Got a new A1 printer just about 2 weeks ago. For the first week my printer was printing perfectly fine, but in the past couple of days I’ve had the same problem happen twice.
The best way I can describe it is, it looks like the print head is trying to force itself entirely off the bar and aggressively jams itself into the filament cutter, making this horrendous grinding sound. I was downstairs when it happened and it was so loud that it sounded like our neighbors were drilling something into the wall, until I realized it was the printer because it was vibrating so much I could feel it. I couldn’t get a recording of the issue either time it has happened.
The issue happens mid print, it just decides to freak out in the middle of a print, then after a minute or so it will go back to printing, until it freaks out again. The first time it happened, it happened twice in one print. The second time, when I heard it I ran to cancel my print because I seriously thought it would damage something inside my printer.
Now I’m quite new to 3D printing, so I’m not sure if an issue like this could actually damage the inner components of the printer or not, I just wanted to be cautious because printers are not cheap.
Any help would be nice, I saw posts about a similar issue with other series printers but people were saying it only happened when they first started their prints, while mine just randomly freaks out mid print.
Thanks for the advice, I will definitely be going to support with this. Your interpretation of the problem is exactly what I was imagining as well, it looked like it was trying to force itself out of bounds
I only use Bambu Studio. The first time this issue happened was using the Bambu Handy app from my phone, my mom was browsing and found something she really from the app and just set it to print. Second time, the file was downloaded from an external website (cults 3d) and imported into Bambu Studio on my PC
What you’re trying to print may not be for the A1 or there is custom G-code in the model. Loading someone else’s model into Bambu Studio does not guarantee a successful print. The printer specs must match. I’m thinking the model was set up for a larger printer.
I’m thinking the model was set up for a larger printer.
I’d normally say that yes, that would make sense - but seeing as the A1 has the largest bed (along with the P- and X-series) that Bambu Labs currently offers, I don’t think bed size itself is the issue.
Choosing a wrong motion system (fx. CoreXY instead of cartesian) could create such issues, but Bambu Studio gives a very specific and stark warning against this (and if I remember correctly, there’s not way to bypass this warning).
Then there’s the matter of this only happening periodically for Maiye, which doesn’t quite line up with the gcode being wrong - as it doesn’t sound like it’s at the same layer heights, but instead appear to be random.
I agree with MalcTheOracle in opening a support ticket with Bambu.
In the meantime, I’d be curious to hear which firmware version and how the wifi connection (signal strength) for your printer is.
I’ve had something similar happen to my P1S two times in total. This is from many, many prints - but I haven’t been able to conclude anything from those two times it happened to me. It might also be that our cases are completely unrelated.
Since I gave the P1S a persistent MAC adress on the wlan, this hasn’t happened to me - but it might be coincidence, as a vector of 2 is nothing to talk about, and I couldn’t find a way to replicate the error. So it could also be due to a later firmware or something completely else entirely.
I went to a local 3D printing business in my town and spoke to the owner about the issue, and he brought something up that made a lot of sense. One of the prints that failed I was able to print fine in the past, so he doesn’t think it is the gcode. He thought it might be my belt tension because of the sound I was hearing. He said that the tension being loose on the belt might have caused the teeth to skip, and the printer was not able to register that my printer head was hitting the end the build plate because of it (Something like this, I understood what he meant but I can’t put it back into words lmao).
I’ve tried tightening the belt a bit, but only time will tell if this was actually the issue, since it wasn’t exactly a problem I had with every or even most prints, and it was only occasionally.
The belt would have to be extremely loose for that to happen, which is highly unlikely.
On less intelligent printers, if the print head “crashes” into the print itself during a travel move, it could skip enough steps to cause its next move end up in a wildly wrong location. However, the A1 is supposed to be able to detect a single lost step pretty much instantly and then re-home the axis before continuing. This feature is called “Auto-recovery from step loss.” Given that your print continues in the correct place after these collisions, it seems that the feature is working at least partially as intended. However, it should detect the issue at the point of collision and re-home the axis gracefully. What you describe does not sound graceful.
Such “crashes” can occur if a part of the print curls up in a way that causes the nozzle to hit it when it comes back around. This is common in areas with large overhangs or when using cubic infill, due to the internal walls of that pattern being at a 45-degree angle, creating a “rasp” or “barb” pattern from the nozzle’s perspective. I recommend avoiding that infill pattern for this reason, especially for more curl prone filaments.
This won’t help with your current issue, but since you mentioned belt tension, it’s important not to over-tighten timing belts. Over-tightening can permanently damage them by snapping their internal fibers as they make tight turns. While it’s unlikely you’ve put that much tension on your belt, it’s worth knowing. I’ve seen people with printers like the Ender 3, which allow for very tight adjustments, needing to re-tension their belts regularly. This indicates they have broken belt fibers, causing the belts to stretch more over time.
Ok, but I wasn’t aware the model was for a Bambu Labs printer at all. He said he got it off Cults 3D which typically doesn’t specify any printer. And from what I understand has a tainted history. There are larger printers than the A1. But apparently you are more informed by reading between lines that I missed. I yield to you and your crystal ball.
Sorry for off topic - but something you wrote got me curious. I’ve also noticed subreddits blocking the mentioning of Cults3D - but I haven’t found a reason.
Would you care to elaborate on what you’ve heard…? I used it a bit in 2019, then forgot all about it until a month ago, and have used it two time since.
I am actually curious as well, I’ve been using Cults3D a lot since I got my first printer since there are quite a few nice models on there selling for just a couple dollars.
What I heard was old news and don’t care to spread “rumors” about the current offerings. I’ll just say, “I wouldn’t download any file off that site–Free or paid”. The risk far outweighs the gain.
I’m using the latest version (01.03.01.00) and signal strength is great, I’ve never seen any issues there.
My belt wasn’t necessarily extremely loose, but I was told by the owner it’s possible that since it wasn’t happening very often, potentially it was just loose enough for it to cause this problem every once in a while. After all, this issue has only occurred twice in two weeks of printing. I haven’t entirely thrown out the possibility, and I’ve adjusted the tension to be pretty perfect according to what I saw with his printers, so hopefully I can see a difference.
As for this, I don’t think it’s actually possible to over tighten on the A1, since it’s not manual. The printer tightens itself when you move it back and forth on the rod a couple of times. It seems to be good now, not too tight but not loose either.
New thing I want to bring up. Could this be an issue with my MicroSD card? I just got the issue “read/write exception”, on my Micro SD. I paused my print and resumed it, and then a new variant of this issue happened immediately. It printed the next layer of the print fine, then rather than continuing another layer the print head started moving to all 4 corners/all around the edges of the print bed with the horrible grinding sound happening, jamming itself into all 4 corners repeatedly and dragging itself over to the next corner with this really bad grinding sound. I never had this Micro SD error message come up before but wondering if it could have caused any of the previous issues? (Using the micro sd that came with the printer)
Hello mate! Do you know what the problem was in the end? I think the same thing happened to me today, but only for a brief moment and just once! But I think it matches your description exactly! What did you find out in the end?
