Irritating under-extrusion problem after FW update? Try this

[rdewsbery]

For the last 3 weeks or so my X1C has been bugging me with an under-extrusion problem. Not catastrophically bad, but bad enough to make a lot of my usual output unsellable.

And I could not tell why; files that had printed fine, with filaments that had printed fine, were under-extruding to the point where I could see lines in the first and last layers, or a grid-like pattern on the top layer. I re-calibrated the machine (over and over). I cleaned the nozzle again and again (which helped a little); I ruled out problems with the path from the AMS; I rolled back the FW (as the problems seemed to start when I updated to 1.0.6). I dried filaments. I cleaned the whole machine, tweaking tensions, lubing everything etc etc. I stripped the extruder and cleaned it with a dental pick. I tried printing on “silent” (which like the cleaning, seemed to make a TINY bit of difference - but not enough). None of it eliminated the problem.

I was determined NOT to change the software settings such as flow rates and speeds, as they had been spot on fresh from the factory throughout June and July. Finally I gave in and ordered a new hot end, despite others reporting similar problems saying that it hadn’t helped them. I was that desperate.

Well, the new hot end will turn out to be a waste of money (I’ll keep it as a spare, though); as I have now fixed the problem. And it took ten minutes and no effort at all.

Having updated/rolled back/re-updated etc the firmware, I decided to do a factory reset on the machine. I was a little nervous, but apart from having to re-input my wifi password, re-pair the machine to the app and re-run the calibration routine, it was painless.

And now the problem has gone. Completely. The machine has just turned out some parts as neatly as ever - not a hint of under-extrusion. Which frees me up to get on and print some mission-critical pieces which I’d had to avoid doing while the machine was misbehaving.

Best guess is that one of the recent FW updates unintentionally altered something like the flow rate when it should not have done, which was fixed only after a full factory reset.

As to everything else, I’m still going to recommend using cleaning filament once a week - it takes a minute, and is much, much easier and less dramatic than cold pulls. But if like me you’re having inexplicable under-extrusion, and updated your firmware recently, do yourself a favour and try the factory reset. And if it works, leave a comment below so I know that it wasn’t just me!

[3dsurfr]

Any before/after photos?

[rdewsbery]

I had some showing the problem at its worst, but deleted them (due to icloud storage space issues). However, you can see some of the issues here. The box lid was printed face-down, and should be completely smooth, but under-extrusion was leaving lines that you can see criss-crossing the surface. People might have said that it was fist layer issues, but the problem repeated throughout the part and was particularly pronounced on the final layer (which you can’t see here).

[vladimir.minkov]

great thanks a lot for that i will give it a go as i upgraded a few days ago and last 2 days with eASA have issues like never before.
I did print with ABS after the upgrade and did machine clean and calibration and recalibrated(flow,K) the filament and was ok with ABS

But as soon as switched back to eASA many issues, spend a lot of time , drying the filament , then flow and k again tunning and got a very different values from before the upgrade. After all this small parts stared printing ok , but as soon as start big parts everything started failing after certain height never had this issues before with ASA , currently printing a big model with ABS no issues , and as soon as it finishes will go through Factory reset

Wondering if i do factory reset and fix the ASA probably will need again to retune the ABS .

I will update the post if i get back old flow and k factor for ASA or if it solves the issue(still may be a bad roll had this in the past), it may mean that they have changed some parameter table, which is not updated with firmware and Factory reset actually ensures that all internal parametric data is reset as well, usually firmware update should not touch any parametric data as it is suppose to be backwards compatible

[rdewsbery]

Here’s a couple of “before and after” shots. Both items printed from the same file, using the same filaments, about 24 hours apart - the one on the left pre-factory reset, the one on the right after.

And the improvements are obvious to my eyes - not just the top surface and first layer, but the geometry of the piece.

[RMB]

I always recommend performing a factory reset after applying new firmware.
I also highly recommend using cleaning filament, especially between infused filaments such as carbon fibre, glow or metallics, as the particles tend to get stuck in the heatbreak and I’m always surprised how much it draws out. I usually take out the PTFE after an unload (so I don’t have to use a large length), heat up to 230, then use the manual extruder buttons to draw in the cleaning filament and then once it’s coming out clean, manually activate the cutter and reverse extruder direction to take the piece out. Then put the PTFE back in and start a load for the new filament like normal.

[JayZay]

@rdewsbery

recent FW updates

Whilst I didn’t notice under extrusion, I noticed prints differed after the last firmware.
I wasn’t sure, as I also replaced a faulty part cooling fan (yet both should work identically) and only found similar complaints regarding PLA filament.
As I wasn’t satisfied with the print results, I decided to recalibrate all filaments (pressure advance and flow), taking advantage of the automatic calibration and verifying tolerances and accuracy (a few times, I needed to carry out manual calibration). I’ve done this over the last weeks, with useful prints in between.
Until now, the results for the 0.4mm nozzle are great, yet different from what I had before.
I still miss three spools to finish and will move on to the abrasive filaments with 0.6 mm.

[zviratko]

Does pressure advance calibration survive a factory reset? I don’t think it’s stored in the slicer and synced to the cloud (like the printer/filament/print profiles) but rather in the printer.
I wonder if that’s what messed up - I had issues immediately after updating to the last (or rather pre-hotfix) firmware where PA just went crazy after calibrating and I had to power cycle the printer. Then had a similiar issue 3 days ago where after calibrating a filament (and the calibration looking good) I had horrible underextrusion that looked like borderline spaghetti in places - again, power cycle fixed it.
Losing all PA calibration values wouldn’t be so bad if there was a way to easily import them back - alas, you need to run through the calibration cycle if you want to add anything

[vladimir.minkov]

i did follow your advise and now on the calibration gives me better results for both PETG and ASA
Still about to run real test tonight , but looks better for me too

The only thing i am not sure if it is due to the factory reset in my case or due to both filaments were left in the driers for over 10 hours extra, but before the factory reset was in the drier for at least 10 hours so . Probably it is the RESET

[vladimir.minkov]

I store that in the filament profile , but only possible with Orca slicer(has option and tools for calibration) , which almost like Bambu Studio but better but much better calibration options and i find it easier.

[chipporter]

This issue just started on my X1C. Is this under extrusion? Its Hatchbox PLA (dry) The first one printed perfectly several weeks ago

[alain.vd]

It seems that there are some bugs about the managment of the filament’s parameters when changing the material. Let me expose you my experience.
I have set PVA filament on the printer for testing some printings. After my test, i decided to change the filament and came back to PLA. So the sequences througt the printer panel were :

• Unload PVA filament
• Load PLA filament
• Indicate that now the filament is PLA with it’s colour
• Set the calibration value according to my PLA
• Launched printing from a file i had already used from SD Card.
  I stayed near the machine and after the first layer start I had a big surprise to see that the printing was with a very bad quality. So I manually stopped it.
  I decided to just make a Power Off / Power On with the power switch and launch again a printing. No more problem after !
  This issue occurred 2 times, and for these 2 times, I changed from PVA to PLA. And fort the 2 times, a simple Power Off / Power On restart solved the problem.
  On the following pictures, you can see the different issues i had with the first layer.
  
  
  
  
  

[Damocles]

This is very interesting. I have had many issues with files I saved on older filmwares not printing right. I know they have changed the default options in bambustudio, and for some reason, allowed those changes to edit old saved custom settings. I am curious if this would fix my issues. The one annoyance would be redoing my settings again

[zviratko]

That’s exactly the type of issue I’ve seen right after they released the new firmware. A day or so later they released a hotfix and I haven’t had any issues until last week.
That said, the first filament I tried calibrating was some weird Nylon I think, which has just completely mad PA characteristics, so the issue was much more apparent. For most prints and materials, you can hardly tell K=0.02 from K=0.04 unless you are printing really fast with big flat surfaces (and even then it’s mostly visible from inside on corners and infill), so it’s absolutely possible it’s still horribly broken and we just aren’t noticing.
I power cycle my printer every now and then since that last experience, especially when changing more materials, calibrating or reconnecting AMS, guess it wasn’t mere paranoia…

[JayZay]

@zviratko

Does pressure advance calibration survive a factory reset?

Good question; for now, I don’t want to try it. I am storing pressure advance and flow ratio in an Excel sheet to restore it if necessary.

@zviratko

you need to run through the calibration cycle if you want to add anything

Yes, but not necessarily calibrating. You can start and interrupt a manual calibration process and move forward to setting the values. Yet, you still need to do it one by one.

[zviratko]

You are right, I discovered that trick with cancelling calibration as well, but that still means going through this hackish process many times (depending on how many calibrations you have) - it would still take at least an hour for me, I think.

I hope they are going to refine the process in the next version - namely managing and adding results in the slicer freely, storing the results in the cloud (.json files from Orca already store pressure advance and sync across with Studio, so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel), and of course fixing the many bugs (no K-Value after power cycle, randomly using wrong values, losing them, Studio not showing K value for slots randomly and many many more…). One can hope

[vladimir.minkov]

Confirming after factory reset fixed all my issues. as reported above and me and everyone else
No Problems with ASA printing , and before the reset saw some issues in PETG as well , which were gone after factory reset and machine calibration

In general does not make sense:

• i am using only manual K and flow calibration with orca slicer . Not sure what the factory Reset did
  But after the Reset the required ASA flow value changed so i did new flow calibration and new K calibration( the values were calibrated with upgraded firmware no factory reset)
  But the PETG with the values(flow/K) from before firmware upgrade started working with out any change after the factory reset

[Darren_Lynch]

After reading this thread I also factory reset, I got a noticeable improvement in bed adhesion for PETG, started knocking my temps back to normal levels. What’s this all about?

Thanks for the read all!

[rdewsbery]

It sounds like the FirmWare update should have come with the clear and simple instruction to carry out a factory reset after applying the FW patch! It is possible that it did, but if so I certainly missed it. Of course most of us are familiar with doing a power cycle after applying any sort of FW update, but it’s not my normal habit to do a complete reset to factory defaults.

[NicePrintTiger]

@ rdewsbery
What “due to icloud storage space issues” - Have I missed something about storage space issues?