So, I have had my P1P (my 1st 3D printer) since mid April, and so far I am loving it. I have printed a wide range of things from Benchy, to small toys / figures for the kids, the Wandering Hour Clock, lithophane cube, drawer system for the AMS to sit on (couldn’t resist, got the AMS about 3 weeks ago, not only for multi colour prints, but just the ease of use to have 4 colours loaded, and choose which one to use without having to go unload / load the relevant colour), and the Arc enclosure and a riser with vents for it and LED strip light. Though (at the moment) I am only printing PLA / PETG, I may want to print other stuff in the future, but also the printer is in a cellar / basement which is draughty, and a bit dusty, so wanted to protect the printer.
Anyway, after doing the Arc enclosure I read about the precautions needed if enclosing a P1P, so I ordered a Bambu MC fan. I printed a mount that goes over the poop chute and mounted it there rather than the official place (as that seemed quite hard to get too, and didn’t really seem to me to be the best place to move air from). I updated the firmware the other day to 01.03.00.00 that has the MC fan control.
The release notes say
“If your P1P is enclosed, the heat dissipation of the heatsink will not be as good and can lead to overheating. To avoid this, it is necessary to install and turn on the MC fan. You can add “M710" G-code once in the “Machine start G-code” and start a print, and the machine will save the settings. For more information, please refer to:Precautions for P1P enclosure | Bambu Lab Wiki
M710 A1 S255:turn on the automatic control of the MC fan,the MC fan will automatically turn on when the stepper motor is turned on and turn off when the stepper motor is turned off;
M710 S0:turn off the MC fan.”
I added the M710 A1 S255 command into the start G-code, and ran a print, and the fan started ok, however when the print stopped the fan didn’t stop. I waited for other fans to stop, but it still span, I also waited for the 15 minute “sleep” to kick in, but it still span. I switched the printer off, and when I restarted the fan was off, and it started when I started a print (now with the M710 A1 S255 command not in the G-code), but again it didn’t stop at the end of the print.
I then put the M710 A1 S255 command into the start G-code and the M710 S0 in the end G-code, and this time the fan span whilst printing, and stopped after. I then removed those commands from the G-code, and printed and the fan didn’t spin.
So, from my testing it seems that the M710 A1 S255 code does not do what they say (i.e “automatically turn on when the stepper motor is turned on and turn off when the stepper motor is turned off”). Once you have used it in the G-code once it does start automatically (even without the code anymore), but it doesn’t seem to stop unless you turn the printer off.
So, it seems that you either have to use M710 A1 S255 and then M710 S0 in the G-code every time, to get it to turn on / off. Or M710 A1 S255 once to get it to turn on automaticity, but then have it not go off. Anyone else notice / got any experience of this.
Also, decided to install the cable chain as I had noticed the cables rubbing on the rods, and hitting the glass top sometimes. As I said, I got my printer mid April, and it seemed to have a newer toolhead cable (from what it looked like and I had read about it), but decided to order the Heavy duty cable at the same time as the chain to be safe.
When I went to fit it today It seemed as though the heavy duty cable had the same part number as the cable on my printer, however there was a slight difference in that the one fitted had a little braided sleeve on the end (that went into the toolhead) where as the new one I got didn’t.
Original Cable (Mid April 23 delivery)
Heavy Duty Cable
I decided not to change the cable, thinking that if anything did happen to it I would already have a spare waiting.
Also fitted the hardened extruder gear, and hardened nozzle. I had just brought the nozzle, so had to move the fan, heater and thermistor over, and though it wasn’t too hard, if one wants to do quick swaps it’s probably a good idea to get full hotends.
