So, been printing for about a week with my P1s (3D printing overall for about 15 years) I make (to sell) lots of 3D parts that require fairly high size tolerances and my files have always printed exactly to scale on my other printers (4 others, 3 brands) but on the P1S the Z axis is too tall (by about 0.54mm on a 21mm tall part) and that’s not acceptable.
All other printers I have owned I was able to easily adjust the steps for the Z axis but can’t find anything online about adjusting the steps or calibrating the axis at all. I also asked on a few facebook groups but all I get are crickets (silence). I get that a lot of Bambu users are less likely to be hands on but someone somewhere must have a clue how to do this right?!?
Hello,
I was not even aware “precise Z height” was a thing (and not sure why it would not be on by default). That got my part a lot closer to 0.1 off instead of over 0.5 off) so thanks for that. I have the same issue with both Bambu and Polymaker filament.
Still curious though how to set calibration for the future.
.1mm(3-4 thousandth of an inch)off at at height of 21mm is only off by 0.47%. The machine uses a steppermotor and should be fairily accurate on z. Theres nothing that im aware of that Bambu will let you adjust to calibrate the movements. You are well within the thermal expansion and contraction of the filament. You can calibrate your filament flow rate and extrusion at this point but thats about it. I get it, as I used to come from an old Clipper based printer where you could adjust anything with marlin. But if you were trying to calibrate a specific filament off of a 21-mm cube you would most likely throw off all your measurements on larger stuff. If I’m missing any other adjustments, I’m sure someone will chime in.
This topic has been discussed many, many times since the inception of this community forum. You’re in Bambu Land now, and you’re going to want to adjust your expectations accordingly.
In the rest of the 3D printing world, it’s all about the user—tweaking, modifying, and customizing every detail to suit their own standards of perfection. That’s not how it works here.
Welcome to Bambu Land, where it’s all about the walled garden. It’s sleek, tightly controlled, and mostly works out of the box. But don’t expect open-ended flexibility. If Bambu thought you needed Z-Axis calibration, they would have provided it already.
I have to agree with Olias here but I would add that it is also the cost of having a warranty.
I owned a couple of Creality machines back when and there was no such thing as tech support or a warranty. I could run the z-axis on my Creality machine until it stalled hitting the upper crossmember.
I’m also confused as to just what you are asking here. Is this an accuracy thing or a build height thing and your model is too tall thing?
Build volume is 256 x 256 x 256 mm. Are you trying to make the Z-Axis taller, say 260mm?
This was an accuracy issue. I make and sell a bunch of different inserts for Altoids mint tins (sell a lot of them) I wanted the Bambu to get them done faster but I needed tight tolerance and I felt like I should be able to just print the same STL files I use on all my other printers but if I do that, they don’t properly fit in the mint tins like they should. In most cases it makes what should smoothly slide in very tight and the lids will not close since they were printing 0.5mm too tall. Not to mention the other 100 or so items I print that need fairly accurate sizing. I am not printing bobbles to sit on a shelf where accuracy can take a back seat but rather useful items and many tools and jigs for machinery and without changing every model I have the Bambu is just not cutting it. I also thought it was going to be a lot faster than my older bed slingers but in most cases so far it’s only 4-10% faster (was expecting around 50%+ faster) but if I do tell it to print faster then the outcome is not acceptable (looks wise). I am close to a month now on this machine and thinking I may have made a mistake choosing it, still trying to tweak things and make it work though for now.
I am seeing that and trying to decide if I made a big mistake or not… Still giving it a chance trying to learn it’s in’s and outs but not sure about it’s future in my mini farm.
Have you tried to maybe just increasing the scale. Going from laying the model on the plat as-is being 100% and going to 101% on the axes that are problematic?
