Is there any word if Bambu Labs is working on supporting flow calibration with their textured PEI sheet? I know the official guidance in their store is: “Automatic Calibration for Flow Rate is not recommended, as the LIDAR will have trouble correctly reading the print surface and the calibration can be affected.”
That said, I switched to the Textured PEI sheets in both of my X1Cs because 1) adhesion is great, 2) they don’t require any messy glue, and 3) they leave a nice textured finish on the bottom of prints.
But since I’m running these sheets full-time, I can no longer take advantage of the automatic flow calibration, which seems like a waste of a valuable feature. Is there any chance the X1/X1C will support flow calibration on textured sheets? Or is the only option to switch to smooth sheets for calibration?
I have downloaded and printed the test file proposed here. Printed on the textured PEI sheet,. I am satisfied with the result. Also the measurements for x-y-z are (almost) spot on, except may be 0.01 mm.
But the top surface, just brilliant. I.e., in case the automatic calibration won’t work, the present settings are pretty much ok Manual Flow Rate Tuning for better looking prints | Bambu Lab Wiki
I’ve also had pretty good “out-of-the-box” results with the default settings on the textured PEI sheet, but I’ve found a few filaments that need tuning. I’ll give this model a try. And hopefully one day Bambu can figure out how to make the lidar reliable enough for textured sheets.
For me, I just ran the flow calibration on the standard cool plate. And I think as long as I keep using basic PLA, it can re-use that, so it should be fine. At least my prints look great on the textured plate still!
I am using the textured PEI plate since a week now and I’m more than pleased. It just works perfectly fine for me. I used PLA and ABS+ for now.
I ran the flow calibration with black eSun ABS+ on the PEI sheet and it seems to workfine. I get occasional errors about horizontal laser not lit, they seem to be depending on the exterior light in my room. The printer is located in my workshop on a well illuminated workbench, it seems to me that the error occurs less often if I switch the light above my workbench off.
Running calibration on the smooth PEI sheet and then switching to textured PEI is probably fine if you’re only using a single filament (or very similar filaments, i.e. same brand).
In my case, I’m using X1Cs with AMS units, and often there are filaments from different brands in a single print…or at the very least, the filaments change job to job. It would be a bit tedious to regularly calibrate on a the smooth sheet and then switch back to the textured sheet, but I suppose I could in a pinch.
Still, long term, I’d like to see the lidar work with the textured sheet. I far prefer them to Bambu’s smooth sheets, I just hate giving-up one of the more interesting features on the X1.
I have been using the calibration feature on the new gold PEI plate with excellent results, if it’s not calibrating correctly I certainly can’t tell it. Using PETG-CF and PC. I assuming that flow calibration is filament type specific. Both of these work perfectly, and adhesion is great, releases easily when cooled.
@beegmouse I used and use flow calibration in the textured PEI.
I tend to alternate a lot the build plate and filament, and as a mistake, I forgot to unselect the flow calibration; I only noticed after a few prints, but since the results were great, I continue to do it for conventional filament materials (PLA, ABS, PETG, ASA).
Personally, for these typical materials, I didn’t notice any significant difference between calibrating the flow on the smooth or in the textured plate.
More likely, the LIDAR scan is failing on the textured PEI sheets and defaulting to the X1C’s default Pressure Advance “k” value of 0.02. When a LIDAR scan fails, this behavior silently happens in the background.
Which suggests a few things:
The only thing the LIDAR scan adjusts (today) is pressure advance, and even then, within a narrow set of predetermined values
The default 0.02 pressure advance value is “pretty good” for most filaments
For most filaments, you can skip the “calibration” printing steps (saves you a few minutes)
For the best fine-tuned results, it’s still better to print calibration prints (now available in Bambu Studio 1.7 or the community-drive OrcaSlicer) and save the calibration values with your filaments (pressure advance, flow ratio, max volumetric flow, etc). This has the added benefit of optimizing settings for all filaments in a multi-material AMS print, not just the first material.
Then again, as you’ve seen, the defaults are pretty good, so if it ain’t broke…
Am I right in thinking then, if I ran these test prints on a cold sheet, the resulting values from each filament would be automatically saved to each of the individual filaments in my AMS until I switch a reel out (at which point the settings for that reel would switch back to default settings until a new test is done, but the others remain on their custom calibration settings)? And then those settings remain constant when printing on other need types, including textured PEI, providing you don’t run a flow calibration at the start of the print?
If it is a “new” filament, you should recalibrate; if you replace it with an already calibrated filament, you need to set in the AMS which filament you are using, including the preset, and it will load the values automatically.
Yes, if you want.
When you insert a spool in the AMS, you can (if you have one) choose a preset which will upload the Pressure Advance (aka flow dynamics) settings. The flow rate is within the “slicer memory” (not in the AMS) as it is used during the slicing process.
I’m shocked that Bambu hasn’t come out with a textured sheet for the X series that has the PEI texture removed from the calibration location allowing the test/scan to happen correctly.
The AMS doesn’t allow me to select the specific filament supplier.
Within BS I’ve created presets for each each material from each supplier (a common one I use being Printables).
However, when setting what a reel is in the AMS. I can only select the filament brand from a list of pre-defined ones (Bambu, Overture, Poly, and eSUN), or as Generic.
So if I load a Prusament PLA or a Filamentive rPLA, both of them have to be put in as a Generic PLA and presumably then by the same settings?
More or less correct. The filament settings on the printer appear to mostly be for reference, not for configuring print settings. If you’ve calibrated your filament profiles and sliced with those settings, that is what will be applied at print time, regardless of the filament brand configured in the AMS.
Just be sure to: 1) disable/uncheck “Flow Dynamics Calibration” when printing (these values should be part of your saved filament profile), and 2) make sure the AMS slots are configured with the correct material type (PLA, PETG, ASA, etc) – slicer won’t let you choose a slot at print time that is configured with the wrong material type.
I do hope Bambu Lab will allow more customization for the on-printer listed filament brands and colors in the future, if nothing to make it easier to identify similar filaments from the slicer (like two similar colors from different vendors).
When calibrating with the cold plate do you use the glue stick or liquid glue ? I am not sure whats best practice here… but i do get issues with auto calibration sometimes when i dont use the liquid glue
