Hi, new to the forum and just wanted to ask if their is something I am doing wrong with my new bambu a1 mini?
Have been 3d printing for a couple of years now and very rarely have any issues however when I tried out the bambu printer I notice prints are much weaker than usual?
I have one particular print that requires grub screws to hold something between the part but when printing on the bambu the parts split really easily with little effort…
I have tried much slower speeds (even as slow as 25mm/s), i have tried much higher temps, different flow rates and printing the part solid including with 0.6mm nozzle but still the parts always breaks far to easily?
When printing the same part on my creality enders the part is much more robust and will bend long before ever breaking.
Any reasons for this with the bambu stuff? I would like to keep the printer and learn more using bambu studio but by sacrificing strength its not going to worj for me so wouldn’t be worth keeping around…
Yes, as mentioned i have tried all kinds of different settings from altering the volumetric speed, increasing wall overlaps, printing several walls, lower layer heights, differnet nozzles both in size and material. Other than a very slight increase in strength from really low layer heights the weakness of the parts is always the same?
The exact same parts of the enders are much stronger?
Im thinking it has to have something to do with the high flow hotend because thats the only difference between my bambu and the enders… unless their is something i have missed when using bambu studio/hardware?
The Bambu printers are pretty quick and I believe that the higher flow rates require filament with lower moisture content than works with slower printers.
I don’t know moisture is the issue but I had a project I was trying to get air tight. Until I got the matte PLA I was using dry, the prints weren’t air tight which I attribute to sub-optimal layer/layer adhesion.
After drying the filament, that print was much, much tighter and also looked better. Can’t say for certain but I attribute the better seal to better layer/layer adhesion.
Again, I don’t know moisture is your root cause but many issues people have turn out to be moisture. YMMV. Good luck!
Yes i have considered it could have been moisture but I do keep them in dry boxes and dry them when needed so I don’t think it is the cause of the issue, also the same material prints fine and produces much stronger prints on the Enders…
The material i am using is pla+ which tends to be my go to.
Im stumped by this as i feel i have treid everything i can think of?
There is an easy way to see how your filament is doing if you have one of those small battery-powered hygrometers. Just put a hygrometer in a ziplock bag and seal it up. Don’t put any desiccant in there. Just hygrometer and filament spool. This works best with spools over half full.
Ziplock bags are not water vapor tight. If you want, you could add a second ziplock over the first and seal it too. It will cut water infiltration even more but probably isn’t strictly necessary.
Let it sit for 10-12 hours and check the hygrometer reading. If it’s 20% RH or below, with PLA you are probably fine. 30% or above and your drying/storage technique isn’t as good as you think and moisture could indeed be your issue.
Those numbers are ballpark but can guide where you are on the dryness continuum. It’s a trivial test that can give you good insight if filament might not be dry.
There’s lots of misconceptions about drying filament and some are propagated by filament manufacturers. Their drying directions all say “blast oven” which is specialized equipment that consumer filament dryers at best only approximate.
It can also arrive from manufacturers with significant moisture content. The plastic bag/hygrometer test can show you just how wet it can be - especially the hygroscopic kinds. Most consumer filament dryers get hamstrung by ambient humidity. They can’t dry filament any drier than ambient humidity lets them. Putting a spool in a dryer at X temperature for Y hours unfortunately does not in any way guarantee dry filament. Much depends on humidity during the dry.
Like I said, I don’t know if moisture is your issue but you probably have everything to test your filament just to see.
Yes, that’s goodnadvise i do already do all of these and my filament, usually between 18-22% humidity. I won’t let it go any higher than that.
Also thier is noticeable popping coming from the hotend when printing and i have to say the prints looks great! The bambu prints really clean layer lines but just lacks in strength.
Would luv to find the potential problem becsuse it would be a shame to sell it on as the increased speed when needed would be great.
Popping sounds are a sign of too high of moisture in filament. Sounds like you may be on the edge of water issues. When you’re on the edge, a number of things can affect results - even filament color. There were a number of comments here not too long ago about different colors of PETG HF behaving differently under otherwise presumably similar conditions.
Only thing I’ll close with is in my tests with filament I’ve dried, I put the spools in the poly cereal boxes with a hygrometer and the spools pull the hygrometers to the lowest number the particular ones I use can report - 10%. Actual humidity in the poly box is lower but the meters I have can’t go there.
Until you mentioned popping sounds I thought moisture content might be a reach but worth mentioning. Now, that popping is pretty good evidence moisture is likely at the root of your part strength issues.
I seem to have found a fix/work around for this in case its useful to anyone out their… using a 0.4 nozzle I am now extruding 0.6 layers widths and it has increase the strength dramatically!
I imagine it helps to bypass the ‘baking’ phase of the high flow hot end whilst retaining the correct temp to flow ratio, as well as providing more squish between the layers for larger contact surface area, therefore more adhesion…
I think the high flow hot ends can cause the filament to print more like icing on a cake where layers just sit on top of one another where as older version (non high flow) melt the cold/solid filament then instantly lay it down which seems to provide much more adhesion/strength. The what I like to now call the baking period I can only guess alters the properties of the filament by slightly pre solidifying it or ‘baking it’.
You can see this in the difference in surface finish also, I notice the bambu prints where more of a matte finish but have changed slight now I have optimised the wall/extrusion thickness.
Interesting but it does alter you dimension slightly so wall & compensation are required.
