I got a new filament from a friend (not Bambu) and prints are not so great (comparing to Bambu PLA Basic). I’ll try to dry it more and test more.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to understand which calibrations I can do for that new filament, but I can’t find any compendium of knowledge. which calibrations ? in which order.
there is a bit about calibration Calibration for 3rd Party Printer | Bambu Lab Wiki buy why I don’t have that menu in my BambuStudio? (I have only a button calibration next to project with only “flow dynamics calibration”).
I see there are many calibration tests:
There’s also a calibration menu in Studio, but with fewer built in options than in Orca. Check the banner: Prepare, Preview, Device, Project, Calibration https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/bambu-studio
From the wiki link you posted, running through in the order given is fine. Just note that Bambu’s Flow Dynamics is essentially Pressure Advance.
but what about other tests: Temperature, Retraction, VFA, are they less important ?
I’ve just installed Orca (bad Bambu Wiki doesn’t tell you to do that …), so I see them all.
Very good question, you’ve discovered one of multiple reasons so many of us prefer OrcaSlicer.
For any new-to-me filament, I start with a Generic profile and run Temp, Flow Rate, and PA (aka flow dynamics or K value) calibrations. Those usually are all I need to get good prints. I don’t use the other calibrations unless I’m trying to fix a specific problem.
The recommended order of OrcaSlicer calibrations is the order in the menu, top to bottom, but it is not a requirement. For example, I seldom see much temperature variation for PLA, so I might skip that one.
Temp should be first. But it is a bit difficult to properly interpretate as it is also influenced by speed, cooling and retract settings. So at first, it can only really give you a ballpark figure. Which is also why you may simply skip it and rely on the centre of the manufacturers recommendation. It is just important to fix temp first in order to have it stable for the Flow and Flow Dynamics/PA testing. Just like @lkraus , I usually find those calibrations to be sufficient.
Retraction is worth checking when you see stringing despite drying the filament beforehand.
VFA is filament independant. It checks your printer for belt induced problems.
however when I tried different filaments (esun pla or sunlu petg, i tried their profiles), top surface looks pretty good, but bottom (at negative angle 30 or 45 from vertical) looks pretty bad (esun pla):
Regarding calibration, the Orca guide is a pretty good one.
Personally, I prefer the PA line test to the tower test as I find it easier to interpretate while also being faster. Fortunately, I rarely need it as the X1 does it automatically better than I can. So I only use it on the Plus 4 or in case of LIDAR issues.
I never really bother with more than Flow and PA/Flow Dynamics as it is usually enough.
Regarding the difference between PLA and PETG, well, they behave very, very differently in fast printing.
Most importantly, while both have similar moisture uptake rates (by Bambu Datasheets), PETG reacts much stronger. So I myself can not get away from drying PETG when new while PLA usually (but not always) allows me to get acceptable prints with moisture.
From my trials, I expect that this PETG sensitivity to moisture is related to its thermal and rheological sensitivity.
My experience is, that it appears to react much more strongly to forced cooling (=> curling and warping) while also taking longer to give up heat (curling, sagging, oozing, stringing). This shows in particular in its overhang performance.
While I have found the “Generic PETG” default cooling settings to be quite good, I usually slow down my PETG prints quite a bit and use adaptive layer height to avoid running into the curling overhang death trap. Literally. I did loose me a couple of nozzles to PETG curling.
So expect very different printing, in particular overhang, behavior between PLA and PETG.
But it also happened with eSun PLA, surfaces on negative side were pretty bad (that above black print)
if I put that surface on positive side, it’s super nice
ok, I see PETG is more problematic, i’ll leave for bigger objects, I’ll try to improve my black eSun PLA then. as you can see, on positive surfaces it looks amazing, just negative ones are not so good as Bambu Pla Basic (orange). Should I dry it more? or calibrate?
also that eSun black PLA doesn’t stick to the bed the same way, I can’t do my prints on the same surface and position like Bambu PLA Basic, eSun disconnects from the bed mid print
Ok, I see a few items here that can make interpretation of your difficult.
Regarding drying, I am not sure how long you have dried the rolls. For PLA, I usually go for 6-8h at 55°C. Bambu’s recommendations are different but certainly err on the side of caution
Only when the materials are known to definitely be dry can you really compare them.
But that does not neccessarily help with the tests themselfes. When scaling down and printing small parts, you can run into the minimum layer time. In the filaments cooling setting the 100% fan speed time criterion and a check box further down. Once you run into that, you no longer know which settings have actually been applied during the test print. The low angle at which you see overhang defects indicates to me that the test model did not have sufficient time to cool.
You can overcome this problem by printing 2 or more test models at the same time (far apart on the build plate) and/or forcing a prime tower by enabling it in"Other" settings and taking a “Smooth” timelapse.
As for that lower bound layer height, you can go lower than .08. But it’ll probably not help so much regarding overhang performance as flow control becomes an issue below .04mm.
i printed with .08mm layers just to see how much quality I can get. (not because overhangs). as I said, Bambu PLA Basic (orange) looked perfect from the beginning. Does it mean uSun PLA needs more cooling? I can try to print 2 objects at a time.
Orange Bambu PLA was out of a box. first black print (eSun PLA) was out of a box too, but now I’m finishing drying it in eSun S2.
I have not used eSun for a while so I can’t really comment on specifics. I had tried with cooling parameters re PETG but found it to be really difficult. Simply lowering speeds (and accelerations for snall details) was much better.
Best to run the test with definitely dry filament while having sufficient layer times for an even cool down.
what happened here? those 2 that failed were printed at 45* with support and brim (like the other to that successed at 30*)
Why did that fail mid print? now I realised i made a mistake, i disconnected everything from the plate without looking closer.
It looks like the bottom didn’t stick to a brim ? (before support could support the structure) ?
I set everything very slow, layers .08mm, first layer 30, max speed 50 for everything, even acceleration max 2000. bed temp 70.
I am afraid that a little more info would be needed.
How long have you dried the roll at which temp?
How does the actal layer time relate to the time set for the max fan speed in the filaments cooling settings?
What were the slicer preview speeds?
What was the the slicer preview flow?
@EnoTheThracian On which setting/preset should I execute calibration tests?
on default for current nozzle? (layer height .2mm - nozzle .4mm) or are those tests layer height specific and if I want to achieve best details at .08mm layer height - I should execute calibration on .08mm layer height as well ?
Flow and Flow Dynamics are dependant on Filament and Nozzle, not other process settings.
You’ll find that any layer height setting will not actually be applied for the Calibrations in Studio.
Hey. P1S. I’m trying to achieve the same quality I got from ORANGEBambu PLA Basic. BLACK non shining is eSun PLA Basic, GLOSSY is Sunlu PETG.
I print it on .08mm layer High Quality preset (so the speed is already decreased).
Filaments were dryed overnight in Sunlu S2 dryer, at least one cycle 6h (50* for PLA and 65* for PETG), and now I kept in AMS with desiccant, hygrometer says 35*C, 12% humidity
When I printed my object first with orange PLA, even negative 45* surfaces were perfect, whereas black PLA were bad (first picture) - also that black PLA didn’t stick well to textured PEI. (contact surface is quite small)
I achieve quite good surface with black PLA putting that surface at 30-45* positive - however then the back lacks some details, which are needed as well. - and also it’s printed on it’s edge, so it needs some support.
So I’m just wondering is it just Bambu PLA basic way better filament ? or is it just settings ?
That does indeed help. With the P1 not having an auto flow calibration, you should indeed calibrate each filament for flow and, subsequently, flow dynamics. I find flow dynamics using the Pattern easier to interpretate than the tower.
Key influences on these two are the filament and the nozzle, in particular its condition (wear).
In the past, I have found that even color can influence a materials rheology. In particular black tended to ooze, string and sag a bit more. I attributed it to the pigmentation having a strong effect. I do have to say though, that with the Bambu PLA, I am getting consistently goid prints. But.my X1 does use auto calibration.
While there are several avenues to explore to improve overhang performance, I myself have found the easiest parameter to control to be speed.
Nozzle temperature also adversely affects layer bonding while cooling settings are highly interconnected and as such a bit of a box of Pandora.
Speeds on the other hand are easy to set in the slicer and can be used to give more time for cooling while maintaining layer bonding.
Finally, you need to be careful not to run into other effects outsides of your investigation. So take a careful look at all the slicer previews (flow, speed, fan, layer time) while keeping a look out for the print determining factors. Is the print flow controlled, speed setting controlled or layer time controlled is very important when determining root causes for suboptimal prints and quite likely an overriding issue for small samples.
So it could very well be that the filament is not very good. But usually, every filament has its sweet spots. Finding these should not be too difficult though when starting from manufacturers recommendations. As long as they are in the realm of physical possibility that is…
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