Sudden top layer artifacts

[Botolo78]

Hi guys, up until yesterday my A1 mini printed flawlessly everything, but suddenly it started to do this

Models:
Retro 8Bit Star Christmas Tree Topper by Alvaro Pinot - MakerWorld (150% profile)
First layer test - Center of bed only 100x100mm by Matt_WRS - MakerWorld (Z scaled to 10mm)

I redid the calibration and the prints are a little better, especially the little test, but still not good

I also noticed a little adhesion problem at the print corners, and I never noticed it before.

I am running Bambu Studio 1.10.1.50 and printing using BL PLA MATTE.
The room where the printer is might be a few degrees colder than usual.

Any suggestions? It is driving me crazy

[Nox1]

Those patterns look really odd. Based on the first two pictures my best guess would have been extrusion / flowrate related issues, but that third one? It looks you finished off that poor Star with a George Foreman Grill.

My next best guess would be wet filament? Moisture Levels shouldn’t change this rapidly all the sudden, but that’s all I can think of.

[Botolo78]

@Nox1

My next best guess would be wet filament? Moisture Levels shouldn’t change this rapidly all the sudden, but that’s all I can think of.

That would be really weird, because the filament was in a sealed drybox, but tomorrow morning I will try to swap the filament too.

I never saw that pattern so far

[Botolo78]

I am also checking this

A1 series printer extrusion abnormal troubleshooting

Calibration: done
Extruder gear skipping or clicking sounds: nope

Tomorrow I will also open up the hotend box and check the screws

[Nox1]

You could try to run a calibration with OrcaSlicer, or just a Flow Calibration in General but honestly I don’t think it’s related to extrusion. Granted I’m fairly new to printing, but I never saw a pattern like this. Funnily enough, it would actually make for a nice wooden pattern. You don’t happen to have Ironing enabled in your settings?

[Botolo78]

@Nox1

ou don’t happen to have Ironing enabled in your settings?

The star has ironing enabled

To be honest I never use it, but I don’t think it is supposed to do that

[Nox1]

From what I can gather Ironing is supposed to do the opposite of what happend with your prints - Give everything a smooth even finish. But I also heard a lot of people are having issues with it, especially if the printer isn’t calibrated well. When looking up “Ironing Issues FDM” I get results that are somewhat close to your prints: (Not my picture, just something I grabbed off google image search)

It’s not exactly the same issue, but it certainly looks closer to your issue than say, wet filament or underextrusion would…Maybe try printing a Mini-Sized Version of the Star with Ironing disabled?

[Botolo78]

@Nox1

Maybe try printing a Mini-Sized Version of the Star with Ironing disabled?

Queuing that test too
And this model too Mario star topper by rsrandha - MakerWorld, just in case there is something wrong with that star

[GalaxyRiver]

Watch it print. Does it do this with all solid layers including the bottom ones?

[Botolo78]

I did not try a full solid object, but the first layers look flawless as usual

[Streamline]

I read somewhere here in the forum that resetting the firmware to factory settings will help with unusual errors.

[Botolo78]

Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind

[Bullocks]

This looks like ironing issue

Adjust your ironing flow rate. Do it with a small test rectangle, be sure you have at least a few layers of non-100% infill between bottom and top, and use the same number of Top Layers, or your calibration tests aren’t going to be true. When the printer starts putting top layers down on top of infill, it sags, and the behavior of it laying down many layers on top of that to “fill up back to true” is very important in the calibration of your ironing flow on the top.

Good luck!

[Kenny89]

this is because your flow is not perfect, you are probably pushing too much and not cooling enough

[Alan_and_Linda]

Hi, do you have an update on your printer? What filament (PLA or?) are you using? How long have you had your printer?

We are new to 3D printing (September 2024). We have been using PLA, PLA+, PLA high speed, SILK PLA. We have had our A1 printer since September of this year and have had great prints. A few days ago we started seeing the top layer coming out with the same lines but ours are diagonal. Granted, the lines aren’t as bad as yours are, but they are clearly there.

We don’t use the ironing feature at all on any of our prints because it makes the top rough and not smooth. So, our issue can’t be ironing because that is off. The prints we’ve done have all come out great without having ironing turned on.

We thought the A1 might need cleaning so we washed the textured pei plate with Dawn and dried with a paper towel then tried the project again and we still had the issue. Then we tried a previously successful print, but that had the same diagonal lines (different areas). We tried a different spool of filament but that did the same thing.

The interesting thing is that we are having issues with FLAT 2D prints and not 3D ones.

We still haven’t oiled the A1, because we are new to 3D printing (September of this year). We are traveling off and on in December but when we have a chance we will also order a filament dryer, try to calibrate the printer, and check the screws to make sure they aren’t loose.

If we need to we will do a factory reset and see if that makes a difference and if that doesn’t correct the issue we will drive to Microcenter and have them look at it because we got an extended service warranty.

We hope we get a resolution because we really love our A1.

[Botolo78]

Hi Alan (or Linda), I am doing tests and documenting them. I may be able to update the topic tomorrow or by the end of the week

[Alan_and_Linda]

[Alan_and_Linda]

I didn’t know how to attach pictures to my comment. These are items that we tried to print.

Question: When printing, does your printer jump around and print different areas instead of completing one area before going to another area? The reason I ask is that I noticed that our A1 would start printing in one area, stop, and then jump to a different area. I was thinking that since it does this, the filament in the area it left off on dries and maybe that is why we are getting lines because it can’t match up to an already dried/cooled area? Please see the 3rd picture for reference. What are your thoughts?

The Love cats one we did a couple of times before a few weeks ago and that came out perfect, so it is not the file.

Again, we do not have ironing turned on because our machine doesn’t do well with that feature, so we always print with ironing turned OFF.

We look forward to your update.

Thanks.

[Botolo78]

Apologizes for the delay but I am getting conflicting results and I am trying to understand why.

Be back soon

[Botolo78]

Ok this might be part1…

CHECKS AND CALIBRATIONS

Tighten the hotend heating assembly screw… DONE
Check whether the lower part of the hotend is loose… DONE
Check extruder gear skipping… DONE
Test different filament… DONE
Axis rail cleanup… DONE
Axis rail lube… DONE
Calibration… DONE
Bed leveling… DONE
Flow dynamic calibration… DONE

PRINT TESTS #1

Firmware: 01.03.01.02
3D Model (variations): First layer test - Center of bed only 100x100mm by Matt_WRS - MakerWorld
Filament: BL PLA Matte Black kept in dryboxes at 15/20% humidity
Model x,y: 100,100
Model z: 0,20mm, 2mm, 6mm, 12mm, 24mm, 36mm
Bambu Studio profile: 0.20mm Standard

Test 1 - 100x100x0.20mm (1 layer)… PASSED
TOP SIDE: OK
BOTTOM SIDE: OK
Borders are not great, but overall it’s fine

Test 2 - 100x100x2mm (10 layers)… … PASSED
TOP SIDE: OK
BOTTOM SIDE: OK

Test 3 - 100x100x6mm (30 layers)…PASSED
TOP SIDE: OK
BOTTOM SIDE: Tiny warping signs on the bottom side four corners

Test 4 - 100x100x12mm (60 layers)… PASSED
TOP SIDE: OK
BOTTOM SIDE: Tiny warping signs on the bottom side four corners

Test 5 - 100x100x24mm (120 layers)… PASSED
TOP SIDE: OK
BOTTOM SIDE: Tiny warping signs on the bottom side four corners

Test 6 - 100x100x36mm (180 layers)…FAILED
TOP SIDE: Big wave signs on the corners, especially the bottom-right and top-left. Bottom-left seems immune from artifacts.
BOTTOM SIDE: Small but more visible warping signs on the bottom-side four corners

PRINT TESTS #1 SPECULATIONS
At this point the issue seemed like to arise when printing top surfaces over a specific height, between 24mm (last passed test) and 36mm (first failed test)

I was about to do a few more tests, when the new firmware 01.04 was released, so

FIRMWARE UPDATES AND CALIBRATIONS

Firmware update to 01.04.00.00… DONE
Calibration… DONE
Bed leveling… DONE
Flow dynamic calibration… DONE

I run again the previous Test 6 and it failed, a little better than before, but still a big fail.

Next I started a few tests reducing the model x,y from 100mm to 50mm

As expected the test failed

but surprisingly all tests with different z heights failed too, down to 12mm, when I also changed filament (still BL Matte PLA)

and the same model (50x50x12) DID NOT FAIL

Here the two prints side by side

Now I am queueing a 50x50x36 and later a 100x100x36.

To be honest I am now more confused than before.

TO BE CONTINUE