I frequently see questions about printing with Polypropylene (PP) filament. I see there are some other threads on this here, but I wanted to share my experience.
The filament I use is Braskem PP - there are other choices, The first issue one runs into is that Bambu doesn’t offer PP as a filament type choice, so you must pick a different filament type to use as a basis for a new filament profile. I used PETG, but perhaps it would be better to choose a more unusual filament type, such as ABS.
PP loves to stick to itself, and nothing else. It won’t stick to any normal build plate (there are special PP build plates out there), and typical adhesives won’t work either. It will stick to clear packing tape, which is almost always PP, and I started out doing this, wrapping a smooth plate with the tape. The downside of this is that the print sticks VERY well to the tape, and it’s annoying trying to cover a build plate with the tape. It does work, though.
I recently acquired a tube of Magigoo PP, an adhesive specifically designed for PP and nothing else. The first several times I tried this, using the Engineering plate as a base, failed - the print would start working loose after a few layers. I was about to give up when I decided to try using one of my Lightyear G10 plates. This was more promising, but it took several more tries before I ended up with settings that worked.
Recommended nozzle temp: 220-240
Print temperature: 230
Bed temperature: 70
Cooling fan speed: 30
Chamber fan: off
Aux fan: off
Max volumetric speed: 12
I applied a rather thick coat of Magigoo PP, but this did work well and the print stuck. The part I was printing was relatively small, so I added a 5mm brim that I think helped. You could probably use a smooth PEI plate as well.
My Bambu Lab has a Generic PP profile, so I started with that. It took a little trial and error but by increasing the plate temp on that profile to 80, and using Magigoo PP I was able to successfully print two pieces, on my A1 mini! I used a Cryogrip Pro Glacier plate.
I experimented and can say that 80 without the glue does not work. Neither does the profile default of 55 with the glue.
I used Eryone PP which says it has a plate temp of 60-80. The larger piece (6.5hrs) did lift a little at the end but not enough to ruin it. I also did try 70 instead of 80 with that one.
I’m going to experiment with more brim today as I re-print it for a friend, as well as going back to 80 and maybe turning off the fans. I’m not quite sure which fan setting to change yet.
I think I was getting Flow Rate and Flow Dynamics mixed up
For Flow Dynamics I just use the automatic calibration when it starts printing
For Flow Rate I ran the manual calibration and I think I’ve settled on 0.93 as the best but I originally just used 1.0 and they are very close.
