I am a completly new to this, I have just ordered my first 3D printer (P2S) and have completed my first design in Bambu Studio - ready for the arrival of the printer. I am making a stand for a printer. I have ordered SUNLU PETG HF and several PLA filaments (to appease the children) - because Bambu EU aparently doesnt have any stock of any filaments!. Printing in PLA sounds straight forward(ish) but I’m reading some scary things about the PETG printing. One of them is no profiles for it. So should I do the calibration test first?
Does anyone have any advice for me on printing PETG? Yes I have a storage box and filament dryer/dehydrator. My plan was to do a few small test prints in the PLA and pretty much move straight to PETG to make this stand. Ive also ordered TPU90 to print replacement feet for the printers and feet for the stands I have designed. I have the same questions for TPU as I do for PETG.
Any advice/recommended settings to prevent any possible issues would be greatly appreciated!
There really isn’t much difference between the two, other than hotend and bed temperature. I use BL filaments so it has the RFID in them, and I run with the standard settings for those filaments in Bambu Studio - they work fine.
TPU is quite different. I have ordered my first roll of it, but from what I see it can’t be used in the AMS because it’s too soft. The printer can handle it, but not the AMS.
There are some threads that show that Sunlu PETG HF behaves a bit different than Bambu PETG HF. I too had disappointing results and didn’t bother to play with the settings. This post here Does anyone have print settings for SUNLU high speed matte PETG - #28 by drakko caught my attention and i plan to try it again with those settings as soon as I find the time.
Petg is not much different from pla except for heatbed and nozzle temperature, I would increase the temperature of both the bed and nozzle by 10 degrees, so 65 on the heatbed, and 230 on the nozzle. If it is black filament, then go up by 20 instead on the nozzle, so 240 degrees.
Your first 3D printer is on the way. It is the time to be excited, not the time to worry.
If you want to do some preparation beforehand, read the Bambu Lab Wiki section about the P2S to make sure you know how to unpack and set it up when it arrives. Also take the Bambu Lab Academy courses (one even gets reward points for doing that) to know how to use it.
After setting up the printer, print the benchy that comes with the printer. Enjoy it. Print a few more models that come with the printer if you want.
When you are ready to print other models, use the default setting for whatever filament you are using. If there isn’t a profile for the brand, select generic as the brand and use the default setting. Sometimes using the Bambu Lab brand setting also works. I have been printing like this since the beginning and have not run into any problems.
If and when you run into any problems, then you can come here to ask, showing photos etc.
It is different in one big way though. It’s significantly more likely to show moisture effects. Some are kind of bizarre and cause other problems. It gets “sticky” and more likely to curl as it leaves the extruder. If it curls and sticks to the extruder it can form a kind of lava tube and pump molten filament up into the extruder housing causing it to be forced apart, can break wires, and cause nightmare cleanup jobs.
Wet PETG also loves to leave little zits on models, strings, and corners like to lift. Seen reports of nozzle clogs too.
PLA is more tolerant of water but still causes problems.
These are very dependent on the filament, how it’s dried (as in if it is dried sufficiently or not) and things like print speed.
Lots and lots of threads here by people having issues printing PETG. Water is pretty frequently the root cause. PLA seems much less susceptible but still shows water effects too but not as much as is seen with PETG.
I couldnt. They had no filament. I think there was one colour in each PLA and PETG when I ordered and I just didnt feel like sitting around waiting! Im hoping I dont have to tweak!
Thank you for the link, I have just ordered some! How long before printing do you put them in the AMS to dry out? Or shall I say, after taking them out the ziplocks and placing them in the AMS, how long do you leave them until you get the best results?
I have a have a UV printer in my lounge that cost me £20k. I am far more excited about the 3D printer than I have ever been about that! Haha. Thanks for the advice. I hope you dont see too many posts on here from me!
Okay, so I would go ahead and up the temperatures. I don’t know exactly why it needs to print hotter; I just know because it is darker, it doesn’t print as well on the standard PETG temperatures. No problem, happy to help!
Always use the default first. Tweak only if the default doesn’t work. Using Bambu Studio with Bambu printers since 2023, I have only tweaked one time (increasing printing temp and slowing down speed to get a very shinny look for a certain filament). The defaults have been working great.
Reading this forum, one may get the impression that 3D printing is a frustratingly difficult experience that requires frequent tweaking and tinkering to get anything printed out. That is not the case for majority of users.
For PLA, I agree, any brand I have tried prints perfectly fine with the BambuLab profiles. I don’t use the generic profiles because they have such a crippled max flow even though they print just as good at the BambuLab speeds.
For PETG I had very mixed results. While one brand printed just fine at default settings, other brands looked terrible and needed quite different settings. Especially if you want to exploit the full speed a filament is capable of. E.g. I had gaps right after the seam with both Elegoo and Sunlu PETG HF. I’m curious if the settings above will solve that. Some PETG filaments are very sensitive to the temperature where others printed just fine in a very wide temperature range.
I guess if you limit the flow to lower values, those problems might become less apparent.
Thank you so much for that!!! Probably just saved me! Haha
