I don’t have my combo yet, so I may be wrong, but it seems the cold plate was a poor choice. Glue sucks and it has problems with PETG and ABS. The PEI seems like a much better option as the stock plate.
Could also ship the plate separately and allow customers to choose their preferred plate.
I haven’t gotten my machine yet, but one of the big disappointments in the specs for me is that the sheet is of the “sticker” type, and even worse…that it requires glue for PETG (which is my filament of choice).
…but…I am still excited to get my hands on this thing. I am sure someone will fis that annoyance in the future by offering another solution for the print bed.
I would agree, but as the filament flow lidar sensor thingy, doesn’t work with the PEI plate they can´t really ship it with only that. But they should at least include it in the box.
I don’t know, everyone I’ve seen who has the pei sheet says LiDAR works fine. Also many people just stopped using LiDAR all together as they noticed no improvement.
Interesting, I haven’t actually tried it with lidar on. I turned it on once with the cold plate and a test print and hoped it saves the data? If I change the material or nozzle, I will do so again.
But it definitely works good without having to do it every time before a print, it takes forever as well.
EDIT: You are right, I tried it out and it worked just fine and didn´t help with anything.
Actually, many people are saying that :
FOr me the question is, which values is LIDAR (tryinging to) detecting ? Flow ? Can be done manually quite easily. FIrst layer ? Can be done manually quite easily. PA or LA, this can also be manually, or just take the suggestions of BL as per the gcodes and then adjust eventually manually.
I thought it was flow, but it is fairly unclear.
I actually kind-of disagree. I get why they opted to ship a cold-plate by default. The majority of users will print PLA which doesn’t reallly like being printed in a 40+C room. A PEI bed needs to be heated for it to work. This way there is good adhesion and the room stays nice and cool without opening the door/top.
It actually ships with a double-sided plate. Cold-plate on one side, Engineering plate on the other. Don’t actually know the physical difference between the two other than that they are designed for different filaments. But i can say that i’ve had no warping printing ABS, PA, PC and PA-CF on the engineering plate with some glue stick. The glue washes off very easily with a bit of water.
Personally i’ve used PEI on my other printers for years and they work great. I’ve just gotten Bambu’s PEI plates both powder coated and the High-temp one. The powder coated one has worked great with PETG so far (Haven’t tried the LIDAR thing yet as they don’t recommend it with PEI).
Most people upgrade or buy their printers with PEI so they don’t need glue/painters tape.
Most people printing will not have a machine capable of the high speeds the x1 can provide.
I fully agree with Luukmaster. An adittional advantage of the cool plate is the saving of energy.
I used the x1 with the cool plate for a small project and i am amazed how well the PLA sticks on it.
Applying a little glue is not that bad. And yes i will be playing with the pei sheet soon for printing PETG.
PETG will not be printing as fast as PLA because it has other properties…and might stick better to the Pei plate,
Its nice that for every material there is a sheet u can use.
Just my 2 cents…
What do you mean by “PETG will not be printing as fast as PLA”? Does the X1 print PETG slower? If so, how much slower?
I print primarily with PETG, and I will need to reconsider this printer if it doesn’t print PETG much faster than my current machines.
I think what TonnyH is trying to say is that different filaments behave differently when melted. And this can limit the maximum printing speed of certain materials. Generally PETG may have a lower upper limit compared to PLA. but even that depends on the type, color, and any additives (fibers, glow-in-the-dark, woodfill, silk…) regardless of the machine printing it.
I can tell you that i’ve comfortably been able to print at 120 mm/s @ 15m/s2 acceleration. the limit is probably higher as it’s currently throttling on the volume limit in bambu studio’s default profile.
I’ve been able to print at 250 mm/s with PLA for comparison but again i haven’t pushed PETG to its limit at all. Maybe someone else that has can clarify on this.
Also of note: The total print time of an object is generally much more impacted by acceleration as opposed to raw speed. Being able to reach 1000mm/s doesn’t mean anything if your acceleration isn’t high enough for it to reach it. The X1 absolutely excels at achieving these high accelerations reducing print time quite a bit while the max speed might not be much higher than other printers in some cases.
Aurora Tech made a nice video about it.
Just FYI for anyone reading this in 2023 who just wants it to work and doesn’t want to buy an extra PEI sheet.
The default “cold plate” shipped with the printer works like a charm and stick very well if you know how to use it:
(I’m getting excellent results at 53C without glue using Filright PLA and PLA+),Always apply these rules in this order:
I love the cold plate. I use it for every pla and tpu print i make, without any glue. I dont have adhesion issues, prints get an good surface and i can get them easy of the bed. I simply love it…