and settings… nothing helped.

Tried different filaments (PetG = Stronghold, R3D, eSun, Sunlu, some more Stronghold, 3DFils electric blue as in prolly the worst filament in the known universe. Asf aso etc mm blahblah)

Took apart the AMS tried to clean, vacuum, BJ, toothbrush, ISO/IPA rubdown

Changed the BRAND NEW hotend AGAIN - Did not have another full assembly so I put together the one that was provided with my initial printer (got 2 of these precious XX1cc’s) Cerebral heater, 0,4 nozzle, Silicone condom, Thermistor, Flux capacitor and screwed it together and fitted the Hardened Steel Extruder Gear Assembly after thoroughly airduster blow, vacuum and toothbrush under flowing ISO and then wiping down with quetips and ending with a BJ before assembly/fitting the entire contraption back.

I did the ass per usual prayers to Daniel B. Wesson, Dr. Turbo, Horace Smith, Nina Hartley and the Almighty Chocolate Labrador before I hit the hard power on button and cranked my beauties up like I was Gene Wilder in Dr Fronkenstiiin…

There we go, PERFECT!!!
No, wteff, wait a moment…

Heres another angle of this beauty…

I ordered a full set of change/spare parts AGAIN from Bambu Shop
Not joking, I’m absolutely devastated and I have nobody I know to turn to so I turn to you mates, h e l p !

Why is my precious treasure doing this?

Above all, how do I FIX THIS AND GET BACK TO PRINTING PERFECT PRINTS!

Help mates, both my printer and my sanity needs your help to solve this horrorshow!

I cant wait to hear from you so much I will probably not be able to sleep tonight… (Despite Covid, fever, migraine )
May the force be with you mates,
/Silverbullit

UPDATE/CONTINUED…

Found a pic from where things suddenly started gettin funky…

Back then I thought I had recieved some shelfed filaments from the latter stoneage, heres some packaging differences that made me wonder if there was a manufacturing shift/update somewhere leaving some straddlers behind…

Back 2 now, I got a package with a complete hotend and I changed up the gears in the thing stuck above the complete nozzle thingie… (A G A I N if theres any question regarding that )

Put on and took this thing in practice for first time ever…

Following your advices (plural) bypassing the AMS and changing filament type to PLA (Only have experience in PetG so far)

Took the quickguide and got some PLA loaded in the external slot and did the apropriate slicer settings…

Nah… total PMS bypassing the AMS, did not even get full lines in the startup… interrupted and checked all connections, cleaned once again (this thing is cleaner than the surgical department) and put everything in again…

I got kinda a finished print… lo and behold… very very strange that it finished but its not really over the finishing line… weird…
FOLLOWING ANOTHER ADVICE, upping the temps…

[Missing pic - 5mm perfect then decides to print air…]
Did the drill again and pressed send print…
OOOH start looking perfect, did I get it?!? What did I get?!? Running to fetch the phonecamera… noticing the printerhead is like 7mm/quarter inch above printing in the air without ANYTHING coming out of the nozzle… wtf?!?
Aight for next run I’ll go full R and not only up the temps, instead I’ll print PLA using the PetG profile that runs everything on higher temps!!!

[Missing pic - stack of 5mm high prints]
Tried 2 more times, getting 5mm start that seemingly looks perfect than it stops extruding and just does some mime gestures in the air above…?!?
Doing the exact same thing repeatedly!

Now Im cleaning and trying different things including different rolls of PetG/PLA asf all through night until early morning when ■■■■ hits the fan… I just forget taking pics of the amount of failures here. Going back to read your input again and give a quick comment pics coming!

I notice this… mind observe this is a BRAND NEW original BLabb silicone condom… in comments you asked if I used complete hotends or put the parts together (Answer is both) I wonder if there could be an air bubble in the thermal grease hole for the Thermistor?!? (Or something bugged with the Ceramic heaters butt it cant be on 4-5 nozzle setups right? Tho in all fairness one of these was a used hotend I exchanged in my first X1 despite working flawlessly during a recent maintenance, renovated it and it is one of the used ones above and with that making it 5 nozzles. Counting the complete hotend popping up in the staircase it will be 6 if you follow the below.)
When trying to clean the printer between runs I did heat it to 250 and tried to carefully scrape the nozzle off with one of them small pliers everyone gets for cutting filaments… but I did not think I made any contact with the silicondom?!? Sigh… I guess this is how new forummembers are made

An additional angle, like a T minus 24hrs old silicone condom should it look like this?

Late ass eff again (eyeballing the kitchen clock) phoning around trying to get a syringe with a needle without kicking in the door @ my neighbourhood crackhouse…
Score, a mates boss is a nurse and also hit the Diabetes jackpot, I got a syringe…
My genius masterplan is to get that puny hole filled with thermal grease using the syringe. The thermistor is BURNED IN TO PLACE! so I have to drill it out, luckily I have a couple of spares so I take this opportunity to renovate what I got with new thermistors and ceramic heaters…

[Missing pic - scrapped Thermistor]

Pherhaps this a better pic of my attempt to solidly fill the puny hole with thermal grease without air bubbles! (Had to drill the ■■■■ inside out with the correct diameter drill and some sensitive touch)

Robbing the horrorshow of cracked silicondom hotend of the fan and assembling the hotend

Grabbing stuff out of my twin working X1CC, put in fresh gears in this sucker too…
Vacuuming around the printerhead while blowing aircannedspray all around it, just a wild bj hoping to hit the spot if something is clogged up somewhere in the heart of this beauty…
Lets send another print!

[Sorryforbadpic - top and bottom 9v batterybox using Bambu Standard PetG settings in slicer and Bambu Standard PLA Orange]
Ehhh…
I got a seemingly goood PLA print out… flabbergasted! (9v battery box)
Hmm, I literally did the same thing over and over again - what just happened?
Is this a one-off or wuzz going on here? (Quoting the canadian cop i South Park the movie)

I need to print something else and get back to you asap mates!!!
Dang printing times!

Oooh I got firmware updates…

AGAIN A BAZILLION THANKS FOR HANGIN IN THERE AND PRECIOUSLY HELPING ME OUT MATES!!!

B R B !!!

[JonRaymond]

This is all printing from the AMS? Try printing from the external spool and see if that changes anything. Also you haven’t mentioned anything about how dry your PTEG is?

[Level23]

You need to eliminate variables. Set the AMS aside and attempt printing easy and reliable pla from the main line. Let’s see how that goes and then we can start to help.

[Silverbullit]

Yo mates,

Level23;
I dunno if I have any PLA - I noobed away since Jan’uarish and did 100% PetG…

LaterRon;
Ass they tellme I’m an artist theres no limit to how bad I can do art, believe me mate, I could do even worse with a 3D pen! (You should see how bad it can get with an old fashioned pen in my case. My nieces asked me if my Mona Lisa interpretation was Freddy Kruger pre-makeup… ) https://youtu.be/3eUH54CAqV8?si=W-KUtbv15ZZGkjAi I tried to put in some AI but most people are shocked when they find out how bad I am as an electrician. (Pun intended) This is where I thought 3D printing could come in handy!

JonRaymond;
That PetG is dryer than my sense of humor - well @ least I hope it is since I dug in to my wallet and coughed out a Sunlu S2 & an Eibos Cyclopes thats gettin worked to death… I dunno, could be some filament are out of best before dating. Got some transparent green eSun where the best before date was carved in with bronze tools on the stone packaging…
Also dried some 3DFils with 5 celsius higher than presettings adviced and that filament crumbled worse than a school student does to facts.

Dunno if it is of any help/clarification butt…
Heres my humble noob setup with dryers and air dehumidifunky within all of its glory

I added the dryer to the description, thanks for giving that one an massage mate!

[Level23]

@Silverbullit, not a ‘noob’ setup by any means!

[JonRaymond]

It’s something to do with the tool head intermittently extruding. Wonder if it is a tool head board on its way out or a fatigued wire in the tool head harness that is intermittently connecting.

[RocketSled]

Here I suddenly had some kind of loudly “ticking sounds” from within the printers inside?!?

Your extruder stepper motor is dying, or the drive gear is stripped. The filament feedrate is lower than it’s supposed to be and the extrusion is stringy and it doesn’t have enough “bulk” to stick to the layer below it, so it all balls up.

Try some PLA. I bet it does the same thing.

[Silverbullit]

Level23
JonRaymond
RocketSled
Hank

Thanks mates for your valuable expertize!
It is so very much appreciated!!!

Oh… is this something a total noob could manage to fix?
So absolutely novice on this that I am uncertain even how to create a ticket with BLabbs support. (I did once on some build plates that went from textured to bald and the support is great as per my factual experience)

I am drying the PLA rolls in the dryers since yesterday, while waiting for the timer I did some cleaning and cold pulls with that white cleaning filament made for coldpulls, also removed some mod guides that shapes the ptfe tubes perfect and avoids collissions with chassi/parts…

Is there a pic of the mentioned drive gear and how to get to it in order to eyeball it over some?
Your options is that one at a time or all in one? Like stepper motor, drive gear, tolhead electronic board, funky wiring or my noob setup that needs a total overhaul?

You guys like… know your S,
What is your recommended course of action here?
A/ try some PLA rolls while bypassing the AMS
B/ create a ticket with BLab
C/ Should I link your diagnosis and list the above parts?

I know this is above and beyond what I should ask but is there a chance this could be covered under BLabbs warrantees? (I seriously emptied my piggybank on filament, bambu lab spare parts/accessories and Amazon electronics for the 3D prints in making… or rather on halt but whatever…)

Will update immediately after my premiere PLA print doomed to failure before getgo

/Silverbullit the limp printer owner…

[Chris1974]

Your printer appears to be underextruding (is extruding less plastic than it should). This can be caused by a number of things:
Hardware:

• Nozzle clogg
• Extruder gears dirty or broken
• Stepper motor not working properly
• fillament is tangled / not coming freely off the spool
• AMS is clogged (if used)
• Filament oozing (too much moisture)
• Filament diameter is too small

Software:

• extrusion parameters (max volumetric speed, steps per mm etc)
• slicing settings???

Since you already dryed your filament and changed out the nozzle, you can stripe those off the list.

What I would do is check the rest and see what you find. Also if you have changed any parameters yourself put them back to standard so you have a good baseline to work from. Maybe do a factory reset on the printer.

If you are a little technical you will manage just fine. It isn’t rocket science.

[olivier.saraja]

It looks like a partial clog to me. You should clean your nozzle. I am new on Bambu but there might be some cold pull procedure equivalent somewhere.

[StreetSports]

Other weird last things to check is thermal paste condition and (if you have an infrared thermometer gun) check the actual nozzle temp and compare to whats being reported.

[Level23]

Definitely eliminate the variables that you can, starting with the AMS. We need to figure out if it’s material, process, or mechanical to start. This will be the same thing that they will tell you to steer with if you submit a ticket. If you can prove that it ultimately is a mechanical issue, the ticket will be justified for sure. Not there yet though in my opinion.

Also, use a default profile with no adjustments on parameters other than maybe support if it’s needed. Don’t mess with speed/temp settings right now.

[Silverbullit]

Mates,
I am following your instructions and ideas also trying to document with pictures. I am trying your solutions as far as I can or think I can. On fifth print now, details and pics will follow!

I do see some variations in the quality, can it get slightly better one print and worsen the following in a totally random continuity?!?

Scratching my bald head trynna figure out wuzz goin on here?!?

[Level23]

@Silverbullit

I do see some variations in the quality, can it get slightly better one print and worsen the following in a totally random continuity?!?

In my experience, it doesn’t vary print to print that much. So, if there is a flaw such as a thin area that becomes a hole in the print, it will always be there with the same print settings. In other words, I don’t consider the physical act of printing an active variable if it is a non-mechanical issue (broken hardware on printer).

If you are starting to get even a somewhat successful print then we are on the right track.

[Silverbullit]

Yo mates!

Should I update the continued efforts down here or should I edit the TS on top?!?

Hmm, I put the updates on top plz checkem out. I followed your precious advice!

(And this lead to a current state of confusion because 5 or 6 nozzle put out a suddenly seemingly O.K. PLA print?!?)

[silver118822]

Curious what temp were you printing at on the PLA and what temp were you using for the PETG?

[Level23]

Those are some seriously gnarly prints. It’s a bit hard to follow above now. If I read correctly, you are still having problems with one nozzle, but the others are fine. Can you send a picture of ‘fine’ print?

[MrDB42]

I too am lost at the current situation… But my 2 cents worth of thoughts.

Out of curiosity, have you “reset to factory” on the printer? Classic adage of “It’s messed up… reset to factory.” I had a different issue not long ago, tried many “fixes”, none worked, so I said “F’it… time to reset the firmware back to factory.” and it worked for fixing the issues (for me).

Also, have you remembered to set the type/size of nozzle on the printer, and made sure they match with the slicer software?

One last thing, if you have a microSD card… format it in the printer. Just for one last thing to clear out.

[Chris1974]

Did you check your spools aren’t tangled up? That sure looks to be the case with this one:

[Silverbullit]

First raised temps in bambu standard petg preset,
when something happened there I reset everything and simply set Bambu Standard PETG (that has much higher temps) and printed using that combo.
I got out a lid and a box that is mostly together (see poor pic added in original post, the orange with threads hanging)