Got my X1-Carbon recently and tried to run some TPU prints on there, and I have been having issues from the start(with TPU, PLA goes just fine just to be clear). Where it sort of worked out of the box immediately on the Flash Forge Creator Pro 2 which the Carbon is supposed to replace.
The filament seems to get stuck in the extruder gears often. I have tried loads of different settings and now I think narrowed it down to it having issues when it needs to rotate the spool. The extra force needed to rotate the spool causes the extruder to just buldge-up/destroy the filament causing the extruder to have no grip on the filament and not be able to move it forward or backward.
Does anyone have any advise here? Ways to make it easier to rotate the spool? I have some SUNLU Dryers that I could try once more, but it didn’t seem to help much when I tried them before.(but that was before 20 other changes so who knows)
Slow down. Or rather, set a very low volumetric speed in filament settings (like 1.6mm^3/s) and increase the temperature. It’s also possible your TPU is just too soft for the extruder and can never work. Extremely soft TPU materials require a special short-path extruder and there are extruders made especially for those. I myself have some 70A I still haven’t dared to try, pretty sure it would jam, so I’m waiting for someone else to try first
Also, don’t use too much retraction and remove the top glass cover to avoid heat creep as that is more likely to happen with low volumetric speeds.
Current Speeds I am testing with now after your comment:
Changed the volumetric from 2.0 to 1.5 now. And put the filament in the dryer, so it rolls easier instead of on the rest at the back.
This TPU should be 95A, but never had any other, so can’t judge in any way if it’s true or not. Sunlu TPU
BTW, it also seems to go wrong after first layer check by the printer. So I have that disabled as well.
And on the Filament it’s self it says 190-210C temp range. Tested it with 220 and it no longer stuck to the build plate. So going warmer doesn’t seem like an option.
You can test to see if it is drag or excess friction in the path.
Pull the ptfe tube from the print head and feed the filament directly into the extruder. Use a spool stand with bearings sitting above the printer. This will be the most awkward part as you need to have the spool high enough to let the print head have its full range of motion. Maybe stack stuff up along side the printer to match or beat its height or place the printer near a shelf.
My vision is for the filament to be pulled somewhat straight down off the spool at about 3 o’clock as in my head, that seems like the least friction. Do keep in mind I’ve only been awake for half an hour and I didn’t sleep in a Holiday Inn Express.
Yeah seems like I need to go build something. Also have some 98A filament coming tomorrow to see how that works.
If I could I would have bought the Bambu Labs TPU, but it’s been sold out for weeks here.
Found some Bambu Labs TPU, and it’s been fantastic.
Standard settings at least just worked out of the box. Adjusted the retract a bit because of stringing and it’s been amazing.
It’s now also 2.5 times faster than I could print previously.
Hey Guys
Ive been running in the same Trouble Issues as many of you.
Using the profile found on printables (model 395685) as tpu preset i managed to get some great results (altough the print time is really slow).
But 1 of 3 prints still breaks due to the extruders problem as described by Laurens Wijnschenk above, so it´s unsuitable for the material:
The extruder stops feeding after a while and starts printing with hot air. Since the sphagetti detection is not capable of detecting it, you cant resume simply after reenabling the flow. so you receive the lower part of a print
This definitely is a design problem of the extruder i m h o.
A much cheaper Ender 3 S1 with their direct extruder doesn´t run into any problems - it has got a dual gear drive. I´m just disapointed the Carbon X1 doesn´t have the advertised capability. Hopefully there is a future revision they also make available as a update to early customers.
If someone got an idea for a intermediate solution, please let us know.
I have some 70a i tried flushes perfectly. But there is an issue i believe somewhere in the g code. After flush but before the purge line on the plate the machine does a very large retraction even though my tpu retraction is set at only .2mm if i hold the filament back away from the extruder gears during this time it will print perfectly. But if i leave it in the extruder fully during this time the large retraction will make the tpu bunch up jaming the extruder every time.
hi, I have a bambulab x1c printer and I have always printed in TPU, even large prints, I have never had any problems.
a few days ago I had to print a TPU part, I manually loaded the usual TPU spool, then I started printing but from the second layer onwards the printer stopped extruding. I unloaded the filament from the printer, cut it and reloaded it, this time extruding manually the extruder gear began to click, nozzle temperature 240c, but nothing. I then tried to print with PLA and it worked correctly, then I tried to disassemble the extruder and I tried to unblock the extruder but there was no clogging, then I tried to pass the filament through the extruder and there were no problems . I also tried all the steps on the bambulab site but none solved the problem. after having disassembled and reassembled the entire extrusion head several times, but each time extruding it manually the material was extruded correctly but then after a few pushes or when printing the problem recurred.
so, having doubts that there were clogs in the hotend, I replaced the entire piece, restarting the printing, I thought I had solved the problem but after the first layer the problem recurred. I still don’t understand what the problem could be.
I also tried changing the print settings even though they had worked correctly in the past, I ran out of ideas on how to solve the problem.
any help is appreciated, thanks!
Hi Albi27.
I am 100% with you. Excat the same on my X1C. Printed several lage TPU parts, with fantastic results but from one day to another just failing. I disassembled the extruder at least 20 times, tried 30 settings, ran harder TPU (from 82 to 85 shore A) without sucess so far. Just changed back to my Ender 3V2 and ran a perfect print.
So quite curious about getting help.
First point: The retraction of the extruder within the filament settings must be set to 0 mm. Otherwise the extruder is doing fast micro retracts which exceed any reasonable TPU parameters, as I learned from the G-code. That may is a reason.
Second point: Maybe the yellow extruder gear becomes softer/getting damaged when the jamming occures. That may increase the chance for having it again?
I thought too, but trying to disassemble it and considering the hours of printing I don’t think that’s the problem, I’m now more of the idea that it’s the extrusion stepper’s fault, I’ve seen that others have had similar problems and solved it like this. but I’m waiting for the response to bambulab’s ticket.
I seem to remember seeing something about the ptfe tubes wearing and causing drag. It may not be noticeable with smoother filaments but maybe your TPU is just sticky enough? Just throwing this out there, not really sure if it can be a thing.
