PLA prints are warping on the X1C

I always close the doors and run bed leveling every print. I try to have a ‘fire and forget’ experience :wink:

My take on cleaning with alcohol is that it’s an excellent solvent but that without a good rinse, there will still be contamination. I use a lot of alcohol, scrub and wipe dry then repeat with a new towel. If the build plate was especially messy, I’ll give it a third go with yet another clean towel. This comes from 6 years in the compact disc replication industry where simply breathing on a stamper could damage it.

My preferred method is to use dish washing detergent, a blue non scratch scrubbing sponge and a thorough rinse in hot water followed by a dry with a new paper towel. I feel this returns the surface to baseline, from there I can apply whatever adhesion promoter I like and expect repeatable results. I use the Bambu glue stick, it came with the printer so it’s cheap. I put down one layer, print anywhere from 5 to 10 times if the prints are scattered around the sheet or fewer if they are all in the center than add just a touch more glue. When it starts looking nasty or if I want a clean finish on the bottom of the print, I clean it and start over. This combined with blocking air flow from the fan gives me much less lifting and for those things that refuse to stick due to shape, I use brims.

I turned down the aux fan to 30% and I increased the bed temperature to 45C. Looks like that solved the warping. I just have to make sure I select the right profile in the slicer.

Thanks for you help all!

Isopropyl isn’t going to damage your print surface. It just isn’t going to do as good a job of degreasing as dish detergent and water. :slight_smile:

I print under the same conditions in a garage at 14-16 C air temp.
Cool plate I find I need 55C bed temp no glue, clean with liquid soap, rinse well and wipe with IPA~ monthly
Aux fan off
Chamber fan off.
I don’t preheat the chamber.
Hot plate I use liquid glue otherwise adhesion is too good.
Textured plate no glue

I believe that dish soap removes one type of contaminant and IPA removes an other type of contaminant. I mostly use dish soap and the occasional clean with IPA. I usually use the IPA before the dish soap when doing this. YMMV.

I would try moving it inside to a warmer location for a test print. I have one printer in my garage which is also cool and keep it in a grow tent with a small electric heater otherwise I get warping as well. The garage printer is only for ASA and other stinky filaments

Hey there,

I bought the X1C couple of weeks ago.
the textured plate works way better I would say as far as I can report.

might do a pressure advanced test and some flow rate test, also der should be some first layer test?

you tried a 55° plate temperature?

best wishes

I had the same issue with warping. I tried adjusting print bed temperature and reducing aux cooling. That didn’t seem to help. Adding brims definitely helped. What I believe the root cause is I printed several spools of PETG for a while. When I went back to PLA it didn’t stick well. Maybe cleaning and maybe just wore out. I have 1648 hours on my original textured plate and used both sides. Changing to a new textured plate worked!! I couldn’t believe how well the PLA stuck on the new plate. PLA didn’t want to stick to the plate with PETG residue build up. Here’s a photo of new versus old.

I had the same warping problem with some black Overture PLA on the side right at the left edge of the plate near the Aux fan nozzle. I couldn’t get the fan to stay turned down so I printed one of those little deflectors for the fan nozzle and that seems to have cured it. I also move parts away from that spot on the plate when possible. If the right side doesn’t get that strong airflow and prints fine, why should the left side need it?

Oh, and not to re-ignite an old debate, but i don’t think that using IPA to clean the plate really removes contamination. It might dissolve it but when the IPA evaporates it leaves the contaminants behind, just more evenly distributed. That is why a wash with dish soap and a good rinse with running water is so effective.