I am the owner of a new (three weeks) P1S combo printer and I’m slowly getting desperate. I am a reasonably knowledgeable 3d printing enthousiast but this printer just isn’t working for me. I sold my trusted Voron to buy a trouble-free printer or so I thought.
For two weeks I’ve been trying to print from a new roll of Esun PLA+. I bought a refill and mounted it in a Bambu Lab spool.
Benchies and other small stuff works brilliantly but the problems start when trying to print something bigger.
Usually the printer stops extruding mid-print, usually after several hours. There’s no sign of a deteriorating print, it just stops extruding. There’s evidently a clog because I can’t push filament through. I tried cleaning the nozzle with a needle and extruding again. It extrudes a bit and stops. I did more cold pulls then I’ve had breakfasts.
Then I have to dismantle the hotend and pull the stuck filament out. I have done this about twelve times now
I tried every trick I could think of and many I found online. I tried the official Esun printing recommendations, I tried the default settings in Bambu Studio. I did the flow and pressure calibrations. I tried printing with doors open and closed. I tried printing with only the top panel removed. I formatted the SD card (?). I disabled the AUX fan by changing the Start Code (because every large print warped). I changed the infill from grid (which would certainly lead to failed prints) to gyroid.
I’m getting sick and tired of having to check for clogs after every attempted print. I don’t know whether using official Bambu filament (PLA) would solve my problems but it’s very expensive
In desperation I moved the printer to a different location, maybe it was too close to the window or the heating radiator. I tore apart the hotend and extruder (everything nice and clean and new)
I started a 3-hour print and it finished ! Full of hope I started a second 4-hour print but after an hour it was moving without extruding.
Now I start to think there’s some sort of feeding failure in the bowden path since the extruder has to pull the filament all the way from the AMS but what and where ?
I am at the point that I will never trust this printer to finish a print.
So before I throw this thing out of the window I hope to get some more ideas and/or suggestions.
Thank you for reading my lengthy story.
Well that is frustrating for you It sounds like you have tried may things to solve the issues. Maybe you should try a Bambu filament…at least you will eliminate that one. Good luck
Thank you. I do have a roll of Bambu in the AMS. I’ll try that. The more I think about it the more I’m convinced it has to be something in the filament path. If the Bambu filament has the same troubles I’ll know more.
It does sound a bit like heat creep. Maybe even up to the extruder.
It may help to keep an eye on the build chamber temp and prop the lid up at say 37°C in case you are usually printing closed. With Bambu filament, I usually target 35-39°C but only without ironing, many retracts or large, low flow surfaces. For those, I’d try to stick to 35-36°C.
Yes, it does sound like heat creep. But I don’t think the P1 has a chamber temp thermistor. Or is there ? I usually print pla with the door cracked open.
X1C here, I never crack the door open, the printer itself is in an airtight enclosure. Heat creep is a problem only for the AMS unit(wonder why the first bullet point on the AMS2 is stronger motors )
If I load the spool manually via the back, it goes fine.
Thank you. How can heat creep be a problem for the AMS ? If there’s a heat creep clog there’s no motor that will pull the filament out. I guess I will be glueing a small temp display in the back .
It’s about the strength of the motor, in the calculations for IF heat creep is strong enough to ‘stick’ and the motor cannot overcome.
Remember with the AMS unit, you have the friction of all the tubing otw to the printer. This is removed from the equation when you load it to the back manual spot.
Nope heat creep is at the extruder side and has nothing to do with the AMS. What happens is that the filament mushrooms/swells in the small space between the feeding gear and the nozzle heat break due to the filament getting close to the softening temperature above that point which in turn causes the extruder feeding gears to grind down the filament. This often results in the filament being completely stuck in both in and out directions and may require disassembly of the extruder to clear out the stuck filament
Main cause is high chamber temperatures, other causes are long and frequent filament retractions, slow filament feed rates ( e.g. during ironing), high bed temperatures and also filament material types.
What you do is your business but this is not advisable especially with filament materials that have a low glass transition temperature where doors and lid should be kept open per bambu labs recommendations
Good point about the chamber temp measurement in the P1. Using an X1, I often forget about that.
It may be a good idea to put a cheap thermo-hygrometer in the back of a P1 to be able to have a chamber temp reading. Holders are aplenty on Makerworld.
In this case, it is unlikely to be heat creep. Unless it is 35+° where the printer is sitting.
Unfortunately, there are a number of other possible root causes.
Just the most frequent travelling from the roll onwards:
Bad filament 1: You could check the diameter and roundness of the filament. It is rare but not unknown for filament to be oval.
Bad filament 2: Even rarer, but bad batches exist: Is it very different from other PLA? Softer? Smell?
PTFE wear excessive (contributing factor only): Reduce bend radius and length, check for wear
Extruder wear, residue: Clean extruder gear, also to prevent a travelling clog
(Repeated) Nozzle clog: The only cold pull that ever worked for me was the hot hex wrench method. All others left residues. Usually, I do 2-3 in a row. When I get repeated clogs, I do extruder cleaning and 2-3 hot hex wrench cold pulls before trying again.
Nozzle damage 1: Is your nozzle still straight? Is it still round?
Nozzle “damage” 2: Is the thermistor and paste still OK? Is the thermistor cable still undamaged?
Sorry Panamon, I was speaking in general heat creep is an AMS thing, aside from general heat creep.
It’s entirely an issue with the AMS if you have one. The lines going to the printer plus the resistance when it starts in the extruder, is too much for the extruder+ams motors, but not too much (in the case I saw) for the extruder from a back-fed spool.
And yes, I know Bambu suggests that as a solution to heat creep, because it is. But normal operating of the machine in an enclosed tent, pushing bed temps higher than suggested, and yet operating just fine, suggests heat creep cannot be overgeneralized when airprinting.
not likely but it will reduce some air circulation so you might also try to remove the top glass cover.
Make sure that you are not having and tight bends or S curves from the AMS to the buffer unit.
Since you use a refill make sure that the filament turns on the sides are not getting pinched however that would usually give you an error message and printing would be stopped.
I don’t know how far you disassembled the extruder unit but in case you had a complete disassembly including the gears >> make sure that the feeding gear pretention screw is completely screwed in.
Also make sure that the hotend is properly seated.
If all is good than maybe best to try another filament brand to see if you still have that issue with that.
Ya, heat creep is unusually low for temp before it kills the AMS unit feed.
It happens because the tubing causes extra resistance. (and evidently they didn’t fully account for it)
Put the spool on the back of your printer, print the print, and if it doesn’t air-print, it was the AMS.
Just try it… I had the same realization, was kinda disappointed by it. That’s why I laughed about the AMS 2 bullet points listing the new, higher power motors first.
I operate fully enclosed, have done so for over 15 years. I’m familiar with what heat creep is.
You lost me there, heat creep to me is at the hotend side and can occur with or without AMS. On the AMS to the hotend there might be feeding issues but not anything that I would call heat creep.
Are all nozzle clogs caused by heat creep, for sure not but it is one of the main causes for folks that changed from an open to an enclosed printer like the P1S
What problem with the AMS?
The AMS feeds the filament to the buffer and the extruder pulls the filament from the buffer and not the AMS so the extruder “only” has to overcome the filament friction of the path between the buffer and the extruder plus the spring tension of the buffer. The friction of the path between the ams and the buffer has to be overcome by the ams hub and if it can’t overcome that friction then the buffer slider will not move and this will result in a stop print, filament cut, pull back and refeed routine until it throws an error if it cannot be resolved. Now on the other hand if you have a nozzle clog due to heat creep or otherwise then the Printer will keep happily going until detected and stopped by the user or until the Gcode end of print even though the buffer slider wasn’t moving all of that time indicating to me that there is a missing error checking routine for that scenario.
I already explained it, reread it. Others have had this issue as well, maybe read up on it.
Like I say, heat creep, the very definition, is not a single temp in which it happens. It gets soft and then sticky, this happens over a range of temperatures.
Like I said, I have lots and lots of experience with heat creep as I’ve NEVER not used an enclosure.
And I’ll say again, think it’s heat creep and you’re using the AMS? Change the spool to the back. If it prints, it’s not heat creep in the classical sense, it’s the weak ams motors. If it clogs when you put it on the back spool, it’s traditional heat creep.
Bambu said ‘open the door’ because I think too many folks figuring this out would be bad for business. There’s zero reason you should ever NEED to open the printer. Unless you like VOC’s I guess.
It sounds like you have tried may things to solve the issues. Maybe you should try a Bambu filament…at least you will eliminate that one. Good luck
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