this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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Help identifying issue? (i.imgur.com)
submitted 1 week ago by Trail@lemmy.world to c/3dprinting@lemmy.world
17 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hey guys, Any help trying to identify what is wrong with this one?

The first layer was pretty flawless except for the top-right side, where it looked kind of grainy. Maybe the plate needed cleaning on that side, but generally the adhesion is solid.

I was away while the second layer was printing, but apparently it failed and it looks like shit. When I got back, it was air-printing, still on the second layer as far as I can tell. However it seems like the nozzle was causing some of the artifacts to form, like maybe it was hitting the first layer or something? I am not sure.

This is on a Bambu A1 mini, with Bambu matte filaments. It is on a brand-new 0.2 nozzle, first print just out of the package. And the reason I got the nozzle was that I had some maybe similar failures before, where my previous nozzle seemed like was showing signs of clogging - i tried some cold and hot pulls, I could do some prints but some where failing so I thought to take this part out of the equation.

Any ideas what maybe could have caused something like this? The filament? I had tried drying it a while ago i believe, I can try again and I got a brand new one as well, but I wouldn't believe so because the first layer seems pretty good at the beginning. Could the plate maybe being dirty have caused buildup of crap on the nozzle and lead to a failure? Could it be something I can try maybe with the Z axis (although I have no experience with this? I did another calibration now though). I had read about AMS tubes as potential reason, but not sure how to tell. Any ideas what to check?

For reference I am trying to print something similar to this in different colors. I have already done 4 prints in other colors successfully.

https://i.imgur.com/0gI7W3z.jpeg

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[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Looks like you have bad filament? And/or bad temp?

[–] Trail@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well, I dried the filament overnight just to check, and the weight before and after was exactly the same, so I guess it was dry.

That said, I tried searching for root causes and tried asking chatgpt to see what it would come up with. After some bullshit replies, it ended up telling me that the Bambu matte filaments are bad for 0.2 nozzle due to their "heavy" additives that make it matte and can cause clogs or partial clogs while printing. It told me that other brands are better than it, including polymaker which supposedly is the factory that makes bambuatye filaments, and it also told me me that some colors, including specifically they gray I am trying to print with, have more trouble printing on small nozzles because of some white particles that give the gray color.

Now, I tried asking for sources for what it told me to double-check if it was true because generally I don't trust it, but it gave me nothing concrete. In theory what it told me could make sense. Does anyone know anything about this matter or had prior experience?!

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can you try with a good filament? Is the filament brittle?

(I didn't downvote you btw)

[–] Trail@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well, the same filament has printed the same design 3 times successfully a few days ago.

But now I think I also recall a long time ago it was again this gray that would cause air printing on a different small multicolor print.

I have another same Bambu matte gray roll which is unopened (not from the same batch). I can maybe try to see if I get another air print to swap the filament and see if it improves. I guess the filament could have been too thick at some points in the roll maybe? It is mentioned to have +-0.03mm tolerance, maybe I should get tigher ones for 0.2 prints...

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I wouldn't bother with the filament width tolerance, you seem to have some serious stuff going on here. Maybe the 0.2mm nozzle just isn't made for this config, maybe the filament is bad somehow. I'd put in another roll and make a stupid calibration cube and go from there.

Before this, it was all okay?

[–] Trail@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

I'll try the calibration cube you mention with the specific filament at high and low speed versus another filemant and try to compare the results...

[–] MxRemy@piefed.social 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You say this happened before on a previous nozzle, was it also a 0.2mm? Try cranking your max volumetric flow way down and see if that helps

[–] Trail@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes, 0.2mm.

If I recall it was set to 0.98, the default from Bambu for this filament. Cranking it down would be so that less material would be pressed into the nozzle in order to avoid clogging it? I can try that next time yes. For now I tried slowing it down to 50%, looks ok so far, but I am still curious to understand what is wrong.

[–] MxRemy@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's always so hard to tell lol. I just know a similar thing helped for a similar problem on my Voron 2.4

[–] Trail@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Today it printed very nice at 50% speed. What changed was the speed, drying the filament athough no weight loss so I guess was already dry, and cleaning again the plate.

I had a little bit of warping, even though I had brims, probably because it was printing for 20 hours instead of 10, but it was not very noticeable.

Still not sure what is the cause.

[–] IMALlama@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What OP meant was volumetric flow, not the extrusion multiplier. Volumetric flow caps the volume of plastic the slicer will ask your extruder to deliver per second. Fiddling with this value can help prevent under extrusion.

What you did by reducing speed is similar, but you could run into issues if you were to modify extrusion width or layer height.

[–] Trail@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Hmm I read about this in the Bambu wiki now. Seems like it could have been an under-extrusion linked to this. I'll keep it in mind and fiddle with it next time I get similar behaviour and see if my current setting would have been near the max flow or not.

Kind makes sense because the first layer was nice but the second layer had the issues, and the first layer was printed much slower than the rest.

[–] hzl@piefed.blahaj.zone -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The printer knows it's being used to make a nazi symbol and it's revolting.

[–] Trail@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I guess you mean the energy symbol. It's from the terraforming mars board game.

[–] hzl@piefed.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] Trail@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh for fuck's sake.

[–] hzl@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 week ago

I'm not surprised.

It reminds me of a maze I made for a game server. I laid out my paths and then looked from above and realized that some intersecting corridors had accidentally formed a swastika. Upon noticing it, I thought "oops", and adjusted the maze to remove it. I didn't stubbornly leave it in because it wasn't intended to be that, I recognized what it looked like and immediately knew I didn't want it in something I designed.

If I were making a board game and I realized I'd just about put the SS logo in it as a resource marker, I'd do the same and just change the marker. Easy. I think most people would if they noticed it. When someone makes the decision to instead include it, it might mean that they just didn't notice. But it also might mean that they did notice and give zero shits about being associated with nazi imagery, even if they weren't intentionally going out of their way to include it.

This dev may not be a straight up nazi, but they certainly don't seem to give a shit about being associated with or known for espousing bigotry.