This is my first foray into 3D printing. I ordered my Bambu Lab A1 Combo from Bambu Lab UK on Thursday 25th Jan 2024. Received notification on Friday 26th that delivery was scheduled for Saturday 27th, however that did not suit so changed the delivery to Monday 29th, it duly arrived just after 10am. So pretty good service from both Bambu Lab UK and DPD the courier.
Of course over the weekend the whole damaged cable issue arose but on inspection although the “strain grommet” appears to be damaged the cable seems OK at present. I have raised a ticket with Bambu requesting a replacement unit.
OK enough of “cable-gate”!
As well as the A1 Combo I purchased some spares, plus 7 rolls of various colours of Bambu Lab PLA Tough with Spools.
So after doing the normal installation and assembly, syncing the AMS with the printer, initially I tried to print items directly from the SD card. Every one failed to adhere to the Bambu Textured PEI plate despite washing it with hot water and Fairy Liquid and spraying the plate with strong hold hair spray. I was very careful not to touch the plate, other than the edges when handling it.
I then tried some models from Bambu Studio models downloaded from Makerworld (including the Cable Protector) plus some primitive cubes I created in Bambu Studio. All of these printed with almost no issues. I used various colours from the spools that I had.
However, I have the same issue with each of them and every print I do. When printing the 1st colour and often after a colour change there is a piece of filament hanging from the nozzle, despite it going through the nozzle cleaning process it is still hanging from the nozzle 90% of the time which of course causes issues with the initial part of the print. Once it had printed a bit it was clear and printed fine for the rest of project. Often I had to pause the print to remove the hanging filament. Often it will drop melted filament on the bed rather than in the poop receptacle, which I then have to remove.
The printer has to be “baby sat” for the initial part of the print. I know that those on here with experience of previous printers will tell me that that was the norm, but I did not think that this should be happening with the A1. This does cause lots of less than perfect prints which is annoying.
I thought that I would try a prime tower, even with a single colour but it did not always go to the tower at first, however when the tower was used it did normally clear the issue. Is there any way of forcing it to go to the tower before it starts on the model?
I wondered if this was caused by me using PLA Tough rather than PLA Basic, I always sliced with the PLA Tough selected as per the AMS. Could the filament be the issue, PLA tough is all that I have, as there was very little PLA basic available when I ordered.
The other thing that I do not understand is the amount of time it takes for the printer to actually start printing any model. Despite turning the auto levelling off as part of the printing initiation, other than immediately after the plate has been removed for cleaning when I select levelling, it still goes thru the auto levelling at least once and sometimes twice before starting to print. It also stops for ages before starting the printing either with no message or saying homing printer head, I think it is. Again this may be the norm, but for example if the figure given for preparation after slicing is 6 minutes it sometimes takes double that! Is there any way of speeding this up, or is it a case of patience as a lot of 3D printing seems to require.
I have to say that despite these niggles I am delighted with the printer, after my initial failures from the SD card (why should these fail?) I have had no complete failures. If I could just sort the issues outlined above I would be very pleased indeed.
Any suggestions gratefully received.
Michael