Prints failing after 1 week with new A1

Bambu Lab A1 Series Bambu Lab A1 mini
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Been over just a week with this printer, and I had been printing non-stop. My first filaments were Inland brand from Microcenter. Ran out of black & white so I had ordered some PLA from Amazon of Polymaker brand. One was matte white, other was a PLA Pro High Rigidity.

As you can see in the image, this is what started with the Polymaker brand. I had been printing with Inland for days without issue. Almost immediately problems began. Soon I could not even print a 2x2 gridfinity bin without it failing. The matt white Polymaker was working good…until today. And now that is failing as well.

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These were spice trays I had been printing in both Polymaker matte white and black Polymaker Pro PLA. The black one for example would fail outright, I would stop the print. One time turning the plate over helped, but failed on the print after. I also tried moving the print location on the bed from center to far right, to then far left, and while that could work for 1x print, it would fail on the 2nd.

Now have I washed my plate? Yes, in warm water with dish soap. THAT seems to have no effect. What I kind of sense from the photo above is that filament does not adhere to the plate and so when it moves it drags that string of filament across the plate (where it should have just adhered and continued adding to the layer).

I thought maybe it was just this PLA Pro Tough & High Rigidity filament. I did print up a LOT of gridfinity bins & bases using Inland black & white PLA. For the record it was white PLA+ and black PLA Pro 3 Inland that I really liked, and almost ALL the prints turned out good (even printed my mouse with that filament). First thing, why dont I go back and get more? Because they are out of stock. Second, it is troubling that I am not simply encountering this issue, but that it seems to be growing (i.e. the matte white prints fine for days, and now that too is failing?).

Only had my first 3D printer now for just over a week, and no Googling or Youtubing has helped.

Edit: forgot to add, I did have to print up a lot of these spice trays, seems to maybe be a trend where if I tried to print 2x black in a row the 2nd time would fail. For over a day it was switching between the 2 colors, re-slicing, and sending to print that seemed to somewhat work, but for past few hours that is no longer the solution either.

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You have done the build plate cleaning.
Do you touch the build plate with your fingers when you remove prints?
I use cotton gloves to avoid “finger fat” contaminating the build plate.

Have you dried the filament?
Did you calibrate the new filament?

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Your build plate is dirty. Try scrubbing both sides aggressively with dish soap and rinsing while ensuring minimal contact with the surface. Oil from your hands causes the filament to just slide off like this. You can also just flip over your plate, it’s magnetic.

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So I know in maintenance on the printer there is calibration. I saw the tab in Bambu Studio for Calibration, and assumed it was the same. So never looked at that tab until I saw your reply. Short answer, no. No I did not know to calibrate the new Polymaker filament. I think I will now in a few hours. I have an active print, but first minute that ends I am going to calibrate the black and will do a print.

If I was in Vegas, I would put $100 on this being the cause

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I don’t think so because as you said it was printing fine before. I also have 20+ spools of filament from various brands some of which being random amazon ones, and I have never needed to calibrate filament.

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IMHO moisture may be more likely.

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If it was moisture I think the defects would be uniform. It appears that it’s printing fine but part of the first layer isn’t sticking to the bed.

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It was Inland PLA Pro that I printed up lots of these bins pictured above, all came out perfect. The above photo is the Polymaker PLA “PRO Tough & High Rigidity” and this started to fail almost immediately. I went to print 2x3 bins and it would fail on at least one grid. Printing 2x2 did work, but the last two I did the 4th grid failed.

I did do filament calibration on this PLA Pro and started a print. It looks like it worked? I will know more tomorrow after I have sent a 3rd or 4th print and all without issue. I know I sent about 14 of Inland had 100% success, PLA Pro had 0% success.

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Have had a similar issue where it has printed fine for a few weeks then all of a sudden it stuck to the work on the bed 3 or 4 layers in. First time the rubber cover melted over the hot end, second time an hour later it shut down again due to overheating. Parts looked the same as your pic though, like the head was stuck to the work and burning holes in it. No problem with bed adhesion though, it was firmly stuck to the bed. Trying to troubleshoot it right now but beginning to think it is a heating issue.

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Something very frustrating in that I do not know the actual cause, nor do I truly know the actual solution.

I did do as Rmedias suggestion a calibration on the Polymaker PLA “PRO Tough & High Rigidity”, but did NOT on the Polymaker PLA Matte. Yet both were having issues, with the black PRO being the worse. By the time I wrote this original post the white was failing as well.

Fast forward, I do the calibration and specified the Poly in that spool for the black. Printed one up and came out perfect. This morning I printed up a Poly white, that also came out perfect. Just started another Poly Pro (black) and that too started out perfect

Was it the filament calibration? I want to say yes, but I did not calibrate the white spool, that one was having problems, and now it is not.

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Try applying a thin film of glue stick or hairspray to your build plate. That solved our first layer adhesion issues when we started seeing a similar problem.

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Moisture can be weird. I was having moisture issues with Sunlu high speed PLA, and I didn’t realize it until after I tried drying the filament, because it worked fine for about two inches up the print until everything went sideways. It’s worth at least trying to dry it, not like you’re gonna get it too dry, and you’ll definitely rule it out of that doesn’t fix anything.

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On the textured build plate + PLA there is no real use for hair spray, glue or anything else, if the printer and filament are “dialled in”.

Edit : And you keep the build plate clean.

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Something is still on the bed surface. Did you rinse the bed thoroughly and wipe it with a clean cloth (preferably microfiber)? I would rinse it again to be sure, dry it, and then wipe it with isopropyl alcohol. I never wash my bed plates other than wiping them before each print with iso alcohol and it works extremely reliably for years per plate.

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Dawn Dish soap to the rescue

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Everyone is guessing including me because what you are experiencing could all be the result of different causes. So…

In my experience,

  1. What dish soap you use to wash the build plate makes a difference. Dawn Powerwash worked great for me. A spray bottle lasts a long time. And it isn’t just your skin oils. Plastics can leave a residue on your plates. Dawn Powerwash worked when 99% alcohol and WIndex stopped working.

  2. Bambu’s liquid glue works very well. And I only apply it every 20 or 30 prints. I suspect the coating wears out, particularly if you force the prints off the plate by flexing. Or maybe a residue gets left on the plate. After all, something is adhering to the plate. It seems unreasonable that when forcing a print off the plate there would be nothing unseen left behind.

  3. Nowadays when a print finishes, I exchange plates for the full one. I set the full plate aside to cool. Often the parts slide off once cool. That may be one of the reasons the liquid glue lasts 20 to 30 prints.

  4. We’re all guessing. But the last thing for you to suspect is the Bambu Labs printer. It’s almost always something else.

Good luck!

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The issue with 99% alcohol is that over time the 1% which is most likely water and bittering agent will build up and fill it the small crevices on the PEI plate.

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You can sometimes work around plate adhesion problems by Increasing your plate temp by 5 C

Also, go ahead and order a SuperTack (or similar) plate. I know you’d like to solve the mystery and learn why you have issues, but SuperTack is too good to ignore.

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I would try increasing first layer temperature by 20 C. It looks to me like there’s some under extrusion.

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Also check the plate type in the print job.
I recently had a ‘stable’ project go haywire on layer 1, twice. Then spotted that the project plate was now set to smooth, not textured. Smooth doesn’t seem extrude as much possibly due to the slight volume difference.