Great writeup! Here’s a question I don’t see answered-
When creating a new filament profile, if that filament isn’t already in Orca / BS, you have to pick something to start- if calibrating PLA, do you pick “Generic PLA”? “Bambu PLA Basic”? Won’t the already applied Flow Ratio, Pressure Advance, Density, etc affect the calibration?
I see the flow ratio of your Hatchbox is 1.05 in the screen shot… Generic PLA and Bambu PLA Basic both have 0.98 Flow Ratio… so I’m wondering if the filament you choose to start affects the calibration somehow?
@nakleh it does not matter what you start from , i personally use generic
It is important what You set. And start the flow calibration first usually from 1.0 if you use 2 passes, if only second pass is used you need to know where roughly is the flow and set it a bit higher and then Fist pass can be skipped, Temp you start from the recommended by the manufacture for the first round of calibration , then is PA(K/dynamic flow) and at some point fine tune the temp and then repeat the flow and K. For the other parameters like cooling and speeds it is a bit more but starting from Generic is a bit more conservative than Bambu usually
Shouldn’t the max flowrate test be after the temperature tower? For example if you set it too low while calibrating flow and pa, doesn’t a change of max flow mess up everything?
@user_2129530213
Flow rate calibration is a relative number(0.9-1.2) representing the amount of material that needs to be extruded for specific speed/volume( in the old days that was adjusted with E-Steps / per mm) / last years it relatively adjusts the generated g-code e-Steps as percent) . Nothing to do with max flow
And it should be done first with temperature close to actual - which usually is the middle of the recommended by filament manufacture or what ever experience tells you to start with for printer , brand and material) .
There is max flow which is done at the end(or not done at all) and is measured in mm3/s(10-22 for 0.4nozzle/X1C) which is the last thing you do if needed at all. As a result it controls maximum speed you can print Maximum flow is affected more from temperature but usually needs to be set a bit more conservative in which case temp change will not affect it , unless you want to be right at the border line of print speed - which i would not recommend
Yes temperature calibration may change a bit the Flow calibration usually does not affect it . (PA/K) might be affected a bit more as the Nozzle resistance and material pressure is different with temp changes, but is better to start some where as uncalibrated flow skews the temperature tests. It is a bit chicken and egg with all the calibrations and dependencies and for real fine tunning needs to be repeated in a loop -2-3 times with experience you get very good result from 1 loop , or 2nd loop
Max flow is very safe to be set low like 12mm3/S for most materials, but too low is annoying and usually PLA is ok with 18mm3/S for almost all brands and materials - 0.4mm Nozzle on X1C
That’s some excellent advice, and the first time I’ve seen anyone explain that calibration is an iterative process. So thank you. To that end, given the full list of calibrations available in the OrcaSlicer software, what order would you recommend if doing the full series. And which should be iteratively run before moving on?