I’ve recently started using the smooth plate with my A1 and greatly prefer it over the textured plate. However, today when I printed a black object I noticed that it had small circular spots on it. Upon examining the plate I see the same spots and they are quite obviously where the nozzle touches the plate for leveling. The sheet on the plate doesn’t seem to be actually damaged, more like it’s just discolored from the heat of the nozzle or something - especially considering that the discolored spot is significantly larger than the nozzle tip.
Looking back at prior black objects I see them there as well. It takes bright light at the right angle on some of them so I never noticed them before, but they seem to be getting more prominent over time as they’re easier to see on my prints from the last couple days.
Are these types or marks normal on these sheets or do I need to adjust something on my printer?
The first image below is the plate in indirect bright light, and the second image is a print in the same light.
So I am somewhat new to printing but since no one has replied yet I thought I’d chime in. I’m sure others may agree/disagree with me. This has happened to me too, not necessarily the leveling marks but I can definitely see discoloration on the plate where I have printed and over time the filament doesn’t stick to the plate as well. My friends who have gotten me into printing have told me to wash the plate with Dawn Dish detergent to get the oils off the plate. It may not remove the discoloration however it should keep the filament sticking to the plate. I also found instructions on how to replace the smooth surface of the plate. That plate actually has a sticky film on it that can degrade with time and can be replaced. There are instructions on Bambu’s website. I heard it’s not easy though and may be worth just replacing the whole plate.
I hope this was helpful. If anyone else has anything to add I’d be happy to hear it.
Thanks for the info. I do wash all my plates with soap and water regularly. I’m not having any adhesion issues with them so far. The marks on this particular plate do not wash off and they don’t seem to affect the performance of the plate - they just leave matching marks on the objects printed on the plate. And though, as I said, I’m not having any adhesion issues, I do assume that the marks are caused by the adhesion being ‘different’ on top of those spots and the actual spots themselves obviously aren’t physically transferring to the object.
I am aware of the sheets to replace old ones as they wear out, but this entire plate is only 2 weeks old and has been used maybe 20 times at the absolute most. Surely it shouldn’t need to be replaced that quickly.
So at least the spots may be normal, but are your spots also transferring to your printed objects? I’m not really all that worried about the plate itself, as it doesn’t really seem damaged and can even be replaced if needed. My bigger concern is the matching spots on the printed objects. How are you dealing with those spots when the surface that prints on the bed is the face of the object?
Nothing really noticeable but on the stuff I print the base is usually on the cool plate and since I don’t care so much about the bases I haven’t really looked for the dots at all. I also use glue stick on the cool plate with PLA and that will tend to hide the dots at least a little.
Sorry not more help. Luckily for my stuff it doesn’t really matter.
What a difference a few days can make. I’ve gone from loving this plate to the point that I’m ready to throw it in the trash.
Support is currently looking into the dots and seems to think they should simply wash off and not be a problem. Since they won’t, they got videos of the bed leveling process to make sure nothing is going wrong with the printer itself. And I’m still waiting to hear back on that.
And now, since I needed a good clean print on it, I decided to use the back for the first time. I had previously avoided using the back just in case it was only a simple setting adjustment to stop it and thereby prevent these same spots from appearing on that PEI sheet as well (as far as I can tell there are no replacement PEI sheets that I can buy for the back of the plate and they only sell them to line up if the guide holes are on the right).
So, I flip my plate over and print my object - only to find that it has a few elongated and very uniform slightly raised bumps on it. Back to examine this side of the plate and I now see that the PEI has been literally “flattened out” everywhere that it rests on a magnet, like the force of the magnet and the steel plate are sandwiching the PEI sheet too tightly and smashing it down. This doesn’t seem to be bad enough to cause any adhesion issues, but again it definitely is causing a print quality issue.
So now I’m looking into alternative smooth sheets. I like some of the Wham Bam sheets, but each one also seems to have something I don’t particularly like about it - but in the end I don’t see how anything I don’t like about those could possibly be worse than what I’m getting with this Bambu plate.
And I just can’t imagine, though, that this is normal. I’ve had this plate for 3 weeks now and its performance has gone from unimaginably fantastic to virtually unusable in just that amount of time.
That support agent needs to use a printer. The dots don’t wash off and are a little version of the wiping that happens back at the back of the build plate. The wiping action has eroded my cool plate down to shiny metal.
I can’t swear to what the A1 uses, but the X/P series use magnetic sheets without discrete magnets. Here’s what the field looks like and it’s like that all over the build plate. That green sheet visualizes magnetic fields.
Some people have glass beds on their printers (not aware of anyone doing this with Bambu printers but who knows?) but don’t know if you could use a glass bed on your A1. You’d need something on it to hold it down to the Bambu print bed and flexing it when you lift it off might be an issue. But glass won’t dimple from nozzle taps (but might crack). Maybe something like a tablet screen protector would even stick well enough on its own.
But you’d then be doing the stuff the glass plate folks do to get models to stick to glass.
The A1 has 16 magnets that run around the periphery of the bed and 3 rows of 3 that run across the center. These match the indentations my build plate sheet now has on the underside. The ones around the periphery are irrelevant as they’re at the extreme edge, but the 9 through the middle are leaving the elevated bumps on my prints.
All of my plates are worn to shiny metal from the wiping at the back, but that’s not in the print area so doesn’t mess anything up. All of Bambu’s printers do that as part of the nozzle cleaning process.
You can see in the image below where the magnets are on the A1.
After a bit more studying on the Wham Bam plates I decided to go ahead and preorder the upcoming carbon steel plate. Of course, one of the only warnings that comes with it is that if the nozzle touches the plate for leveling at a temperature over 140 it will damage the surface of the plate (140 is the nozzle temperature the A1 levels at).
