Textured Build plate experience

Bambu Lab X1 Series
83

Bambu’s instructions for the textured plate is to wash with dish soap and hot water rather than IPA. I have not used glue on mine and pla, petg, and tpu have worked great.

For a smooth surface I have been using the wham bam pet plate with excellent results, though price with shipping was steep for a single sided plate. I did order a replacement sheet for it after the fact to have a back up.

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84

I’ve never used glue for the Bambu

85

The code is there, but the offset is 0.00. Here, we are lowering it by 0.04.

86

I don’t know why people are lowering z-offset instead of just increasing first layer bed temp.

Smearing the first layer isn’t even theoretically better than softening the first layer with bed heat.

WhamBam who’ve arguably done more testing with build plate surfaces than anyone on the planet, just advise increasing bed temp if you have adhesion problems with PEI or PEX.

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87

The issue is that the texture slightly increases the probed Z height, so the nozzle is lowered to compensate. At least that’s my theory.

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88

Correct, if you check the start gcode there is a part for that:
;===== for Textured PEI Plate , lower the nozzle as the nozzle was touching topmost of the texture when homing ==
;curr_bed_type={curr_bed_type}
{if curr_bed_type==“Textured PEI Plate”}
G29.1 Z{-0.04} ; for Textured PEI Plate
{endif}

89

My experience, without gcode tweaking:

  1. Clean the textured PEI plate with dishwasher soap and dishwashing sponge, under warm water
  2. Dry it (try not to touch anywhere meanwhile but on the edges)
  3. Clean the plate in-place with 99% alcohol (IPA should also work) applied on face pod thingy (you know what girls use to clean makeup at the end of the day :slight_smile: )
  4. print PLA with glass raised and opened door

Let it dry, and you are good for a few prints. I don’t have any issues, but if I skip any of the steps, I’m starting to have problems.

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90

Adhesion on Bambu PEI is a joke. Worthless. Hope we get a real fix

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91

Are you referring to the original black dual sided textured pei plate or the new gold version? I have one of the older black plates and have had no issues with it. It was my go to plate before getting the wham bam and lightyear plates.

92

If it is the original black one, I too have had no issues that weren’t my fault. The vast majority of my 600+ hours of print time are on just one side of the original and I’ve only washed it maybe 10 times? Never added adhesion promoters of any kind. I’m still holding off on using the second side but at this rate, I may never need it.

93

I switched to High Temp Smooth plate. Night and Day difference.

2 Likes
94

In addition to what others have mentioned above, I’ve found increasing the first layer heated bed temperature and/or the first layer filament extrusion temperature also seems to help improve adhesion to the Bambu Labs textured PEI sheet, especially if it’s a tall object with limited area contacting the sheet. Along the same lines: turning off the cooling fan while printing the first layer. Also, not all filament brands stick equally well, so you may have to dial in a new brand, even if it’s of the same type. For that reason, it’s best to stick with one brand if you can.

96

I had the first layer adhesions with Polymaker PLA PRO, which I love, when using the textured build plate. I didn’t try raising the temperature. I never thought to bring it up that high for PLA, but found that it would stick with a glue stick. No thanks!

What I wound up doing, is purchasing the Wham Bam PEX plate. Wham Bam recommends 70C for PLA PRO, but I found 60 works just fine. Not only does this plate work great for PLA, but TPU prints awesome on it too. For TPU, it sticks well to the build plate, then pulls off easy when plate is cool. Be sure to set bed temp. to 60C though as per the filament matrix on their website. I haven’t tried printing PETG with this plate, but glue is required as a release agent.

97

I know I’m way late to the discussion at this point. But for anyone like me who’s been having issues similar to those mentioned in this discussion, I’m a new owner of a Bambu A1 mini, and while general print quality has been awesome, and the speed is definitely an upgrade from the ender 2 pro I was using before, adhesion has been a MAJOR issue for me, using the stock textured PEI bed. Here’s a summary so far:

  • corners of printed models just don’t stay down. after probably the 10th-15th layer (ish), the corners of my models just start curving up, progressively getting worse as the layers pile up.
    This leads to higher layers getting smushed in the process, and while that can still leave me with a functional print, I didn’t buy a bambu to get merely functional prints.
  • i did the normal checks to ensure that I had selected the right bed type in bambu slicer, and that general slicer settings weren’t out of the ordinary.
  • i also am printing in a fairly neutral environment. I don’t run any kind of enclosure (and never have on my previous printer). The ambient humidity is 30%, which is lower than what I usually print at.
  • the first suggested fix I went through was bed temperature. I have pushed the bed temperature on Polyterra PLA up to 80 DEG Celsius, with pretty much the same results.
  • after that, I tried the classic glue stick fix. slightly better, but combined with the high temperature, I was left with sticky prints and the warping still did persist. In my opinion, not enough of a fix to deal with the hassle of glue on my bed.
  • the next one I considered was bed cleanliness. I have used other textured PEI plates where this wasn’t a particularly huge issue, but obviously plates should be clean so I did the big fix of using warm water and dish soap. I even tried using IPA, or avoiding using IPA, neither of which have left me with better results.
  • After I installed my AMS lite, I noticed that the top-heavy assembly seemed to be rocking back and forth, so I was thinking that excessive vibration might be the culprit. I removed the AMS and went back to only using one spool on the built in spool holder, still experiencing the same problems.
  • Once I had gone through those troubleshooting tips, I reluctantly tried using brims. I was relcutant because on my (“inferior”) ender 2 pro, I never used brims, and had never had this problem. But, to my surprise, the corners still lifted, even taking the brims up with it. At this point, I found myself pretty frustrated.
  • I scoured the internet for possible fixes. One suggested pushing the initial layer closer than the rest of the layers. Still no help.
  • Yet another suggested using fine steel wool on the plate. I tried that, washed it, and lo and behold - nothing.
  • Somebody else suggested manually tramming the bed. I’m a machinist so normally, I wouldn’t mind doing that. However, Bambu’s platform is better geared towards automatically calibrating itself, so I decided to print a bed level test to see how it was doing. Based on that test, the bed was level with a total runout of .001". Considering you probably couldn’t do better than that with the traditional four-point and paper method of bed leveling, I consider this perfectly fine for 3D printing. At the very least, it shouldn’t cause adhesion issues. So I don’t see a reason to tram the bed manually yet.
  • I started to consider the filament as the problem. Considering the incredibly good reputation of Polyterra, I was relcutant to consider this, but I guess you can’t really be too sure. I switched to Overture Matte PLA, which I consider comparable, if not lesser known. In this try, I also reduced the brim-to-part gap. I’ll follow up once I get the results.
  • finally, I’ll also note that I saw these same issues when printing with Bambu’s PETG, but I didn’t go through the extensive troubleshooting process with that filament. The troubleshooting has been limited to Polyterra Matte PLA.

I don’t mind tinkering with 3D printers. But, I do have to say that I didn’t really get a bambu to tinker on, haha. Obviously I’m not expecting this to be a 100% hassle free 3d printer, but I think that having to go through all these headaches while using the most ubiquitous and easygoing filament type does seem slightly ridiculous. ESPECIALLY coming from a company with the repute of Bambu Labs. In the engineering world, it has quickly become the standard for out-of-the-box performance.

All this to say, after reading this thread, I’m thinking that there’s a strong possibility the bed might be the problem, especially if others have encountered the same problem. I’m getting a bed from the company that I used on my ender (“Fystec”), and I guess that will decide if the bed really is the problem. If you have any other suggestions I’m happy to hear them.

98

@vinhdoan.thoi You could try:

  1. lowering print speed on layer 1.
  2. running the dynamic flow rate calibration for that filament to ensure you aren’t under-extruding (which would undermine adhesion).
  3. drying the filament. If moisture is too high, it doesn’t stick as well.
  4. if all else fails, try a super strong build plate adhesive like vision miner as a stop-gap until you figure it out. However, that runs the downside risk of it sticking too well, so you might try lesser bed adhesives and work your way up to that as the hail mary if none of the lesser ones, like magigoo, get the job done. There’s a whole host of them on the market. You shouldn’t need it at all, but, if you just need to move on with it, you gotta do what you gotta do.

4. You could abrade the surface to increase adhesion. Shouldn’t be needed, and obviously a last resort.

99

Thanks for the tips! my ticket with bambu support mentioned something similar with your first point, with the added point of having the initial layer print hotter than the rest of the print. I have also been running the dynamic flow rate calibration, on pretty much every print. I also got my replacement bed, and amazingly, still the same issue haha :smiling_face_with_tear:. What’s more is that this one actually has a smooth side as well, and that had the exact same problem. I’m honestly at a loss. I also manually trammed the bed. Initially, that seemed to help on one test print, but a few hours later, I’m still having the issue.
As a general update to my first reply, Overture Matte PLA seems to be printing almost identically to Polyterra in terms of final quality and the adhesion issue.
At this point, I honestly hope that the issue is with drying the filament, because I can honestly not think of anything else :rofl:

100

You probably know this already, but if not this might be it: avoid touching the build plate directly with your hands because the natural oils on your hands are a bond breaker. You could handle the build plate by the edges only or else put on some gloves prior to handling the plate to remove purge lines, skirts, printed objects, etc.

I’ve never before heard of anyone being as careful as you and yet still having problems. It’s far from normal, and it has me wondering what’s different that’s causing you the problem. This could easily turn into “20 questions” and still not hit on what’s causing the fail. For instance, you’re printer isn’t under a draft, is it?

Since you don’t have an enclosed printer, you could crank up the bed temperature by a lot, and normally that alone would make it stick.

101

Yes, I have been doing my best to avoid touching the build plate, and if I do, I wash it or at least wipe it with a lint free cloth and some alcohol. I’m glad to hear that I’m at least doing some things right :rofl:. I think I’ve almost covered everything at this point, so maybe my filament has just absorbed too much moisture, and it needs to be dried. I do try storing it in ziploc bags with desiccant, but I’m sure it’s not a replacement for actual drying. Anyhoo, I guess further updates are to come! I’m really hoping to figure this out :sob:

102

Oh yeah to answer your question, it’s not near a draft. After drying the filament, if i STILL get the problem, I’ll go to another higher heat. I’d say I’ll just print with brims, but even those were getting lifted up lol

103

You could try measuring your heated bed and hotend temperatures and see whether they really are the temperature that the built-in sensors are reporting. If you check enough assumptions, eventually you’ll find whatever it is. Or save the trouble and exchange the printer for another one. At least that would narrow the list of possible suspects.

Well, good luck. I hope you find it.