I’ve had my X1C now for over a year, and it’s been a great workhorse. But recently, it started dropping filament onto the printbed throughout the print, ruining the quality, especially of “see-through” things like lightboxes, where the end result looks like it was dragged through the desert. Note: this is not an “initial layer” problem, where the filament was carried over from the previous job - it is more devious than that. I don’t think this is related to any firmware update; it was happening about three weeks ago, and still happens after update to 01.11.00.00, which I did a couple of days ago.
Try recalibrating you black filament looks like it might be extruding to much out. Also make sure its dry.
If it worked well before the update, roll back (downgrade) to the firmware version that was working for you.
Standard question: Do you own a filament dryer and have you used it?
Also, the printing “equation” is susceptible to ambient temperature. If the environmental conditions have changed enough, you may need to re-do your temp tower cal and revisit your cooling settings.
I bring this up because it happened to me. My printer is against an exterior wall. I have baseboard heat. The heating system is now running because it’s November in the northern hemisphere. The printer was seeing noticeably higher ambient temps when the heat was on. I had to make adjustments to the printer’s location (because I was too lazy to redo the cals).
I’d go with “dry” first, though, since those uncontrolled noodle extrusions are often caused by moisture in the filament (and because you didn’t say anything about drying). If that doesn’t correct the problem, temp tower would be my next choice since the extrusion and PA look OK in the areas that aren’t screwed up.
You don’t say what type of filament. That’s a crucial detail you don’t want to leave out. Some plastics are more susceptible to moisture infiltration than others.
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In your first photo, is the dropped filament attached in anyway to the previously printed parts?
My question here is to determine if the extra filament did fall or was somehow dragged from the nozzle during the printing process.
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In your second photo, was that printed face up or down?
My question here is trying to determine if the coloured parts were face down on the build plate when printing.
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Can you provide a Bambu Studio preview screenshot for us to see?
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Have you explored changing the filament order?
Use the build plate cog (hex shape) button and change the two filament sequence options. Drag the swatches around until the lightest are shown first with the largest on the right.
This can reduce the impact of dark filaments pushing into light ones when printing and causing some of the artefacts you have sown in photo 2.
Thanks @drakko, but you’ve misread.
Sorry about the missed details. The filament is Creality PETG spool refill. It was brand new, right out of the obx and sealed pouch. I’m not in the habit of drying new filament; maybe I need to be? I will show pictures and point yhou to the model on (I think it was) thingiverse, but it was printed face down. Not home at the moment.
The droppage is not related to a prior print in any way. You may notice a blob on the middle left, as well as one prominent in the middle itself, dropped at different layers, presumably.
I have not found instructions for calibration (it’s been a busy weekend), I hope to focus on this late today or on Monday.
In addition, I would also check the wiper/scrubber. You mention you’ve used machine a lot and that is a wearable part. You also mention it happens mid print and see its a multicolor print. It’s possible the black is having some issue as mentioned above but also the wiper may be worn adding to the issue.
You need to be. It’s been discussed many times in this forum (and others, too, I am sure) - you can’t trust a new roll to be dry. The packaging is not hermetically sealed, humidity gets in over time, albeit slowly. And you don’t know how dry the plastic was going in to the bag.
New filament from an unopened bag is less likely to need drying, for sure. But the odds are far from zero that a new roll will need drying anyway. So especially with a new roll of filament that’s not printing well, drying is the first step to take to troubleshoot the issue.
May I add a single word to make this the perfect advice?
If you need to be…
Read down to the drying information under the related glue information.
Drying is incredibly important, but only if moisture is a problem. Could it be a problem, yes absolutely, should it be ruled out, absolutely.
Does everyone, everywhere need to dry, absolutely not.
The environment of where the printer is located and the filament manufactured are the key factors. It takes experience to learn. If, like me, you do not need it, considering it a factor in all issues isn’t helpful to find the actual issue.
Gonna respectfully disagree. ![]()
You have no way to know the “provenance” of a new roll of plastic you just took out of the bag. Your local environment is not a significant factor unless the bagged filament has been sitting around for a while (the bags have a “humidity time constant” that’s long, but not infinite). You can assume it’s dry (enough) for what you plan to do, but unless you have an expensive tool (there are tools that can measure moisture levels in filament. Some people use plant soil moisture meters and they seem marginally accurate for cheap $) you can’t tell if it’s dry until you print something.
If the results of the print are poor and the filament is the only thing that’s changed, it could be a tuning problem, sure. There’s variation roll to roll even from the same supplier (Bambu, I’m looking at you). But the fact that uncontrolled plastic appears to be coming out of the extruder when it’s not supposed to (the loose noodle of filament in the center of the print in the picture the OP posted), there are only two possibilities - the extruder is defective in a way that causes the motor to run when it’s not supposed to (which would be a highly unusual failure mode for a stepper motor drive circuit) or the filament needs to be dried.
So unless you have a lot of experience (you are not the OP, and that’s who I was responding to) and can judge the filament from the first few extrusions when a print starts (note: I believe I have been printing long enough to do this), if you open a new roll and get a crappy print, drying is one of the first things you should try, expert or no (note: I have been wrong about judging dryness sometimes in spite of my many years of experience).
Yeah, if I really need to print something and I take a new roll out of a sealed bag, I’ll generally roll the dice and see how it extrudes. But if I want a good, high quality print, even with a brand new roll I load it in the dryer a day in advance and make sure. Filament can never be too dry (well… TBT, Nylon, PVA and TPU can in fact suffer if too dry. But the heated boxes or vacuum pumps we use to dry filament can’t achieve 0 moisture level so it’s not a practical concern).
So drying never hurts and is one of the first things to try if you get results like the OP has described… which to me anyway look exactly like what you get when moisture drives plastic out the extruder nozzle.
Feel free unlike the person who downvoted logic!
This part is key and I addressed it.
Firstly…
Tweaked for context by removing the printer element.
Secondly…
This one is important and I believe it covers your concern.
If you get your filaments from a single company and their track record is good, trust is earned from experience and not guess work.
I never implied guessing or wild purchasing decisions.
For the suppliers I have now, 80% is from Bambu Lab, never had a roll with moisture, the other came from various companies via Amazon, but selected by reputation. Most are eSun, then Overture, Elegoo and Yousu.
I have never received a spool with moisture.
I know it must be confusing for those who have only experienced the annoyance of having to dry spools before use or for subsequent uses. That doesn’t mean your experience is the same for everyone.
Which was the point I was making.
We can’t help and advise people by telling everyone that one experience is the only experience.
I can’t be the only one that doesn’t suffer from moisture intrusion, but I imagine there are many who were told they must dry before that do not need to because they didn’t learn their needs first.
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