Hi all, can anyone tell me whats happening here, first time ive seen this. Basic PLA. Recalibrated printer to make sure. Thank you
A few things could be going on. Can you share the sliced file and ideally a photo of the whole piece you printed?
My first suspects would be
- Flow rate needs adjustment for this particular filament
- Nozzle screws needs tightening (with subsequent recalibration)
- Something funny with your cooling (is there a pattern of quality difference on areas closer to the aux fan?)
- Maybe your timming belts needs tightening
- Any difference on print speeds in that particular region (check your sliced file)?
1 Like
Yeah, it seems like a bit of under-extrustion going on. What may happen is if you print with a higher-temp filament then switch to PLA, a bit of the high-temp material might be stuck in the nozzle, because the PLA runs at such a low temp the high-temp material won’t melt. I would get some nozzle cleaning filament, then run it through the nozzle MANUALLY from the top at the highest temp you have run recently. A filament “cold-pull” is another option. After your sure its clean, run a flow calibration, but not before your sure its clean.
1 Like
Yeah ill try a cold pull but all ive been using is pla recently.
OK, that being the case, what you do next is select “Calibration” from the top of Bambu Studio, then select “Flow Rate” then select “Manual Calibration” at the bottom. The X1C was the last printer with real automatic flow calibration. The newer printers, not so much.
1 Like
Hey, long work week here; sorry for the delay.
So, what we clearly see is that the surface quality is overall good and just gets bad in one area. With that, I’d:
- Automatically exclude problems with your flow ratio (the whole top surface would be bad).
- Based on your sliced file, the poor quality area is closest to the aux fan. To exclude this as a factor, try printing in another direction (but to be honest, printing in PLA, the fan shouldn’t be causing issues).
- I don’t think a cold pull will help here either (but hey, it doesn’t hurt to do a cold pull now and then; it should be part of any maintenance protocol anyway).
- I think your most likely offender is either:
++ An unlevel bed (if you have a slightly lower bed there, it could explain the quality difference. Question: do you see a difference on the base as well? If the bed is the issue, you should see more warping on that side and lower adhesion). If bed leveling is the issue, do a proper clearning (including the heat bed) and do a leveling calibration, and if it doesn’t work, do a bed tramming.
++ It could be your belts. Try doing some belt tightening as well (never hurts if done properly; also good practice to do every year or so).
++ Also, do some cleaning on your XY rods (especially X). If you have something accumulated there, it could interfere with movement in that particular X range, which would explain this as well.
As a problem shooting trial, try orienting your print as the img below. If the issues are any of the above, your print will likely be way better and then you have just confirmed you should correct the above.
Please share it back once you get a chance to test these.
Thanks so much ill give those things a try.
1 Like