I recently purchased the X1 Carbon + AMS and have been printing a lot of parts with the official filament that came with the printer.
Most of these prints have been made with BambuLab PLA Carbon Fiber using AMS (and without it too) and I really love the result.
I wanted to continue printing with this filament, but it is not available to order in the BambuLab store, so I bought a SUNLU (https://www.sunlu.com/products/pla-carbon-fiber-1-75-mm-diameter - filament-weight-1kg-2-2lbs-length-330m-printing-material-spool-100-no-bubble-shipping-from-usa) from Amazon to continue printing with this finish.
I configured the filament in Bambu Studio with the manufacturer’s recommendations that you can see on their website.
The prints start out fine… but after a while, no filament is extruded and the hotend prints in air. I don’t know why this happens, but it happens every time I print a medium or large part with this SUNLU filament, regardless of whether it is from AMS or directly feeding it. If I print a small part with this filament or any other size using BambuLab (PLA Basic) filament, everything is fine.
1st, thanks for providing the timelapse videos!!
2nd, are there any errors or obviousy issues on the screen or Studio?
Sunlu, in all material types and factors is my go to filmanent here where I live, its just 1/4 of the price of anything else, so I daresay its not the vendor \brand but some configuration issue or a mechanical issue.
To elminate, I presuime you have no Bambu or other filament to try?
Can you post your custom programed Sunlu filament settings?
Are you getting any broken filament ,clogged extruder or filament not feeding errors?
This almost HAS to be an extruder issue but WHY is what we need to figure out.
BTW - Here is a video printing 4 colour Sunlu PLA+, with tall object completed in good quality and finish for reference.
I agree with @DruiD - this looks like an extruder clog or feed issue.
If it also happens when feeding from an external spool that rules out the AMS, although PLA-CF is brittle and prone to breakage when wound back and forth by an AMS, so Bambu Lab does warn before using PLA-CF in an AMS. I accept the warning and have fortunately not had any AMS feed issues with it, but a 0.6mm or 0.8mm nozzle are less prone to blockage when using CF or GF filaments.
After it has stopped feeding, how do you get it going again for another print? Do you stick a needle up the heated nozzle and do a cold pull to flush the nozzle?
The extruder is simple enough to disassemble and inspect for blockage, broken filament or accumulated debris that may be reducing the grip of the knurled feed wheels.
I bought 30 rolls of the Sunlu Black Matte filament.
after about 5 rolls the extruder was getting clogged…
Not blaming Sunlu type filament, maybe it is the Matte type that is the issue.
but I did have to replace the nozzle and do cold pulls also.
but I bought:
“3D Fuel 3D Clean Printer Nozzle Cleaning Filament” on Amazon $17 / 50 sticks
set the temp to 230c using manual controls…
feed the stick thru the extruder then follow it up with some
standard PLA, until the PLA color came out, drop the temp to 100c then
back out the filament using the manual controls until you can perform the standard
cold pull…
I used a pink PLA and it showed a ton of the black matte left in the extruder…
the Clean sticks took out quite a bit… the the cold pull definately did the final clean.
Bottom line the next series of prints were perfect…
Maintenance seems to be the key… with our black matte…
so every 10-15 prints using the matte type we do a clean process…
Then I decided to disassemble the hot-end (following the second part of the same video) and removed a broken filament that was there obstructing the hot-end.
Victory? That’s what I thought… but then I put everything back together and the extruder is still not able to feed material.
I tried heating the hotend to 220 and pushing the filament directly at the same time as pressing the “load” button on the screen, but there is no filament in the output.
I have seen the yellow wheel spinning when I push the filament but at some point in this process it gets stuck and makes the sound you can hear in the video below. I don’t know if that’s normal or maybe is a problem in this mechanism.
Any ideas? What should I do? The printer is new (one week), should I return it?
Today I wake up ready to disassemble the extruder to see if there was any filament clogging it.
But first I did a test. I tried feeding the hot-end directly while pressing the extrude button on the printer. The filament wasn’t extruding, so there was still some kind of blockage there, even when I was able to push the needle into the nozzle and it passes through the entire hot end perfectly. With this step I ruled out the extruder from the problem and focused only on the hot-end.
I cleaned the hot-end again a couple of times, with the same procedure that I put in my previous message and some pieces of black filament (PLA CF) were extracted.
Then the hot-end started feeding the filament as usual and after assembling it, it seems to start working perfectly again
I don’t know if the filament that caused this was the BambuLab PLA CF or the Sunlu PLA CF, but from the color of these pieces it is clear that it was one of them.
The question now is: what are the correct settings for the SUNLU PLA CF? The two tests I did previously were failing (previous videos) using the same settings as BambuLab PLA CF and Generic PLA. What do you think? Can you share your settings for this filament?
And of course, thank you for your help throughout this process!
Just today I had this exact same problem. I was using Bambu PLA-CF with the default settings in Bambu Studio. I printed a single part and it worked perfectly. I then tried to print 8 copies of the same part simultaneously. I got 15 layers printed and then the layers after that were “air” layers.
I took me a full two hours to clear the blockage using the same guide as you. I’m now doing the same print job with PLA-Basic and, with about 10 layers to go, it’s looking great.
I purchased the X1C so that I could use some of the “trickier” filaments but I’m not going through the drama of unblocking the nozzle again if I can avoid it. So, my roll of PLA-CF is back in a vacuum sealed bag, on the shelf.
The sample Bambu PLA-CF that shipped with the X1C has blocked the nozzle after a print a few times, but it can be cleared in under 10 minutes. It took half an hour the first time while following the Wiki’s detailed instructions. The print completes but unless the next print is started immediately, there’s a 1/5 chance the nozzle may be clogged.
3-Minute Unclog: The good news is it can be unclogged in under 3 minutes by heating the nozzle to 250C, then pushing the wire up the nozzle, and then manually (from the screen or slicer controls) feeding filament through the nozzle, then printing immediately. This is normally sufficient, even though the filament just pushes the clogged material (due to the CF strands) through the nozzle. I have not had it block a second time (i.e. immediately) when doing this.
6-Minute Unclog: If the wire alone doesn’t clear the nozzle clog, then remove the hotend and do the “cold pull” using a 1.5mm Allen key.
@ecentinela I am a bit confused by what you said, so apologies, but in efforts to further help and understand, some clarity please.
How can you rule out the extruder, by cleaning the hot end? Hot end \ nozzle clean -
Did you insert the needle, all the way up the nozzle, through the extruder,out the top when the PTFE tube is? (dont recommend this…)
OR
Did you unscrew the hotend and just run the needle through nozzle end, right out other side of hotend.
Extruder-
Did you actually pull apart and fully clean\verify the extruder - even small bits could make that clicking sound?
If you HAVEN’T pulled apart the extruder and you had all this filament build up in the nozzle, I would defintely take a good look next time (I suspect this will happen again…)
Then yes, sounds like some PLA CF is cooling and remaining stuck between prints, leaving behind goo to jam up the ffilament path next time. But, this seems odd if you as you say had fully inserted a needle all the way through the nozzle and hot end. You should have felt something.
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Sounds like needed a better clean throught the nozzle and hotend. A good thing that might help is “cleaning filament” - if your going to leave a long period between PLA-CF and or other tricky filaments, look at getting some cleaning filament to immedaitly run through and flush out any remaining PLA-CF - that may help.
A few others above my message have reported similar experiences with Bambu PLA-CF - is this the sample spool, or you have purchased more Bambu PLA-CF? etc
As requested, Sunlu PLA-CF settings - all pretty standard
Nozzle range - 190 to 230 max
Intial layer - 220, other layer 210
Density - 1.24
Bed Temps - I run Bambu PEI Textured Hotplate at 55, Bambu smooth hot plate at 60\65 (its slighy worn adhesion wise)
Also @CanDo has posted some good tips - I would keep them in mind for next time. ass well as a extruder tear down once in awhile to make sure no small bits are in there too.
and now use it when I suspect the nozzle is getting dirty…
and also do a cold pull afterwards… with any standard PLA usually a light color. pink in
my case, it shows all the black still left in the nozzle…
Sorry @DruiD I will try to explain me better this time.
When I say “rule out the extruder”, I mean I discarded the extruder from the problem and just focused in the hot end. If I coulnd’t push down the filament directly in the hot-end, the problem should be there. Make sense now?
Even being able to insert the needle all the way up the nozzle perfectly (after unscrewing the hotend), I could not push the filament down manually through the hot end. Maybe the “path” was enough for the needle but not for the filament? After a few back and forth movements with the needle and pushes with the filament, it started to spit out the filament. Then followed the unclog video procedure and it worked.
I didn’t pull apart the extruder and I didn’t touch it. I’m quite afraid of dissasembling more mechanism because I’m quite bad at this things… XD Maybe the next time will be needed…
The PLA-CF is the sample spool that comes with the printer… I was thinking about printing more with this kind of filament because the result is fantastic, so, I’m pretty sure I will encounter this problem in the near future.
I ordered a eSUN cleaning filament. How this thing works? I should print a random piece with this filament and that’s all? How big / time should be printing?
Only if you pulled ther nozzle and hot end oifff, and pressed the extruder button and it did push fillement freely out the botto of the extruder, therefore ,yes it would be getting jaammed in the nozzle somewhere. But you didnt mention idepenantly testing the extruder in this way - eg unscrew hotend block, move it out of the wway, and run the extruder.
Ahh yes - this is what makes sense now, yes - needle can still leave partial debris in there, and if solid, blocks the proper fillament through but needdle will get throgh … Offten need to clean it a few times, heat it up, ccold pull a few times etc etc etc.
You just take off the PTFE tube at the top of the extruder, push through a short piece, 1-2 inches, maybe 3 at most, with the nozzle at the temperatuire thaat you had the previous print at … so 230\250? - pending the information on the clceaning filament. Let that all extruded out the nozzle, it will clean out any old filament stuff. Instructions on google and videos on facebook if you need more examples.
