Printing Silk PLA on P1S

Bambu Lab P1 Series
1

I purchased some Silk PLA (Overture in this case) and was printing my swatch cubes. The sides look great, but the corners look like the attached picture.

I printed the Red and Green ones in print job 1. I used the Overture PLA preset in Bambu Studio and everything else was standard. Nozzle 0.4mm, Nozzle Temp 220, Bed Temp 55 - all default values.

The Blue and Purple ones were print job 2. I used the Generic PLA Silk preset in Bambu Studio and reduced the Outer Wall speed to 60mm/s. Everything else was the same as print job 1.

I printed them with the same settings I print all of my PLA - max cooling, chamber door closed and lid glass on, .20 layer height with otherwise default settings. Print order was “per object” as these are pretty small so fitting 3-4 on a print bed is no trouble.

It’s odd that the blue one looks almost perfect (save for a bit of a dent at the top of the inset oval), but the rest look terrible. To me the rest almost look melted.

I’m hoping somebody has seen this type of result and can offer some suggestions.
When I left for work today, I did print a temperature tower with the Green Silk, but I won’t see the results until I get home. Thank you for your help!

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2

Never print PLA with the door closed. It doesn’t like high temperatures.

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I have already printed several kilograms of PLA with the enclosure closed, without issue. Are you saying this is definitely the problem?

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the closed enclosure won’t hurt flat PLA prints, but if you print taller and faster etc… then often you can get issues, either like you’ve got “melted” corners or perhaps heatcreeps and partial clogs… silk PLA are bit specific and they tend to be more flexible, less temp resistant etc… therefore they may require more cooling, which opening doors may help a lot in this case… that cube probably print in like 30 minutes right? wont hurt to try. also AUX fan and chamber fan can help a lot, personally i even print PETG with doors slightly open, after discovering that PETG doesn’t like direct cooling (part cooling fan) but running AUX FAN at 70% helps overhangs, but it’s loud so aux fan more like 50% and slightly open doors and job
is done :slight_smile:

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@3DPrintedCard @RaQn I just wanted to follow up and thank both of you for the information you provided. I now print Silk PLA without issue, after doing three things:

  • Printing PLA with the top cover off (all PLA, not just Silk PLA)
  • Using the PA Tower calibration in Orca Slicer
  • Using the two-stage Flow Rate calibration in Orca Slicer

So once again, thank you both for your responses.

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