Unreliable bed leveling with Jayo PLA

Bambu Lab P Series Troubleshooting
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Just thought I’d post about this, since it took quite some time for me to figure out.

I had issues where apparently the bed leveling often didn’t work very reliably. I’d notice this with problematic first layers.

It turns out that this was related to the Jayo matte PLA that I used. While that stuff can be printed at very high speed, it also has the downside of oozing from the nozzle while it’s cooling down right before the automatic bed leveling procedure (at the start of every print). You have to watch this like a hawk and remove that dribble before it has time to start the actual bed leveling, otherwise it will interfere with the sensing. I tried modifying the gcode (adding more wipes before it’s fully cooled down/the dribble has stuck harder to the nozzle) which helped significantly, but it didn’t cure it every time.

Bambu matte PLA (for example) does not have this problem. I guess it’s one downside of high-speed PLA in general (although this particular filament isn’t actually advertised as high-speed: it just is). I also find that the Bambu matte PLA sticks a little bit better to the bed than the Jayo.

Bambu P1S @4495 hours, Bambu 0.4 mm hardened steel nozzle, cool plate super tack.

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Weird, I have a tonne of this Jayo filament as it’s a sub–brand of Sunlu and it’s been just fine - their Standard PLA, Matt PLA through to PETG stuff.

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Retraction barely helped, and then there’s the mess with how/when to pull it back in later, otherwise there may not even be enough for the start strip at the front edge (I wouldn’t want it sputtering when it starts the actual print). The whole point of the wiping at the stage I mention is to stop all the oozing; pulling it in again later would undo all of that.

As for letting it cool more: this is the very problem in the first place, as I mention in my initial post.