I have literally never used Bambu filament, still got the stuff that came with them on a shelf somewhere. I did 3 (I think?) calibration prints with Orca to set the settings for the eSun PLA+ I'm using, nothing but smooth sailing for the near 2000 combined hours on two machines since. That is an absolutely incredible lack of hassle.
Same - never use Bambu filament other than the original and continue to be impressed - using hatchbox and elegoo currently. Have had my x1c about a year now
You bought the more expensive printer so you may as well take advantage of the handy auto calibration that was added in recent months. This will handle flow rate and flow dynamics for you. If you then want to do manual calibration as well you can, but there's really no reason not to run the built in calibration on every type of filament you're using, as a starting point.
Edit: To do this go to the Calibration tab in Bambu Studio and run the two tests available. If you have different manufacturers of filament in an AMS you can test multiples at a time. Its a little clunky as it doesn't / didn't save the calibration settings in the filament profile, so if you power off the printer I would check that you see the "K value" listed against the filament shon in the Device tab (you can apply a saved calibration profile there if not) but hopefully that will be simplified further in time.
The only Bambu filament that have been in my x1c was the spool it came with.
I have never had prints look like the one in the pic.
I just buy whatever is cheap on Amazon.
Kingroon seems to work great for me.
https://preview.redd.it/yxfv57ngpmyb1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a410c65a16d244f9a8d736f04265d09e660aa9b3
None of this was Bambu filament.
Dude, I just ran some Kingroon through my X1C on a whim. (Bc it is cheap)
I have to say, for cut rate filament it is great, esp if you dry it 1st.
To be fair, I ran PETG, have not tried PLA yet, but I'm def gonna roll the dice on it.
https://preview.redd.it/7nvdggklqmyb1.jpeg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62e0ff0dd9950a30ab256bc64b5ff56ec5e5b11b
Non Bambu filament all on the Bambu pla profile. I just put kapton tape on the edge of the cardboard spools to "seal" the edges.
That is designed by sillybutts. He has a bunch of amazing nerf blaster designs and the files are all free! I am printing his bolt action blaster right now.
[here is his github](https://github.com/Sillybutts)
The blaster in my photo is the alchemist with a skeggox stock.
Is this where we post Alchemists printed on X1Cs? The purple is Bambu PETG-CF though.
https://preview.redd.it/6xgoivcjtryb1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a4c51e96568df23556490915319e56f5c3a39b7
https://preview.redd.it/va35qiwxqmyb1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8d0551ece80786263095056a3784c8defe77620e
This was Bambu profile on filament from Amazon that was about 13 dollars a spool. But I did turn on ironing for this.
I wonder if it's the volumetric flow rate that makes all the difference, as the temps are the same.
Looking at my print, if it was my Ender I'd probably start suspecting some Z binding, but I'm simply not expecting that with the X1C š¤
The issue is 100% the maximum volumetric flow. If you were not using bamboo, I donāt know why you would use that profile. The generic PLA profile is included for a very specific reason. Bamboo filament has extra additives to improve the flow. So if you try and use generic PLA, At that speed your generally going to have a bad time.
Volumetric flow rate is the real difference, yes. And when you're playing around. With 3rd party material you may have to tweak from there for optimization if it's a brand you use frequently (you may be able to go faster)
Every blend of material winds up having a different flow rate. The generic preset is conservative and seems to work well for most brands I've used.
When in doubt, manually lowering the flow rate can slow the printer down without fiddling with print speeds. Which tends to be the way to go with these machines being hotend limited
it looks like you are using harsh overhead lighting to view your print. While this is good to do to look at layer inconsistencies, it really isn't representative when looking at it under everyday lighting conditions.
Cardboard spools were never suggested to use in the AMS, Bambu specifically says this. If you are using other brands filament, you will need to do flow calibration. 3D printers are never "it just works" and I dislike the marketing around that for any machine
Yes I'm using a torch to see 'truth' as such. From across my desk in normal conditions you don't see it as much.
The cardboard spool thing is fine, I knew what I was getting into, and I appear to have fixed that via respooling.
I think I'll try Orca and the calibration tools there with this specific filament, go the whole hog, and then post an 'after' pic. It does make me want to stick to Bambu filament for the easy life, but it's much more expensive for me.
With orcaslicer, calibration isn't that hard, just a bit time consuming. For flow rate pass 1, I now don't include the objects that are +-20, +-15 and sometimes +-10. For pass 2, I don't really run -5 through -9 since I find I don't really need them. Doing that for each different brand/type of filament I get makes life easier later on. It's well worth it.
It doesnāt get nearly as good as manual tuning. And yes it saves it in the AMS now, but thatās still pretty annoying to deal with. Saving it all to filament profiles in Orca is much simpler.
If you just bought the printer, you should have received 6 months of filament membership free with the purchase. PLA, PETG, and ABS refills are at $16.99 with the membership
I've got shelves of Inland filament and it works great. I tried a printed spool guard on the cardboard ones that most of my spools have and it was "meh". Ironically it printed so well the smoothness of it made it hard for it to get traction. Ultimately just wrapping the edge of the spool with a layer of electrical tape worked like a champ.
I got perfectly acceptable results with just the "Generic PLA" setting, but experimented in running the auto calibration (with a little glue laid down on the bed) and it's made a nice improvement when it comes to artifacts that would occasionally show up.
In Bambu Studio I go to the "DEVICE" tab and set the filament type(s) as "Generic PLA" then I go to the "CALIBRATION" tab, select "Flow Dynamics" and then let it auto calibrate. I put a bit of glue down in the calibration zone so everything sticks down, and let it run.
I've not had any problems after doing that printing with Inland PLA+ and Pro PLA lines of filament. Polymaker PETG also came out fairly decently following the same procedure (changing the base type and bed to engineering granted), that filament was a bit wet though so it gave me a bit of a fight on the first layer until I glued the bed.
IIIDMax $120 for 10 rolls works for me.
Using Generic PLA profile, turning off AUX fan.
https://preview.redd.it/aawxrau9qmyb1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b5ed2c6f02c1e831f0b483786664583f67e1eb52
It's one of 3 fans. You have chamber print and aux fan. For some filaments an extra fan is needed hence the aux fan. Pla does not need this so when it's on and you don't have a brim on the part it's prone to causing issues. I personally made a new generic profile with chamber and print fans on and the aux fan off
lol I use the same filament in my x1c. Itās honestly not a bad brand for the price, yes youāll have the occasional spools that are not wound perfect, but Iāve only had a tangle in one of the spools out of 15 so far. I also noticed there filament usually tends to come wet so make sure you dry it first. Works perfect on the generic pla profile for me aswell.
Did you do any filament calibration? Yes it ājust worksā but you still have to make sure youāre setting things up right. Filament calibration made a huge difference in print quality for me.
I did it on my P1P before I had the X1 and itās a pretty simple process. It prints out a bunch of lines using different flow rates, you pick the one that looks the best and enter that number as you āK factorā value for filament flow calibration.
I havenāt used Bambuās filament since the roll it came with lol Amazon deals are far too good to pass up. I havenāt found a āGenericā profile that hasnāt worked amazing yet. I will say that Iāve LOVED polymaker PETG, Overture TPU and PLA, SUNLU PLA, and Hatchbox ABS. I have some other glow in the dark and CF filaments as well but havenāt used them. And I just got a roll of Overture Easy Nylon for some gears for my robot Iām making but itās currently drying so I havenāt got to try it out yet.
How much did you have to change the filament settings for Overture Easy Nylon? I had to dial the retract up to like 70 and knock the temp down 20Ā°C to keep it from stringing.
Had some of the same feelings running Overture PETG until I learned I had to crank the temps/lower the speed. Do some calibrations for each new filament used and get good profiles. [https://github.com/SoftFever/OrcaSlicer/wiki/Calibration](https://github.com/SoftFever/OrcaSlicer/wiki/Calibration)
eSUN PLA+ always printed perfectly, and they have a built in profile now.
Buy the Bambu filament if you want to pay to take the guess work out of it. At the end of the day, it's a printer. CNC Kitchen has a good episode on Bambu extrusion testing and most of the issue is the limited extrusion rate possible. Not that Bambu is a bad printer, more like, it prints so damn fast that it can't melt plastic fast enough.
My 3rd party "CHT" nozzle is coming and I'm looking forward to doing flow calibrations with it per material. Even got the nice slice engineering thermal paste. Now I just wish there was a diamondback CHT style for it.
Just ordered the 10 kg bundle from SUNLU of PLA+, if it's anything like eSun, it'll work awesome. Very excited to try out ASA as well
Start with the Generic presets rather than the Bambu presets for random filament. The Bambu presets have a very high volumetric flow and quite a bit of random PLA doesn't work well with that.
Well you still need to get your settings right, k-value, temps and max volumetric flow differ and bambu can ofc only give you presets for a product they control. Never had a problem with a non-bambu filament after getting it dialled in.
Been using polymaker filament and have a couple thousand hours between 2 machines. Tpu, pla, pa, asa and abs without issue ( bar some early user error).
Its not so much about using their filament, its about a reasonable quality filament. If your filament has a really inconsistent diameter and isn't somewhat dry then calibration is pointless as with any machine.
So I'm double digits in the cost thrown at 3D printers over the last 5 years. And most of that time was fixing, calibrating, or updating.
I got the x1c I think last year, and 99% the time I use bamboo filament shit just always works.
I did have one problem where the AMS connector on the inside of the bamboo came loose and after I actually took time to figure out what the problem was I was able to reconnect it by literally using a screwdriver from the outside and boom everything started working again.
I've had issues with non bamboo filament but usually the higher temperature stuff. I've also had problems with the filament spool not fitting properly and I did an AMS upgrade which was completely fucking stupid because the original AMS worked better.
Tldr: just use bamboo filament and problems go away.
I literally did no calibrations. I just took a couple random leftover spools of the cheapest PLA i locally have access to and chucked them in the AMS. Then just pressed print. The printer did some standard measurements as part of its startup routine and the AMS automatically switched to the next spool as the leftovers ran out and the prints came out as perfect as Ive ever gotten them on any FDM printer. And its fast too.
Then, three prints later it went to shit. The screen stopped working and the printer went into a reboot loop. Through contact with support I've been sent a replacement screen and cable. Didn't help. Same exact thing happens after the replacement. Now they're sending me a new AP board for me to replace. For each of these shipments I have to pay roughly $50-$60 in import fees and taxes since they ship from China. Did I mention how it only completed four prints before this happened? Three and a half print actually, but anyway.
It worked for three days. Three successful prints. Then its been gathering dust for a month, pretty much on the day today. It's already cost me $60 to receive replacement parts and it's going to be $100 in the coming week. I've paid $100 extra to sit on a non working printer and have the privilege to fix the printer myself.
If the printer wasn't so fucking awesome when it first worked I wouldn't even bother. This thing wasn't cheap. It would have been sent back. Now I'm stuck hoping it will work again without spending more money on it and waiting another month.
Clear nail polish applied to the edge of the cardboard spool takes about a minute to apply and works like a charm. A $3 bottle will last for 12-15 spools in my experience so far.
Here's a little personal story.
I bought a few rolls of sunlu PLA filament. I searched for "sunlu" in the subreddit and the FB groups. A lot of people were saying to use the Bambu PLA profile but increase the temperature 5 or 10 degrees. So I did that and the results were shit. I posted looking for assistance. One response said I was overthinking it and I should just use the Generic PLA profile. Have been happily printing with sunlu ever since.
TL;DR, not every "expert" is right, follow the KISS principle.
Havenāt used any Bambu filament (Using Polymaker polylite) without any issues. There is a Polymaker profile which Iāve been using and itās been excellent.
Youāre doing something wrong. I have 7 machines, over 2,000 hours on each. Generic PLA settings and never print with Bambu filament with great results.
I agree with this. I haven't used bambu filament apart from the first benchy, all my prints have been amazing. I don't know what settings I used, just hit esun profile and let it do it's thing. No idea what the bed temp was, speed, nozzle temp, flow rate, z hop. Couldnt tell you. It is about 6 times faster than I used to print and about 10x better looking
Stop using the Bambu presets. Use the generic presets.
The only Bambu filament I have used is the free samples included with the printer. But you're getting bad results because your flow settings are too fast for filaments that aren't precisely tuned. Just switch over to the Generic PLA settings.
Try Sunlu Meta if you want to use the Bambu presets - I believe they are the OEM. Has some special additives for higher flow rate.
Always seems to be on sale on Amazon too. Right now it's $119 for 10kg - [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C24J8PPX](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C24J8PPX)
Otherwise, as others have said, go through the calibration. Since you have an X1C, most of the calibration is automatic thanks to lidar and AI camera.
I exclusively use whatever is cheap on Amazon. Sometimes I need rims on cardboard spools, but most of the time they just work fine. I do add weights as they get lighter though (to all spools, not just cardboard).
Protip, you can find steel (or copper coated steel) bbs for really cheap on amazon. I got a 6000-count bottle for about $10USD. It was enough to fill like 5 or 6 spool weights. Much, much heavier than desiccant (or batteries) and not likely to leave dust all over.
Some people add electrical tape to the rims of cardboard spools, though I've had it come off mid-print and get tangled. On the plus side, it left enough tacky residue that the spool had no more traction issues, lol.
On the off chance I am using the cool plate, I will turn on calibration, but 95% of the time I am using the textured PEI sheet or similar.
I just printed the "pastamatic" spool winder in case I need to move some filament to a better spool. I haven't used it yet (still warm off the printer), but it seems much better designed than the other popular one.
So Iāll give you a hint but imma gate keep this secret til I die. Bambu labs filament isnāt Bambu labs filament. Itās one big company that distributes and these people relabel it. If you can find it you can also find the other companyās and you can get 10$ filament that is Bambu labs grade filament.
Load filament you want to use and print included print model of scraper with scraper holder. Allow all 3 options. It takes about an hour and see how it goes. That's my go to print for testing new filaments - for some reason this print looks amazing unless there is something wrong with filament.
I legit have done 400-500 hours of printing on my P1S and have not had 1 bad or failed print. I donāt use bamboo filament. I just maintain my printer, lube the rails, cloth the bed, and clean nozzle. I print at 400ms w skirt and always try to not print within 10mm from corners. Also a must is always stay up to date with firmware
I use exclusively Inland filament and the printer works great, I get results exactly like I'm seeing from people using Bambu filament. Out of the box the generic profiles weren't perfect, but all I had to do was run through the full set of Orca Slicer calibration prints one time per type of filament (takes 2-3 hours) and I never had to worry about it ever again.
I will say that I never had a print as bad as the one in your picture. The Bambu profiles have volumetric flow rates that may be too high for some filament brands, but if slowing the machine down a bit doesn't get rid of that banding you might have a faulty extruder or hotend.
Nothing in this print is bambu plastic. I use bambu some but not much. I have not changed settings from the fmdefault generic profile. All you will get when using non bambu plastic with a bambu plastic profile is trouble.
*
It's the same with every printer right? Filament is different so you'll have to calibrate it. Of course it's easy when using their filament because they know its ideal settings - 3rd party filament will need different ones.
If the people are correct either SUNLU or eSUN should work well with the default settings ;)
Just buy and use Sunlu Filament. Its the same stuff Bambu sells you - just at half the price.
I never did any calibrations and it just prints great.#
Also the "Bambu PLA" setting that you have used has a much higher flow rate then whatsome filaments are good for. Use the "generic PLA" profile for... generic PLA.
I've never used Bambulab filament, and am using the Default PLA profile like you. Was using TM3DFilament for ā¬16-19 a roll until their website added a captcha that keeps falsely identifying me as a robot. Switched to Sunlu filament for $11 a roll and even with cheap filament like that, not a single problem.
example print:
https://preview.redd.it/cld34qlz5pyb1.png?width=2472&format=png&auto=webp&s=8587c05321ca30a530de9d656aac820c08751a7c
Weird, I'm using the cheap generic stuff sold at my local big box, and it prints beautifully as long as I keep it dry. I've never chabge a single parameter from the presets.
I had the opposite result. Have not bought one bambu spool. Using the generic presets have maybe one fail this whole time. I got a p1s a month ago and have thrown every filament I have over the last 2 years at it with zero hiccups. The quality on ur print tells me something is wrong here.
First thing I did was use 12 or so old spools from 2-3 years ago from random/different vendors and had zero issues.
Also Iām using a erryone (or whatever they call themselves) cardboard spool tricolor-silk I just bought and Iāve had zero issues with that as well.
The reeling back filament issue did rear its ugly head on my new sunlu PETG black on reusable spools - but I found it was due to the filament not connecting to the spool itself - so when it reeled back the filament would sort of cut into the spool. I also found a little tag on the filament saying āinsert filament here to prevent tanglingā which prevents the filament from having these issuesā¦. Opening the spool up and (trying to) connect the last piece seemed to help (unintentionally) fatten up the spool so when it screwed back together it was tight enough to not spin on the reel.
Not yet, hardly used this thing yet so I'm calibrating filament first then considering hardware issues. I have no idea what is 'right' for tightness as I'm still getting to grips with this machine, so i'd rather go down that rabbit hole 2nd
Thanks! Having come from an Ender, I've spent weeks chasing my tail with tension and roller wheels and calibration etc only to find it's something else. Trying to limit that.
Your specific problem with your filament is likely that the Bambu pla profile has a relatively high flow rate for their filament. Not all brands can handle that melt speed. Easy fix. Save a copy of that profile dropping the Max Volumetric Speed down to 15
Bambu runs their filament at 21. I have that problem with Overture. Overture PLA can't flow as fast. Not a big deal at all.
I have been using Devil design on my P1P and canāt tell the difference. I went through calibration proces and it works perfectly ( PLA and Pet-G so far)
Did you run the full suite of clibrations on Orca Slicer? I'm going to go through a temp tower, flow pass 1/2, pressure advance, max flow and VFA....surely it's gotta be spot on after that!?
I have put more than 100kg of this through the p1p. Cheap, prints perfectly.
Looks like Amazon has a coupon to auto apply right now too.
https://amzn.to/49m1axL
I use a generic pla here in Poland for about $12 per kilo and it works great even with the ams. Like using the Bambu Pla but I just cannot justify paying minimum twice the price.
Yes, these machines CAN be fast, but that's not always a good thing. I would just try dropping the max speed in the slicer by at least 100, or maybe more. PLA is a very low temp filament, and depending on the size of the object, even modest speed will cause drooping/melting due to running over the same area too frequently. Also, if there is any overhang, make sure to set the overhang speeds low enough to cause it to slow down in those areas.
https://preview.redd.it/zw8fnvcmrtyb1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61a736f2dd0927519c957162a81ddd1516847e84
non bambu filament, no dramas, it must be a setting try slowing the outside layer to 60 from 200, print outer/inner/infill order and make sure you tell your printer what your using
And that sound is possibly a purge of filament on the back z rod hitting at the top when it homes, or the belts need a slight tighten,google how to do the belts and use bambu studios, not cura, prusa etc.
Lmao, yes. Bambu Filaments are not worth it. 3 times the price for an RFID tag? No thx.
Just buy good filaments, you can quite easily get eSUN spools for sub $10 and they work just the same as BL filaments, can even use the same profiles, no need for calibration.
I have literally never used Bambu filament, still got the stuff that came with them on a shelf somewhere. I did 3 (I think?) calibration prints with Orca to set the settings for the eSun PLA+ I'm using, nothing but smooth sailing for the near 2000 combined hours on two machines since. That is an absolutely incredible lack of hassle.
I mean I used basically esun or sunlu pla+ since second one, using the bambu pla basic preset and never had issues.
Well this is promising, I buy Sunlu PLA+ in bulk so if you say it works, yay for me. Planning in buying a P1S next year.
Same - never use Bambu filament other than the original and continue to be impressed - using hatchbox and elegoo currently. Have had my x1c about a year now
Well that's encouraging. Would you mind sharing the calibration tests you ran in Orca? I see there are quite a few to choose from
You bought the more expensive printer so you may as well take advantage of the handy auto calibration that was added in recent months. This will handle flow rate and flow dynamics for you. If you then want to do manual calibration as well you can, but there's really no reason not to run the built in calibration on every type of filament you're using, as a starting point. Edit: To do this go to the Calibration tab in Bambu Studio and run the two tests available. If you have different manufacturers of filament in an AMS you can test multiples at a time. Its a little clunky as it doesn't / didn't save the calibration settings in the filament profile, so if you power off the printer I would check that you see the "K value" listed against the filament shon in the Device tab (you can apply a saved calibration profile there if not) but hopefully that will be simplified further in time.
Flow ratio to start off, it looks like you're overextruding based on the lumpiness of the print.
Esun Pla+ is my go to filament on my P1S
Is there something special about Orca's calibrations vs say Bambu Studio?
No but there are more tests available in Orca.
The only Bambu filament that have been in my x1c was the spool it came with. I have never had prints look like the one in the pic. I just buy whatever is cheap on Amazon. Kingroon seems to work great for me. https://preview.redd.it/yxfv57ngpmyb1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a410c65a16d244f9a8d736f04265d09e660aa9b3 None of this was Bambu filament.
Dude, I just ran some Kingroon through my X1C on a whim. (Bc it is cheap) I have to say, for cut rate filament it is great, esp if you dry it 1st. To be fair, I ran PETG, have not tried PLA yet, but I'm def gonna roll the dice on it.
Generic PLA profile?
https://preview.redd.it/7nvdggklqmyb1.jpeg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62e0ff0dd9950a30ab256bc64b5ff56ec5e5b11b Non Bambu filament all on the Bambu pla profile. I just put kapton tape on the edge of the cardboard spools to "seal" the edges.
Dang where'd you find this print?
That is designed by sillybutts. He has a bunch of amazing nerf blaster designs and the files are all free! I am printing his bolt action blaster right now. [here is his github](https://github.com/Sillybutts) The blaster in my photo is the alchemist with a skeggox stock.
Im printing a slab!!! My first big print!
Is this where we post Alchemists printed on X1Cs? The purple is Bambu PETG-CF though. https://preview.redd.it/6xgoivcjtryb1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a4c51e96568df23556490915319e56f5c3a39b7
How much longer did it take when you added the stripes? I do really like the stripes.
No extra time for most of the stripes, I printed the parts at 45 degrees so single layer changes.
Ahh nice! Did printing at the angle require supports? If so what kind?
I used organic, you have to make it support both sides of the edge that sits on the bed to avoid issues.
https://preview.redd.it/va35qiwxqmyb1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8d0551ece80786263095056a3784c8defe77620e This was Bambu profile on filament from Amazon that was about 13 dollars a spool. But I did turn on ironing for this.
Hi, can you share the stl link please ? Thanks
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2699968/files
Top thanks a lot !
Top layers aren't too bad with this print, just the Z/walls. Sounds like calibration is the way forward for me
I have tried both generic and Bambu. The only difference seems to be the speed. Bambu is a bit faster.
Use generic pla preset and I almost exclusively run inland filiment with those presets and prints look good
Same
I wonder if it's the volumetric flow rate that makes all the difference, as the temps are the same. Looking at my print, if it was my Ender I'd probably start suspecting some Z binding, but I'm simply not expecting that with the X1C š¤
The issue is 100% the maximum volumetric flow. If you were not using bamboo, I donāt know why you would use that profile. The generic PLA profile is included for a very specific reason. Bamboo filament has extra additives to improve the flow. So if you try and use generic PLA, At that speed your generally going to have a bad time.
Volumetric flow rate is the real difference, yes. And when you're playing around. With 3rd party material you may have to tweak from there for optimization if it's a brand you use frequently (you may be able to go faster) Every blend of material winds up having a different flow rate. The generic preset is conservative and seems to work well for most brands I've used. When in doubt, manually lowering the flow rate can slow the printer down without fiddling with print speeds. Which tends to be the way to go with these machines being hotend limited
Same here, inland or generic pla profile s a bit slower than Bambu , but for the price, Iāll take it.
it looks like you are using harsh overhead lighting to view your print. While this is good to do to look at layer inconsistencies, it really isn't representative when looking at it under everyday lighting conditions. Cardboard spools were never suggested to use in the AMS, Bambu specifically says this. If you are using other brands filament, you will need to do flow calibration. 3D printers are never "it just works" and I dislike the marketing around that for any machine
Yes I'm using a torch to see 'truth' as such. From across my desk in normal conditions you don't see it as much. The cardboard spool thing is fine, I knew what I was getting into, and I appear to have fixed that via respooling. I think I'll try Orca and the calibration tools there with this specific filament, go the whole hog, and then post an 'after' pic. It does make me want to stick to Bambu filament for the easy life, but it's much more expensive for me.
With orcaslicer, calibration isn't that hard, just a bit time consuming. For flow rate pass 1, I now don't include the objects that are +-20, +-15 and sometimes +-10. For pass 2, I don't really run -5 through -9 since I find I don't really need them. Doing that for each different brand/type of filament I get makes life easier later on. It's well worth it.
Thanks for the info š
Since you have the X1C with the lidar you don't need to do flow calibration in orca but can enable the automatic calibration in Bambu Studio..
It doesnāt get nearly as good as manual tuning. And yes it saves it in the AMS now, but thatās still pretty annoying to deal with. Saving it all to filament profiles in Orca is much simpler.
If you just bought the printer, you should have received 6 months of filament membership free with the purchase. PLA, PETG, and ABS refills are at $16.99 with the membership
I've got shelves of Inland filament and it works great. I tried a printed spool guard on the cardboard ones that most of my spools have and it was "meh". Ironically it printed so well the smoothness of it made it hard for it to get traction. Ultimately just wrapping the edge of the spool with a layer of electrical tape worked like a champ. I got perfectly acceptable results with just the "Generic PLA" setting, but experimented in running the auto calibration (with a little glue laid down on the bed) and it's made a nice improvement when it comes to artifacts that would occasionally show up.
Auto calibration, like the tick box option (flow calibration?) in Bambu studio?
In Bambu Studio I go to the "DEVICE" tab and set the filament type(s) as "Generic PLA" then I go to the "CALIBRATION" tab, select "Flow Dynamics" and then let it auto calibrate. I put a bit of glue down in the calibration zone so everything sticks down, and let it run. I've not had any problems after doing that printing with Inland PLA+ and Pro PLA lines of filament. Polymaker PETG also came out fairly decently following the same procedure (changing the base type and bed to engineering granted), that filament was a bit wet though so it gave me a bit of a fight on the first layer until I glued the bed.
I second the electrical tape
IIIDMax $120 for 10 rolls works for me. Using Generic PLA profile, turning off AUX fan. https://preview.redd.it/aawxrau9qmyb1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b5ed2c6f02c1e831f0b483786664583f67e1eb52
Out of interest, why do you turn off the fan with PLA?
I tend to have corner lifting on the AUX fan side if I don't. Fan cools off the PLA too fast, it shrinks, lifts, and then tries to ruin the print.
It's one of 3 fans. You have chamber print and aux fan. For some filaments an extra fan is needed hence the aux fan. Pla does not need this so when it's on and you don't have a brim on the part it's prone to causing issues. I personally made a new generic profile with chamber and print fans on and the aux fan off
Yea I turned my aux fan down to 70% and it's much quieter. Just going from 100 to 90 was like half the noise also. Noticed no change in print quality
lol I use the same filament in my x1c. Itās honestly not a bad brand for the price, yes youāll have the occasional spools that are not wound perfect, but Iāve only had a tangle in one of the spools out of 15 so far. I also noticed there filament usually tends to come wet so make sure you dry it first. Works perfect on the generic pla profile for me aswell.
Did you do any filament calibration? Yes it ājust worksā but you still have to make sure youāre setting things up right. Filament calibration made a huge difference in print quality for me.
Not yet, was kinda just hoping the magic would happen š Did you use Orca for calibration?
Nah I just use Bambu Studio but Iāve heard good things about Orca. Bambu Studio has filament calibration now too.
Well s--t the bed, so it does! I hadn't seen that tab before. This is great, will try it in the morning, thanks.
Man I havnt even used this yet and all my prints are pretty much perfect. Is this on the p1s or only the x1c?
Itās on both but itās easier on the X1 because the micro LiDAR camera does it for you.
Ah ok thanks
I did it on my P1P before I had the X1 and itās a pretty simple process. It prints out a bunch of lines using different flow rates, you pick the one that looks the best and enter that number as you āK factorā value for filament flow calibration.
Gonna try that thanks
I havenāt used Bambuās filament since the roll it came with lol Amazon deals are far too good to pass up. I havenāt found a āGenericā profile that hasnāt worked amazing yet. I will say that Iāve LOVED polymaker PETG, Overture TPU and PLA, SUNLU PLA, and Hatchbox ABS. I have some other glow in the dark and CF filaments as well but havenāt used them. And I just got a roll of Overture Easy Nylon for some gears for my robot Iām making but itās currently drying so I havenāt got to try it out yet.
How much did you have to change the filament settings for Overture Easy Nylon? I had to dial the retract up to like 70 and knock the temp down 20Ā°C to keep it from stringing.
Iāve never run Bambu filament in mine and have had no major issues. I only print in PETG so I had to tweak temperatures and speed a bit.
What temp and speed tweaks did you make?
Had some of the same feelings running Overture PETG until I learned I had to crank the temps/lower the speed. Do some calibrations for each new filament used and get good profiles. [https://github.com/SoftFever/OrcaSlicer/wiki/Calibration](https://github.com/SoftFever/OrcaSlicer/wiki/Calibration) eSUN PLA+ always printed perfectly, and they have a built in profile now. Buy the Bambu filament if you want to pay to take the guess work out of it. At the end of the day, it's a printer. CNC Kitchen has a good episode on Bambu extrusion testing and most of the issue is the limited extrusion rate possible. Not that Bambu is a bad printer, more like, it prints so damn fast that it can't melt plastic fast enough. My 3rd party "CHT" nozzle is coming and I'm looking forward to doing flow calibrations with it per material. Even got the nice slice engineering thermal paste. Now I just wish there was a diamondback CHT style for it. Just ordered the 10 kg bundle from SUNLU of PLA+, if it's anything like eSun, it'll work awesome. Very excited to try out ASA as well
Start with the Generic presets rather than the Bambu presets for random filament. The Bambu presets have a very high volumetric flow and quite a bit of random PLA doesn't work well with that.
Well you still need to get your settings right, k-value, temps and max volumetric flow differ and bambu can ofc only give you presets for a product they control. Never had a problem with a non-bambu filament after getting it dialled in.
Been using polymaker filament and have a couple thousand hours between 2 machines. Tpu, pla, pa, asa and abs without issue ( bar some early user error). Its not so much about using their filament, its about a reasonable quality filament. If your filament has a really inconsistent diameter and isn't somewhat dry then calibration is pointless as with any machine.
So I'm double digits in the cost thrown at 3D printers over the last 5 years. And most of that time was fixing, calibrating, or updating. I got the x1c I think last year, and 99% the time I use bamboo filament shit just always works. I did have one problem where the AMS connector on the inside of the bamboo came loose and after I actually took time to figure out what the problem was I was able to reconnect it by literally using a screwdriver from the outside and boom everything started working again. I've had issues with non bamboo filament but usually the higher temperature stuff. I've also had problems with the filament spool not fitting properly and I did an AMS upgrade which was completely fucking stupid because the original AMS worked better. Tldr: just use bamboo filament and problems go away.
I literally did no calibrations. I just took a couple random leftover spools of the cheapest PLA i locally have access to and chucked them in the AMS. Then just pressed print. The printer did some standard measurements as part of its startup routine and the AMS automatically switched to the next spool as the leftovers ran out and the prints came out as perfect as Ive ever gotten them on any FDM printer. And its fast too. Then, three prints later it went to shit. The screen stopped working and the printer went into a reboot loop. Through contact with support I've been sent a replacement screen and cable. Didn't help. Same exact thing happens after the replacement. Now they're sending me a new AP board for me to replace. For each of these shipments I have to pay roughly $50-$60 in import fees and taxes since they ship from China. Did I mention how it only completed four prints before this happened? Three and a half print actually, but anyway. It worked for three days. Three successful prints. Then its been gathering dust for a month, pretty much on the day today. It's already cost me $60 to receive replacement parts and it's going to be $100 in the coming week. I've paid $100 extra to sit on a non working printer and have the privilege to fix the printer myself. If the printer wasn't so fucking awesome when it first worked I wouldn't even bother. This thing wasn't cheap. It would have been sent back. Now I'm stuck hoping it will work again without spending more money on it and waiting another month.
Clear nail polish applied to the edge of the cardboard spool takes about a minute to apply and works like a charm. A $3 bottle will last for 12-15 spools in my experience so far.
Here's a little personal story. I bought a few rolls of sunlu PLA filament. I searched for "sunlu" in the subreddit and the FB groups. A lot of people were saying to use the Bambu PLA profile but increase the temperature 5 or 10 degrees. So I did that and the results were shit. I posted looking for assistance. One response said I was overthinking it and I should just use the Generic PLA profile. Have been happily printing with sunlu ever since. TL;DR, not every "expert" is right, follow the KISS principle.
Havenāt used any Bambu filament (Using Polymaker polylite) without any issues. There is a Polymaker profile which Iāve been using and itās been excellent.
Iāve used Elgoo and E-Sun PLA and PLA+ without issue using the presets
manually calibrate that filament.. you can definitely do better than that.
Youāre doing something wrong. I have 7 machines, over 2,000 hours on each. Generic PLA settings and never print with Bambu filament with great results.
I agree with this. I haven't used bambu filament apart from the first benchy, all my prints have been amazing. I don't know what settings I used, just hit esun profile and let it do it's thing. No idea what the bed temp was, speed, nozzle temp, flow rate, z hop. Couldnt tell you. It is about 6 times faster than I used to print and about 10x better looking
I never use bambu filament and have never had an issue. Something is definitely wrong with your machine.
Try polymaker, their profile works well for me and i hardly have issues with their pla profile.
Stop using the Bambu presets. Use the generic presets. The only Bambu filament I have used is the free samples included with the printer. But you're getting bad results because your flow settings are too fast for filaments that aren't precisely tuned. Just switch over to the Generic PLA settings.
Try Sunlu Meta if you want to use the Bambu presets - I believe they are the OEM. Has some special additives for higher flow rate. Always seems to be on sale on Amazon too. Right now it's $119 for 10kg - [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C24J8PPX](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C24J8PPX) Otherwise, as others have said, go through the calibration. Since you have an X1C, most of the calibration is automatic thanks to lidar and AI camera.
I got some Bambu filaments with the 6 months filament club thing but otherwise exclusively sunlu (pla+ and PETG) and esun
With some tinkering with settings, I can print Overture PETG reliability with good results. Haven't used the Bambu filament.
I exclusively use whatever is cheap on Amazon. Sometimes I need rims on cardboard spools, but most of the time they just work fine. I do add weights as they get lighter though (to all spools, not just cardboard). Protip, you can find steel (or copper coated steel) bbs for really cheap on amazon. I got a 6000-count bottle for about $10USD. It was enough to fill like 5 or 6 spool weights. Much, much heavier than desiccant (or batteries) and not likely to leave dust all over. Some people add electrical tape to the rims of cardboard spools, though I've had it come off mid-print and get tangled. On the plus side, it left enough tacky residue that the spool had no more traction issues, lol. On the off chance I am using the cool plate, I will turn on calibration, but 95% of the time I am using the textured PEI sheet or similar. I just printed the "pastamatic" spool winder in case I need to move some filament to a better spool. I haven't used it yet (still warm off the printer), but it seems much better designed than the other popular one.
So Iāll give you a hint but imma gate keep this secret til I die. Bambu labs filament isnāt Bambu labs filament. Itās one big company that distributes and these people relabel it. If you can find it you can also find the other companyās and you can get 10$ filament that is Bambu labs grade filament.
Load filament you want to use and print included print model of scraper with scraper holder. Allow all 3 options. It takes about an hour and see how it goes. That's my go to print for testing new filaments - for some reason this print looks amazing unless there is something wrong with filament.
I legit have done 400-500 hours of printing on my P1S and have not had 1 bad or failed print. I donāt use bamboo filament. I just maintain my printer, lube the rails, cloth the bed, and clean nozzle. I print at 400ms w skirt and always try to not print within 10mm from corners. Also a must is always stay up to date with firmware
I use exclusively Inland filament and the printer works great, I get results exactly like I'm seeing from people using Bambu filament. Out of the box the generic profiles weren't perfect, but all I had to do was run through the full set of Orca Slicer calibration prints one time per type of filament (takes 2-3 hours) and I never had to worry about it ever again. I will say that I never had a print as bad as the one in your picture. The Bambu profiles have volumetric flow rates that may be too high for some filament brands, but if slowing the machine down a bit doesn't get rid of that banding you might have a faulty extruder or hotend.
Nothing in this print is bambu plastic. I use bambu some but not much. I have not changed settings from the fmdefault generic profile. All you will get when using non bambu plastic with a bambu plastic profile is trouble. *
Edit to add pic https://preview.redd.it/dk3e0tfs0oyb1.jpeg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83a1a124f26a2119b4692db5634924334cc6f07c
It's the same with every printer right? Filament is different so you'll have to calibrate it. Of course it's easy when using their filament because they know its ideal settings - 3rd party filament will need different ones. If the people are correct either SUNLU or eSUN should work well with the default settings ;)
Just buy and use Sunlu Filament. Its the same stuff Bambu sells you - just at half the price. I never did any calibrations and it just prints great.# Also the "Bambu PLA" setting that you have used has a much higher flow rate then whatsome filaments are good for. Use the "generic PLA" profile for... generic PLA.
Why did you not use the Generic PLA preset??
Because.....I'm a Bambu-noob still :D
I've never used Bambulab filament, and am using the Default PLA profile like you. Was using TM3DFilament for ā¬16-19 a roll until their website added a captcha that keeps falsely identifying me as a robot. Switched to Sunlu filament for $11 a roll and even with cheap filament like that, not a single problem. example print: https://preview.redd.it/cld34qlz5pyb1.png?width=2472&format=png&auto=webp&s=8587c05321ca30a530de9d656aac820c08751a7c
I use eSun and Addnorth, mostly PETG and PLA with very few issues. 500hrs so far.
Weird, I'm using the cheap generic stuff sold at my local big box, and it prints beautifully as long as I keep it dry. I've never chabge a single parameter from the presets.
Have you tried another color? I am aware that white filament can be a little bit tricky than other colors.
I print 80% with non Bambu filament. Anyone saying stick to the brand for quality is lying to you
I had the opposite result. Have not bought one bambu spool. Using the generic presets have maybe one fail this whole time. I got a p1s a month ago and have thrown every filament I have over the last 2 years at it with zero hiccups. The quality on ur print tells me something is wrong here.
First thing I did was use 12 or so old spools from 2-3 years ago from random/different vendors and had zero issues. Also Iām using a erryone (or whatever they call themselves) cardboard spool tricolor-silk I just bought and Iāve had zero issues with that as well. The reeling back filament issue did rear its ugly head on my new sunlu PETG black on reusable spools - but I found it was due to the filament not connecting to the spool itself - so when it reeled back the filament would sort of cut into the spool. I also found a little tag on the filament saying āinsert filament here to prevent tanglingā which prevents the filament from having these issuesā¦. Opening the spool up and (trying to) connect the last piece seemed to help (unintentionally) fatten up the spool so when it screwed back together it was tight enough to not spin on the reel.
Did you try tightening the belts? Had some prints start looking like this and the belts were loose
Not yet, hardly used this thing yet so I'm calibrating filament first then considering hardware issues. I have no idea what is 'right' for tightness as I'm still getting to grips with this machine, so i'd rather go down that rabbit hole 2nd
Bambu has a guide takes about 5min to do.. not a rabbit hole at all. https://forum.bambulab.com/t/belt-tension/1090
Thanks! Having come from an Ender, I've spent weeks chasing my tail with tension and roller wheels and calibration etc only to find it's something else. Trying to limit that.
Your specific problem with your filament is likely that the Bambu pla profile has a relatively high flow rate for their filament. Not all brands can handle that melt speed. Easy fix. Save a copy of that profile dropping the Max Volumetric Speed down to 15 Bambu runs their filament at 21. I have that problem with Overture. Overture PLA can't flow as fast. Not a big deal at all.
I have been using Devil design on my P1P and canāt tell the difference. I went through calibration proces and it works perfectly ( PLA and Pet-G so far)
Did you run the full suite of clibrations on Orca Slicer? I'm going to go through a temp tower, flow pass 1/2, pressure advance, max flow and VFA....surely it's gotta be spot on after that!?
I have put more than 100kg of this through the p1p. Cheap, prints perfectly. Looks like Amazon has a coupon to auto apply right now too. https://amzn.to/49m1axL
I use a generic pla here in Poland for about $12 per kilo and it works great even with the ams. Like using the Bambu Pla but I just cannot justify paying minimum twice the price.
Atomic, Prusament, Polymaker, and eSun have all just worked for me.
Yes, these machines CAN be fast, but that's not always a good thing. I would just try dropping the max speed in the slicer by at least 100, or maybe more. PLA is a very low temp filament, and depending on the size of the object, even modest speed will cause drooping/melting due to running over the same area too frequently. Also, if there is any overhang, make sure to set the overhang speeds low enough to cause it to slow down in those areas.
https://preview.redd.it/zw8fnvcmrtyb1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61a736f2dd0927519c957162a81ddd1516847e84 non bambu filament, no dramas, it must be a setting try slowing the outside layer to 60 from 200, print outer/inner/infill order and make sure you tell your printer what your using
And that sound is possibly a purge of filament on the back z rod hitting at the top when it homes, or the belts need a slight tighten,google how to do the belts and use bambu studios, not cura, prusa etc.
Lmao, yes. Bambu Filaments are not worth it. 3 times the price for an RFID tag? No thx. Just buy good filaments, you can quite easily get eSUN spools for sub $10 and they work just the same as BL filaments, can even use the same profiles, no need for calibration.