I am running into some top surface problems as highlighted in the images attached and would like to seek the help of my fellow professional 3d printers!
On some prints, it printed perfect, but on some prints there seem to be some “pillowing” (or defect) on random areas (or sometime same areas) of my print. Other than these defects, the print was perfect though.
Your help is much appreciated!
Below are more information of my settings:
Printer: Bambulab X1C
Filament: Bambu Lab PLA Basic White (Default settings)
Plate: Cool Plate with Glue
Slicer: Bambu Studio
Calibration: Automatic with Lidar after every print.
Settings (Only those that I changed, the rest is default)
Preset: 0.8 Extra Fine
Quality:
Ironing Type: Top Surface
Ironing Pattern: Rectilinear
Ironing Speed: 40 mm/s
Ironing Flow: 30%
Iron Line Spacing: 0.1
Strength:
Top Surface Pattern: Monotonic
Top Shell Layers: 12
Top Shell Thickness: 1mm
Internal Solid Infill Pattern: Monotonic Line
Sparse Infill Density: 25%
Sparse Infill Pattern: Cross Hatch
Infill/Wall Overlap: 5%
Infill Direction: 90
Do you have a timelapse of the print? I ask because the defect type reminds me of an edge curling effect I had where solid infill was laid over sparse infill.
Considering your model geometry, that would be somewhat surprising but you may have root cause and defect evolution similarities.
If it is related to lower layer curling effects, you may have better luck with the smooth PEI plate rather than the Cool plate (higher plate & hence chamber temps).
That first photo of the long squirrelly edge, is that 100% overhang wall? The latest or very recent update to the software added separate speed control for that, I would slow it down.
The third picture checkerboarding looks like over-extrusion possibly due to infill but not with 14 top layers, i think it might be overflow on ironing?
Also 0.08 very fine seems a bit overkill for this design unless I’m missing something and I probably am, so there.
Just a few more thoughts in addition to my earlier post:
The defects look very regular. 2mm XY distance between defects? That would point to needed machine maintenance and recalibration.
I am not using cross-hatch myself. More of a honeycomb fan. But the 90° direction caught my eye. 45° is more usual. It may help if there’s a defect relation to Infill/Wall overlap.
Thank you all for your help. The warping seemed to be reduced. What I did was to increase the infill to 50% and slow down bridging speed to 10 mm/s. I did a ironing calibration which shows me that 50 mm/s and 25% is the smoothest, so i used this setting as well.
But another problem arises from the ironing, there are some streaks that the ironing didn’t get (where I can still see the internal solid infill pattern)? What do you think is the problem? Please see below image:
Unfortunately, I do not have a timelapse. I will go buy a SD card today and follow up with prints if the detect still happen. I also do not have a smooth PIE plate
I agree with the 0.08 setting being an overkill. I have reduced it to 0.2 and it seemed to solve the problem (missing streaks when ironing) that I just encountered. I’ll do another print with the exact setting to see how it goes, will keep you all posted!
As for the pillow/defect/warp problem, I have slowed the overhang speed and bridging speed but some defects still happening. I noticed that it typically happen near edges!
hmm good eye! I auto-calibrate before every print (“checked” the box before sending for printing). As for the maintenance, I will do it once i’m back at office, however, do note that this machine is fairly new (around 1 month+ old, and used for around 260 hours).
If you want perfection you may want to ditch the auto flow calibration and do the manual-ish calibration inside bambu studio / orca slicer etc. At least that has worked well for me recently.
This allows you to dial in the flow-rate and pressure advance and not rely on the lidar sensing every run. For me it has only been a big deal for say PETG or engineering filaments, PLA just works (YMMV).
Finally that new photo’s top surface doesn’t appear monotonic, the model must have some feature extending to there such that it treats that as its own area. IS that how it was extruded in the 3d modeler?
Hello all! Just an update that I managed to solve this issue by changing the setting below:
Bridge speed down to 10mm/s
Change 0.08 preset to 0.2 preset. (This setting somehow solved most of the defects that i was facing, weird!)
50% infill with Adaptive Cubic pattern.
50 mm/s ironing speed, 25% Ironing flow and Ironing line spacing 0.1mm.
Now all my print’s top surface came out perfect (picture below) !! I would like to thank all of you all for providing me with suggestions and helping me solve this issue! Much appreciated!
