Hi all,
So I’ve been using an X1C for around 4 months now without any issues, but as the temperature has dropped and the humidity increased, I started having print issues. Non-stop. I’ve been drying my filament in a Sunlu S4, for an insane amount of time, probably around a week on and off.
When printing PLA without the drier, It would just string, the layers would barely adhere to each other. It ended up looking a bit like a mesh rather than a piece of plastic. The prints would just crumble.
I then started drying my filament, and that worked, briefly. I was able to print for approximately an hr or two and then midway through the print, it would stop printing properly and start going back to the mesh / poor layer adhesion.
I’ve now rigged up the printer to print directly from the dryer, thinking that will fix all my problems. However, it’s improved it, but I’m still getting the issues occuring.
I’m not sure what to do now. My printer is encapsulated in a secondary chamber, I pre-heat the printer to 34deg chamber to print PLA. I have silica beads everywhere asborbing the moisture. And I’ve tried turning up print temperature to 230deg c and turned down volumetric speed by half.
Not sure how to proceed, I cannot relocate the printer anywhere warmer as it’s used in a workshop for designing custom parts.
- Using default PLA slicer settings apart from the changes mentioned above
- X1C
- Bambulabs PLA Basic
You can see in the picture attached, that I managed to print 80% or so, and then it failed on the last bit and became a bit meshy. It use to do that for 100% of the print. So definitely an improvement drying the filament.
Can you put a dehumidifier in your shop? I used to use one in my basement and it would bring the humidity down to about 30% and then the filament dryer should be able to take the humidity in the filament down to a printable level. I dumped buckets of water out of that thing, so keep the humidifier emptied.
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Dont think itd be effective enough if I’m entirely honest! The rooms quite big. The walls dont have any damp proofing, the main door is basically a giant air leak. The printer is sat inside an enclosure, so maybe a small dehumidifier plumbed into the enclosure?
Might work. If it were my shop, I would get a better door, and seal and insulate the walls. A shop heater would probably also help.
How long did you dry your filament for? Plastic is an excellent thermal insulator. It takes a long time for the heat from the dryer to make it all the way to the center of the filament on the spool. And then a long time to actually drive the moisture out once it’s nice and hot.
If you had printing issues because of soggy filament, and you dried it and it printed OK for a bit before going back to soggy, you may just not have let the filament cook long enough in the dryer.
My minimum dry time is 24 hours. Even then, with Nylon in summer time when it’s quite a bit more humid, it isn’t always enough.
Bump the bed abouty 5 degrees and maybe the filament the same amount.
If you’re not feed the filament from the S4 to the printer unless you have an AMS. Remember the S4 has a mode to maintain a RH. Just set to a few hours to dry then leave it in that mode. It will kick over after the drying cycle has finished. May want to keep the printer door closed and top on as well.
Forgive me if you’ve mentioned this stuff. Headache and just skimmed.
Hey there.
I’ve recently installed an insulation kit onto my X1C, and oh boy does it keep heat like a champ.
Constant 40 degrees in a loft space in November UK when printing ABS, 31-35 when printing PETG.
It might be what you’re looking for. Chap gave me some handy instructions to install it as well, as well as labelling everything.
Look up ’ Bambu Lab X1C and P1S Chamber Insulation Kit’ on Etsy.
