I have been troubleshooting an odd problem where my top layers are wider than the bottom layers of my prints for a couple weeks now, to no avail. Bambu support suggested a variable flow calibration, I’m running on stock settings - did the test, attached you will find the result. It appears off compared to many other results of the same test i found online. so i did another vfc, another poor looking test. Does anyone know what is up with this result, if it is in fact problematic, and if so what could be causing the issue? Im on a stock P1s with about 1,000 hours print time, STOCK bare-bones settings, elegoo basic black PLA. Corners and top layers are also having issues, as well as the purge line having a problem peeling up. All SEEMINGLY related to flow… and yet i can print things, they just look kinda bad. Any ideas at all?
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Sometimes its the simplest of things that get us. F
Your plate needs to be cleaned before trying to troubleshoot. Any contaminants on the plate will interfere with adherence and ultimately make any testing or calibration hard to do.
Based on what I’m seeing it is hard to determine yet what the true root cause is. Cleaning the plate will at least get you started in the right direction. Forget about IPA for the moment. Its more of a placebo and people often are lured into believing that any strong smelling chemical must be doing it’s job, right? Well, the far less technical approach is to use very hot water from your kitchen sink and smear a generous coating of Dawn Dishwashing detergent(Fair Liquid if you’re in the EU). After application of the entire plate, simply use the hottest and most forceful water from your kitchen sink, scrubbing needed. Do this twice.
Here’s a great tutorial on how to run Orca Slicer to perform calibration. He does a good job explaining this in under 12 minutes.
What you’re looking for is the part for PA Pattern calibration. This is far more accurate than the one that is found in Bambu Studio.
Here’s the download for Orca Slicer. No need to worry about choosing between Bambu Studio and Orca. The two can coexist on the same machine and Orca is a fork of the Bambu code but with many more quality of life features such as baked in calibration tools. You would be forgiven upon first glance to confuse it for Bambu Studio.
But truth be told. I would not be at all surprised that your issues are cleared up or at least dramatically improved after proper plate cleaning.
The first point: Be aware that there are differences in filament qualities.
The second point: dry the filament. It could be that it has absorbed too much moisture. If this is the case, you may not get consistent print results, which may also apply to the calibration.
The third point: Make sure that you adhere to the printing temperature. This is stated on the filament packaging.
Thanks, so this issue has taken place using 2 different brand new rolls of pla and dried petg, i dried myself. Across multiple bodies and primitive shapes straight out of the slicer, all on stock basic settings.
The plate is clean. It just is discolored but i clean it all the time carefully. Next time i run the v.f.c I will clean it with dawn dish soap. I use orca mostly, only reason i have to use bambu studio is because I’m trying to remove variables that could be causing this issue. Ive run that pressure advance test before many times, back before this problem surfaced. I was not aware it was the same thing as the v.f.c. Are you quite sure about that?
