Seems to be a bunch of ‘Top Layer’ concerns out there. I’m new to the Bambu family and just can’t get the same smooth top layer results as my other printers. My first question is to confirm that what I’m calling the ‘Top Layer’ is indeed what the slicer thinks is the top layer… Bambu Studio 1.8.2.56
I’ve slowed the ‘Speed/Top Surface’ to 100mm/s.
I’ve changed ‘Strength/Top Surface Pattern’ to ‘Monotonic’. Also tried ‘Monotonic Line’.
I’ve changed the ‘Strength/Advanced/Infill Direction’ to 0, in order to get the top/bottom layers aligned to the part as it’s arranged on the bed. Default was ‘45’ degrees.
The current ‘Top Shell Layers’ is 5, with a ‘Top Shell Thickness’ of 1mm.
The bottom surface (Layer 1) is 100% perfect, and even viewing the “top” of the bottom layer as it’s getting printed is exactly what I would want for the ‘top’ of my top layer. Seems Bambu Studio joins some settings for Top/Bottom & infill as well. I just wish I knew that magic to get this top layer looking “sellable”. Any ideas?
BTW - the angled tubes are a drill guide. Those came out 100% perfect, on the outside as well as the inside. Couldn’t be happier about those.
@3DTech - Those settings helped, but there were still some bleed through from the layers below. So I also adjusted the ‘Quality/Internal solid Infill’ to .35mm and slowed down the ‘Speed/Internal solid infill’ to 50mm/s and that combo really got the quality back to where I wanted it… Yes the prints are slowed down a little bit during those layers, but the overall speed is still faster than my previous printers.
Thanks for the advise. Getting used to Bambu Studio versus Cura is also a little hurdle right now. But day by day things are getting better!!
I was just seeing what some of your settings was if we could get things looking even better
Lower your acceleration to 500 mm/s run a print test then you can adjust up as needed being the silk filament like slower speeds this should get things looking even better.
I would try a 20% rectilinear or gyroid infill to see if it gets you better looking top layers with that silk pla filament and change the bridge speed to 20 mm/s this way the first top layer will be even better when it starts adding the rest of the top layers down.
The grid infill overlaps; it’s not the best choice of infill to use; the slicer has better infills to select.
I’m trying all of those now, except ‘Acceleration’… Try as I might I simply can’t find that panel in Bambu Studio… Google doesn’t offer much help either…
The advance button must be on but if you are already changing speeds it should be on the bottom of the speed tab.
If you don’t know the acceleration is like the gas pedal in your car the higher the acceleration number the faster you get to top speed but for some filaments they like the acceleration lower you will get nicer parts if tuned to the filament.
I’ve never done ‘ironing’ on any of my printers and I was hoping that the printer could produce the quality I’m used to without that. I sure do appreciate all of the suggestions and understand now how a tighter infill and more top solid layers should help. But I’ll just conclude with this picture as the best I’m ever going to get (for now).
Left side is A1-Combo. Right side is Creality Ender 3S1.
The ender has a 15% infill and less solid top layers, but produces a nice top finish for this very flat part. The Bambu is super fast and the vertical surfaces look awesome. So I’ll just continue to learn and tweak and use each printer for what it’s good at.
PS - I did get through printing 120 of these things. So now the pressure is off and I can start having fun again. LOL
Honestly I didn’t get this issue dialed in yet. But I was able to produce a big order anyway. It was “good enough”. I’m going to keep trying some things that were mentioned here.
@gajtguy , got the issue, googled it and ended up here; were you able to resolve the problem? I’m desperately trying to print an iPad case for my mom with BL PLA silk, driving me nuts xD
printed a coin with the same settings same logo on back same filaments and same number of colored layers, came out perfect but somehow the case does that 🫨 only difference being the coin was printed on the cold plate while the case on the textures pei, might try the cold plate but it doesn’t make sens the plate should not affect the flow
