Hello all! New to the 3D world. Picked up a P1S w/ AMS. I’ve knocked out my first handful of prints over the last few days. Everything was going great & I’ve been working my way up to slightly more complicated prints as I go. I printed a 2 piece poop bucket file with no problems. The next file I went to was the Dry Pods and Desiccant Trays for AMS. Had tons of downloads so figured it was a good one to pick.
I’m all of a sudden having a terrible time with the parts staying put during the print. I figured ok maybe I just need to clean the plate already. I had done 4 other smaller prints at this point. Cleaned it with alcohol & the 3 big dry pods failed at the exact same place again. They stay in place until it gets to about 75% through the print and then they move.
I’ve read there have been some issues since the last firmware update. I’m sure it could absolutely be something I’m doing wrong as well. I’m using black PLA made by Inland that I picked up from Micro Center at the moment. I didn’t want to go messing around in the slicer settings until I had some sort of a handle on what some of these features even do. Suggestions or tips would be greatly appreciated!!!
Welcome to the forum and the world of 3D printing! I know you’ll see people all over the internet recommend to clean the plate with alcohol, but try one thing for me. Take the plate to the sink and scrub it with dish soap and water. Rinse it good and dry it with something lint-free. Try not to touch the print area with your bare hands during the process. Then try to print them one more time.
Hey thanks for the quick response! With this machine being brand new & the plate only seeing a few prints is it possible it’s already that dirty? How often are you washing the plate? I guess I was somewhat confused last night because I wiped it down & then actually printed a few of the rings to go on the cardboard spool before I made my 2nd attempt on the dry pods. The rings were REALLY stuck on there. I thought I had read to basically use the alcohol in between prints each time & then soap & water a few times a month or as needed. What’s your routine?
No problem, happy to try and help! It’s definitely possible. Each print will leave a bit of residue behind that you can’t see. It’s tough to say exactly how often I’m washing mine because my routine is a bit extreme. I’ve accumulated about 20 of the textured PEI plates so I have them in a printed plate rack beside the printers. When I see the first sign of something not sticking I’ll swap the plate out and put the used one in a stack. I probably take that stack to the sink maybe once a week and wash them all, then put them at the back of the plate holder. When I first started printing I was just using alcohol pads and I think they caused more problems than they fixed, I couldn’t get anything to stick. I’ve basically given up on alcohol completely now (just the cleaning kind lol). Just give it a shot, scrub it good with something that isn’t abrasive.
The plate is not clean from the factory, at least mine weren’t.
Always start with hot water and anti-grease dish soap to clean any grease off the plate, fingerprints will leave it behind and alcohol wont properly clean it off, I do this once a day when I’m doing heavy printing.
Also, start with dry filament. It isn’t dry from the factory and I remember this exact issue when I got my printers. The dry boxes are a bit of a stress test with all the very small openings combined with a fair amount of height. The higher you go the more chance wet filament has created an uneven top layer and the print head is going to crash into it and pop the part right off.
Edit: if you don’t have a filament drier then you can investigate drying on your P1:
Thanks for the tips sir! I’ll do this when I get home & then try again. How long are we letting the plates dry before use? Is it better to just air dry or can I towel them off & go? Moisture is an issue I’ve already learned so I don’t want to introduce another problem by being impatient. lol.
Perfect! This makes sense. I just figured factory plate so should be good to go. I also just assumed that my AMS was showing me it was at level 2 for humidity so I was ok. I did actually throw some extra bags of desiccant in the AMS just for the heck of it last night so that should help my cause there.
I didn’t think about the dry pods being more of a stress test on the printer but that does make sense as well. Plus there isn’t much surface area holding the print to the plate so it wouldn’t take much to knock it loose. I’ll go round 3 tonight & see if I can get a different result!
No really, use gloves as any residue from your fingers will ruin the result.
Use a soft, not a scrubbing sponge, warm water and dishwashing liquid to clean the plate - rinse under running water.
The water shall run off evenly on the entire plate, any spots behaving differently indicate contamination.
Wipe dry with a paper towel.
Place on a flat surface and using a paper towel and window cleaner wipe over the plate with gentle pressure.
You want just enough window cleaner to create a light foam surface while wiping.
Finish with a dry paper towel before the plate dries up.
Why no IPA or such?
Good window cleaner always has alcohol in it, plus surfactants and things to remove all bad stuff.
A window cleaner that still contains a small amount of ammonia (check the list of ingredients on the back) works best.
If the plate is getting a bit old or you print a lot it does help to use a microfibre cloth instead of sponge and paper towel.
Every print leaves a residue on the plate, hence Bambu suggesting to use the glue stick or liquid glue.
It protects the plate and if applied again or wiped with a moist cloth can be restored.
Getting ALL the glue, residue and contaminants cleaned off is the key to prints sticking well and coming out fine
I long ago upgraded from dishsoap.
My plate cleaning kit is Zep Purple Industrial Degreaser, Scotch-Brite scrub Brush from Lowe’s and paper towels.
And through multiple tests, you use that degreaser, you won’t have grease fingerprints on the plate as it degreases your fingers during the scrubbing process.
Also started using the smooth side of the Smoth/Textured PEI sheet which gives a nicer base finish than the textured PEI
Thanks fellas! I didn’t realize the plate was so picky. I’ll be sure to adopt everything mentioned going forward. I’ve got it washed down with some Dawn dish soap & back in the machine. I’m about 50% through my third attempt right now. I’m not optimistic but we will see. I think the last 2 attempts I’ve seen the failure around the 70% mark. I can literally hear the tip pinging against the print every so often as it whips around in there. Hoping it holds up this time but I swear the clearance in there is off. This is coming from a guy that doesn’t know what he is talking about yet though as well. I did make sure to do the bed leveling before I started the print this time. Fingers crossed!
I just figured out how to do it in the app. I took it down to the silent mode. I’m sure it’s going to drag the print way out now but at least maybe it’ll finish this time. I’ll report back!
Well the 3rd attempt was yet another failure. Starting to get a bit frustrated. I lost the first pod at about 70%. The other 2 were still moving along though so I let it run since the 3rd was not interfering. I lost the other 2 pods with literally 20 layers to go! I have no doubts this time the plate was clean & the auto leveling was done before the print. The nozzle taps the prints like crazy as it passes back & forth. I even slowed it down to the 50%(silent mode) for the last half of the print this time. What am I missing fellas? My settings were set to the textured plate before the print. I’m using Black PLA made by Inland. Are there any other settings I need to change that the creators file might be hanging me up on?
Make sure there isn’t anything underneath the plate that could cause unevenness. Dry the ■■■■ out of the filiment, or actually, buy different filiment. You shouldn’t be having any trouble printing PLA. Has anyone suggested keeping the door open yet? Or turning off the aux fan? The enclosure is for ABS and ASA and higher temp filimenta a like that. I know that with some PLAs I’ve had fails because it got too hot in there. Also, be absolutely sure that your material matches what you are using. I had like 3 fails in a row once before realizing I sliced the print as PLA but I had ABS on the spool.
One more thing, since you’re using a 3mf file (which is like a project file), be sure that the maker didn’t design the model to be printed with a .02 or .06 nozzle or something. Make sure your nozzle is tight too. Can you pull off a benchy ok? Did you say it was just taller prints?
Yep, same model as I was printing. I’m going to go out on a limb and say your filament is either not dry or not calibrated properly.
The very thin walls of these dry pods are highly susceptible to issues in this arena, I remember while printing two sets of these watching the head go to certain areas and just clip the mesh walls that look like this ///////////, was just waiting for it to knock it off the plate but it did not, I got lucky.
I would say at this point perhaps re-adjust: do you really want to use PLA for your dry pods? That means you will likely have to remove the beads from the pods to dry them for re-use, unless you want to do that at 55C or less. I would use PETG at minimum, but that’s just me.
I just read the comments under that file. Some people were experiencing fails late in the print due to a lack of supports. Apparently supports are mandatory for this print to succeed but they aren’t in the 3mf
Holy cow guys! Tons of suggestions. Thank you! I’ll run through everything mentioned when I get home & see what I can come up with. I’ll go ahead and get a spool of PETG coming as well.
What are your thoughts on the liquid glue? Any reason for it? I’ve seen mixed reviews on it.
So far I’ve successfully printed a benchy, xmas tree ornament(flat), some of the rings for my cardboard spools, a 2 piece poop bucket, & some dust cap things. They were all stuck pretty good to the plate after completion. The poop bucket was done with the same spool I’m using on these dry pods & it printed out perfect. It has a lot larger footprint obviously. I have a new unopened spool of black Bambu Labs PLA filament that just showed up yesterday. Any chance I’d have better luck with it over this Inland spool? If not I can just wait on this file until I can get a spool of PETG.
Man there is so much info I’m trying to absorb all at once on this my head is spinning. I’ll be glad to get past this initial learning curve.
I downloaded and imported the .3mf files and that file appears to have been created using an X1C.
I have a P1S just like you but the file sets all my settings to an X1C configuration.
If it were me, locate the STL files, not the .3MF project.
One of the folks here can probably elaborate better than me as to what settings are different between the two different models that are less obvious than what I see in Bambu Studio but I can see enough to tell me it is an X1C print recipe