Poor print quality on one side of the bed only

Continuing the discussion from Bad Print Quality:

Hello there,

I am having issues on my X1 carbon where I am getting poor quality prints on one side of the print bed. In this case its the far left side. I only ever print in PLA on the cool plate (this case its PLA Tough). Same results with the glue stick and the liquid glue. I am presumming this is a leveling issue. But, i do run the required calibrations before each print.

I have the settings I use below and a link to a clip of the print quality problem.

Any suggestions are more than welcome. As I said, just seems to be that centre left section. Weird!

Joe

This looks like pillowing but it’s right next to the aux fan where it should get the most cooling, plus your infill is 100%, so I’m confused. Could you double check all the fans are working?

Turn of the aux fan for PLA

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Holy top and bottom shells Batman! 9 and 7 with 100% rectilinear infill. That could be cooling down very oddly and causing that. Not sure if the fan is the whole problem, but I agree with the idea to lower the AUX fan or turn it off. On the surface, the AUX fan shouldn’t cause that, but considering the density of the cooling plastic, and the tugging the stretching that occurs when quickly cooling plastic, the fan could be creating some anomalies.

Do some mini tests by making a few test rectangles to the same height as your problem area, and place them in the same place on the bed. But they don’t need to stretch across the print bed. Just make them long and wide enough to confirm whether the changes worked or not… maybe 50mm by 75mm. Just make sure they have the same thickness as your real model. This way you can test 3 or 4 different fixes in 25% of the time using almost no filament. Once you have the right settings you can launch the real model with confidence.

Personally, I’d do a these tests:

  • Test with little or no fan
  • Test with 4 or 5 top and bottom shells
  • Double check the flow rate (if its off by a little, it might be enough to cause a problem with the other settings used).
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Aux fan is a common problem for PLA. I had the problem when I first installed it because it is on by default. I have also seen many posts that were fixed by turning it off. The consensus is to turn in off in the PLA filament profile and only turn it on if a specific model has geometry that needs extra cooling.

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Thanks all for the suggestions.

I am going to run a new test part with the same print settings (with the AUX fan disabled).

Also going to run with a new build plate.

I will report back once I know. May also try ABS also.

Odd, I just tried to recreate what you had and couldn’t. I wonder if it was as simple as a partial clog on the first layer which caused a number of imperfections that simply layered up and showed as the issues you have. With a 100% infill, issues can layer up pretty well.

Good morning, I found this old post but I have a similar problem, I have the same imperfections on the first layer only on a part of the bed but not the one near the auxiliary fan (which I don’t have) but it is present at the bottom of the bed towards the most drain accentuated towards the right corner

It shouldn’t be a problem with the plate because the problem is the same with both the Pei plate and the Cool Plate, and I also tried putting the dimafix on, nothing changes

The “wave effect” defect is then attenuated with the upper layers but only after 10-11 layers it disappears, an effect that smooths out the imperfections

P1P open, level plate, Sunlu Matte PLA material, Generic PLA setting, also reduced speed.

I attach a photo of the part

Have you retentioned the belts and cleaned the carbon rods?

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Hi JonRaymon, thank for the reply

I honestly have never touched the straps and the bars are clean
moving in all other parts of the axes makes no noise…
I’ll try to clean it up better

@Joseph.Kelly Good morning man, did you manage to solve it? I have the same problem as you! I’ve been desperate for days, trying to solve it.