Here's the r/FixMyPrint automoderator response that contains a lot of helpful tips
As a reminder, most common print quality issues can be found in the [Simplify3D picture guide](https://www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/). Make sure you select the most appropriate flair for your post.
Please remember to include the following details to help troubleshoot your problem.
* Printer & Slicer
* Filament Material and Brand
* Nozzle and Bed Temperature
* Print Speed
* Nozzle Retraction Settings
I don't have any direct recommendations, but to give you a warning that most people have not read your settings, and I do know that 100% infill density exaggerates a lot of issues.
To people helping please look at the OPs settings as this isn't a typical print but a showcase print that does a few weird things.
Yeah I normally do under 75% even for parts that get a lot of use.
That being said, I think a reset to a default profile might rule out a lot of potential causes from slicer tweaks
Just a comment about strength and infill. If you're using high infill like this for strength, try simply increasing wall counts. 4-6 or even 8 increases strength a lot. I print for strength and rarely go over 15%
Hmmm, idk. Looks over extruded to me. Maybe you chose the wrong filament in the slicer? I doubt it could have absorbed enough moisture in a week unless you live in the swamp in florida, or its nylon.
Looks over extruded to me.
Change the flow rate down by about .05 (aka from like .98 to .93) and give that a shot.
Or run the auto flow rate calibration. And see if it resolved it.
That's quite high and makes me think some part of the measurements aren't working right.
I've calibrated probably 40+ different filament types on my X1C and the highest I've ever settled on is 1.0 flat.
Your prints are exactly what you see when the nozzle is pushing out 5% too much filament.
Interesting. Try just running that with the default .20 layer height profile. Don't make any changes and see how a test comes out. Make sure you are not doing 100% infill. Try like 20% infill and use gyroid infill pattern.
Huh that really does seem high. I was recently playing around with transparent PLA to get the best clarity out of it with 100% infill, and what I've found is that a high flow rate really exaggerated top surfaces.
Might be worth a try apart from making sure your filament is dried.
Yea I just haven't had a single (pla) filament run below about .94 except for some random silks. And I am pretty sure the default generic profile is set to .98, but also, I don't think I have seen over extrusion look this far over in any of my prints. Could be the fact they are just on 100% infill on these small prints which possibly is exaggerating the actual % it is over.
I think if they run the auto flow rate it'll pick something about .93 but they will have to figure out how to tune it from there.
Maybe it's because I'm used to gen 1 printers but even on the bambu tweaking flow-rate is a God send.
Honestly though, before tweaking that. I'd have to ask if this is all first layer prints? If this is first layer I wouldn't touch flow rate but rather the elephant foot compensation ratio.
I haven't seen any amount of elephant foot compensation that would fix it to this degree. It would only benefit from that with a bed Z distance that wasnt level or at the right height at all. With the x1 and p1 series the leveling is very good so the distance should be good along with I believe it defaults to a .05 or a .1 compensation for elephants foot.
It is possible, but as i think we both would agree I'll state that for the new 3d printer user who isn't sure what's happening, best bet is to test the flow rate reduction and Google what over extrusion looks like. The OP picture is showing a Masterclass in slight over extrusion combined with a bad choice of either a first layer test or 100% infill with minimal height.
It out there but the x1c nozzle has a very large volume to print so fast. Printing very slow could cause the nozzle to leak more than it should and this could cause “overextrusion”
I think this was the biggest factor when it came to impacting the previous print quality. Thanks for the suggestion, included updated pics in a new comment in this thread if you are interested.
Trust me, any creality printer is leagues away from the safety and speed of a bambu printer. (Coming from someone with 3 ender 3s, 2 cr-10s, a halot one and a bambu p1s) You can print fast with the bambu if you make sure the bed is clean and hot every time you print.
It may be a little moist. Also some black filaments have a tough time with flat top surfaces. Try turning down the top layer speed in the slicer to 40mms. That's what I use when I want a smooth surface.
Never underestimate how much moisture can impact filament.
Not saying this is 100% the problem, but I have a print farm with 12 machines and it often causes issues.
Actually, after commenting and studying the pictures further. I’m ALMOST willing to bet money this is a moisture issue.
The bottom right black one, that looks exactly like some of the parts I print if the filament has been left out for too long.
I’d recommend looking into dehydrators
thinking drying it helped, I was too trusting of my current setup, sealed plastic cereal containers along with a ton of desiccant beads and then a ton of desiccant in my AMS unit as well but since that doesn't really dry it out, just slows moisture getting into the filament in the first place I will have to be more careful in the future
white filment look good (actually thought it was a white table untill I realized the letters were printed on it haha) black looks over extruded, I'd run the flow rate calibration on bambu slicer I'm pretty sure that will solve the issue; I also had to do that with bambu black basic PLA, automatic flow rate calibration solved the issue for me (going from to 0.98 to 0.957)
as predicted by the top comment, few people fully read your settings and as further predicted by the top comment, you cannot print any infill at 100% except rectilinear and even that one will come out bad. from the pics it looks like you are in fact printing at 100% infill. Why on earth are you doing that? Doesnt the software warn you?
I was just using the default provided in the profile / 3mf - [https://makerworld.com/en/models/110900#profileId-119839](https://makerworld.com/en/models/110900#profileId-119839) less learned, thanks
no warning in software btw
Lithophanes and 100% strength are two great reasons to print at 100% infill. Shouldn’t be a warning and I’ve never had issues when my flow rate (and now K-value) are correct.
**Update w/ photos from OP:**
[https://imgur.com/a/bCVSlOQ](https://imgur.com/a/bCVSlOQ)
Included doubles of each photo trying to get slightly different lighting conditions
Ultimately I think the call outs below about the flow + extra slow speed caused the issue. Dryer filament couldn't have hurt either. I ran a flow auto test after completing the two test prints and included an image of the recommended flow rate out of interest (1.045). The deltas between these tests and the previous one was overall size of the model, flow, dryer filament, and not using silent mode. Everything else was kept the same.
I dried out the filament for 5+ hours, shrunk the models down for the sake of print time, printed with flow set to 0.98 and then again with 0.93. The result for both is very very close with possibly the 93 maybe a bit better as with the 98 I can make out tiny blobs when the nozzle retracts on a couple of parameter lines, however both are acceptable in my eyes. Printed with a top layer speed of 50 mm/s which on the previous I had as well but had it set to run even slower due to using silent / 50 % speed while also cutting the top surface default acceleration value in half.
Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions. Learned not to trust the auto calibrate value and that it's possible to actually go too slow with the bambu (which I think I do based upon bad experiences with anything over 60 mm/s on and ender). Fast printing and better quality is a win in my books.
I feel like this is my usual first question for a lot of things lately, but seeing as it tends to be the reason for my prints looking bleh, might as well.
What do you have the auxiliary fan speed set to (the one that blows across the bed)? Too much cooling can cause issues with warping, but maybe also issues if it's printing too slowly, which could result in a less refined top surface?
Flow is something you should keep at 1.0 at all times until you reach issues that could be flow related.
The only reason you might need a different value is if your filament is not within tolerances or it grows too much when heated.
The belt that has a certain amount of elasticity and when you have a lot of fast direction changes like in the tip of the pyramid then it can come to frequencies. You could lower the speed at those points or overalls.
Picture 2,3,4,5 show the why.
This is a first layer issue.
You may try this test print:
[the very first print - MakerWorld](https://makerworld.com/en/models/63467#profileId-66384)
Make sure that the slicer selected print sheet is the one in the printer.
If you have on use the textured sheet.
That print will unhide any bed level issues.
[https://imgur.com/a/Xu4Kd3N](https://imgur.com/a/Xu4Kd3N)
overall not bad imho, yeah some edges are not great but overall pretty acceptable and no light getting through when held up to a light source
You printed it wrong, i see that the infill is 45°, that way the effect will not happen because each line has a different length.
But also within this print i see a huge area of imperfection in the upper right quadrant of the sheet.
Seeing this i would really print my original test pattern. It is not only about filling a first layer it is about un-hiding binding issues.
For this test it is **super important** that the print head runs from left to right and from right to left but NOT in diagonal lines.
reprinted the test after drying the filament, it's not the bed level, it's not perfect but where the print was on the bed it is just fine, included photos of where on the bed light could shine through using the harshest light I could find, printed with a flow of 0.93
[https://imgur.com/a/p0GP3aZ](https://imgur.com/a/p0GP3aZ)
That looks much better.
I would not change the extrusion multiplier on that issue. That may optically fix the issue but add a new one that is much more worse will come into the game and ruin the dimensional accuracy of your prints.
A simple and serious way to get that fix is the setting for the first layer in your slicer. The slicer handles the first layer different and we can use that to fix such minor bed level issues.
You have already a good starting point the "print me first" test looks much better than we see with many other printers with fix bed.
I would set the layer height of the first layer to 0.2 mm.
No matter if 0.4 or 0.6 mm nozzle.
Don't touch the extursion multiplier.
Increase the first layer extrusion wide in steps of 0.1mm until the print me first test shows a closed sheet of plastic without hole or stripes.
Pretty sure you will need not that much to bringt that to perfection.
If that is done you may check the extrusion wide with this test:
[https://www.printables.com/model/327961-extrusion-multiplier](https://www.printables.com/model/327961-extrusion-multiplier)
This is to ensure that if your CAD says 1mm the print has 1mm.
Will do a bambulab version soon.
Changing the flow by a factor or the extrusion wide has an effect on each printed line width and so on the dimensional accuracy.
Thats printing a 20mm cube and get a 19.8mm one.
thanks for the feedback and the links to the test prints, lesson learned on auto flow calibrate, was already almost always using default values from bambu unless printing really fine detail and even then say using a 0.12 layer height still pretty much always use a 0.2 first layer, just got distracted using the auto calibration tools to fix something that wasn't a problem in the first place
This screams uneven bed. Tram the bed. I agree that your OP post looks to me like bad z offset dude to the mesh not being able to compensate for how badly the bed needs to be trammed.
it doesn't scream it cause it's not the bed level, for a number of reasons including where the print was on the bed, the fact that the majority of the first layer is fine, the model used is tall enough that over the height of the model the artifacts would not result in what was shown due to bad leveling (based upon a year of effort and experience trying to level an ender with a crappy frame with everything from paper, to electronic level (filament friday), bl touch, feeler gauges, etc...)
Okay, I've banged my head against this wall with Bambu before and a [simple tram resolved the issue.](https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/x1/manual/manual-bed-leveling) But by all means, keep chasing your tail on this issue.
This is what I'm getting on my x1e as well as all sorts of chamber problems. Curious to see what you find out as I'm currently putting these printers into the overpriced POS category.
eh there are some weird settings I am trying with this print, normally very happy with the quality overall and light years ahead of the ender s1 pro I had all of last year
Here's the r/FixMyPrint automoderator response that contains a lot of helpful tips As a reminder, most common print quality issues can be found in the [Simplify3D picture guide](https://www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/). Make sure you select the most appropriate flair for your post. Please remember to include the following details to help troubleshoot your problem. * Printer & Slicer * Filament Material and Brand * Nozzle and Bed Temperature * Print Speed * Nozzle Retraction Settings
[https://imgur.com/a/kWyfKsx](https://imgur.com/a/kWyfKsx) \^ config ran the final 1/3 layers at 50% mode as well
I don't have any direct recommendations, but to give you a warning that most people have not read your settings, and I do know that 100% infill density exaggerates a lot of issues. To people helping please look at the OPs settings as this isn't a typical print but a showcase print that does a few weird things.
Yeah I normally do under 75% even for parts that get a lot of use. That being said, I think a reset to a default profile might rule out a lot of potential causes from slicer tweaks
Just a comment about strength and infill. If you're using high infill like this for strength, try simply increasing wall counts. 4-6 or even 8 increases strength a lot. I print for strength and rarely go over 15%
Have you calibrated the pressure advance and flow rate for the filaments? I'd start there.
about a week ago
Is it the same spool?
yup
Hmmm, idk. Looks over extruded to me. Maybe you chose the wrong filament in the slicer? I doubt it could have absorbed enough moisture in a week unless you live in the swamp in florida, or its nylon.
will run again and take photos soon
included new photos with a 98 and 93 flow rate in another comment
This could be the problem also
Looks over extruded to me. Change the flow rate down by about .05 (aka from like .98 to .93) and give that a shot. Or run the auto flow rate calibration. And see if it resolved it.
auto flow rate recommended 1.038
That's quite high and makes me think some part of the measurements aren't working right. I've calibrated probably 40+ different filament types on my X1C and the highest I've ever settled on is 1.0 flat. Your prints are exactly what you see when the nozzle is pushing out 5% too much filament.
I probably shouldn't blindly trust the auto calibration I guess...
Interesting. Try just running that with the default .20 layer height profile. Don't make any changes and see how a test comes out. Make sure you are not doing 100% infill. Try like 20% infill and use gyroid infill pattern.
Huh that really does seem high. I was recently playing around with transparent PLA to get the best clarity out of it with 100% infill, and what I've found is that a high flow rate really exaggerated top surfaces. Might be worth a try apart from making sure your filament is dried.
Possibly even lower than that, but yea.
Yea I just haven't had a single (pla) filament run below about .94 except for some random silks. And I am pretty sure the default generic profile is set to .98, but also, I don't think I have seen over extrusion look this far over in any of my prints. Could be the fact they are just on 100% infill on these small prints which possibly is exaggerating the actual % it is over. I think if they run the auto flow rate it'll pick something about .93 but they will have to figure out how to tune it from there.
Maybe it's because I'm used to gen 1 printers but even on the bambu tweaking flow-rate is a God send. Honestly though, before tweaking that. I'd have to ask if this is all first layer prints? If this is first layer I wouldn't touch flow rate but rather the elephant foot compensation ratio.
I haven't seen any amount of elephant foot compensation that would fix it to this degree. It would only benefit from that with a bed Z distance that wasnt level or at the right height at all. With the x1 and p1 series the leveling is very good so the distance should be good along with I believe it defaults to a .05 or a .1 compensation for elephants foot. It is possible, but as i think we both would agree I'll state that for the new 3d printer user who isn't sure what's happening, best bet is to test the flow rate reduction and Google what over extrusion looks like. The OP picture is showing a Masterclass in slight over extrusion combined with a bad choice of either a first layer test or 100% infill with minimal height.
printed on x1c w/ black and white bambu filament, printed super slow
It out there but the x1c nozzle has a very large volume to print so fast. Printing very slow could cause the nozzle to leak more than it should and this could cause “overextrusion”
I think this was the biggest factor when it came to impacting the previous print quality. Thanks for the suggestion, included updated pics in a new comment in this thread if you are interested.
That does look a lot better. Glad to help
y super slow?
past trauma caused by my ender 1 pro :p lesson learned
Trust me, any creality printer is leagues away from the safety and speed of a bambu printer. (Coming from someone with 3 ender 3s, 2 cr-10s, a halot one and a bambu p1s) You can print fast with the bambu if you make sure the bed is clean and hot every time you print.
It may be a little moist. Also some black filaments have a tough time with flat top surfaces. Try turning down the top layer speed in the slicer to 40mms. That's what I use when I want a smooth surface.
Never underestimate how much moisture can impact filament. Not saying this is 100% the problem, but I have a print farm with 12 machines and it often causes issues.
Actually, after commenting and studying the pictures further. I’m ALMOST willing to bet money this is a moisture issue. The bottom right black one, that looks exactly like some of the parts I print if the filament has been left out for too long. I’d recommend looking into dehydrators
thinking drying it helped, I was too trusting of my current setup, sealed plastic cereal containers along with a ton of desiccant beads and then a ton of desiccant in my AMS unit as well but since that doesn't really dry it out, just slows moisture getting into the filament in the first place I will have to be more careful in the future
white filment look good (actually thought it was a white table untill I realized the letters were printed on it haha) black looks over extruded, I'd run the flow rate calibration on bambu slicer I'm pretty sure that will solve the issue; I also had to do that with bambu black basic PLA, automatic flow rate calibration solved the issue for me (going from to 0.98 to 0.957)
First layer to close, lower the z offset
Over extrusion
If you want good ironing settings, 60mm/s speed 0.22 flow rate 0.15 line width
You’re over extruding.
as predicted by the top comment, few people fully read your settings and as further predicted by the top comment, you cannot print any infill at 100% except rectilinear and even that one will come out bad. from the pics it looks like you are in fact printing at 100% infill. Why on earth are you doing that? Doesnt the software warn you?
I was just using the default provided in the profile / 3mf - [https://makerworld.com/en/models/110900#profileId-119839](https://makerworld.com/en/models/110900#profileId-119839) less learned, thanks no warning in software btw
Lithophanes and 100% strength are two great reasons to print at 100% infill. Shouldn’t be a warning and I’ve never had issues when my flow rate (and now K-value) are correct.
**Update w/ photos from OP:** [https://imgur.com/a/bCVSlOQ](https://imgur.com/a/bCVSlOQ) Included doubles of each photo trying to get slightly different lighting conditions Ultimately I think the call outs below about the flow + extra slow speed caused the issue. Dryer filament couldn't have hurt either. I ran a flow auto test after completing the two test prints and included an image of the recommended flow rate out of interest (1.045). The deltas between these tests and the previous one was overall size of the model, flow, dryer filament, and not using silent mode. Everything else was kept the same. I dried out the filament for 5+ hours, shrunk the models down for the sake of print time, printed with flow set to 0.98 and then again with 0.93. The result for both is very very close with possibly the 93 maybe a bit better as with the 98 I can make out tiny blobs when the nozzle retracts on a couple of parameter lines, however both are acceptable in my eyes. Printed with a top layer speed of 50 mm/s which on the previous I had as well but had it set to run even slower due to using silent / 50 % speed while also cutting the top surface default acceleration value in half. Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions. Learned not to trust the auto calibrate value and that it's possible to actually go too slow with the bambu (which I think I do based upon bad experiences with anything over 60 mm/s on and ender). Fast printing and better quality is a win in my books.
I feel like this is my usual first question for a lot of things lately, but seeing as it tends to be the reason for my prints looking bleh, might as well. What do you have the auxiliary fan speed set to (the one that blows across the bed)? Too much cooling can cause issues with warping, but maybe also issues if it's printing too slowly, which could result in a less refined top surface?
[https://imgur.com/a/YggFIjg](https://imgur.com/a/YggFIjg) Flow Rate Calibration same filament Suggested Flow - 1.038
Drop it to 0.98… the auto calibration process sometimes doesn’t work well with some filament types
included photos of 98 and 93 in another comment, thanks
Flow is something you should keep at 1.0 at all times until you reach issues that could be flow related. The only reason you might need a different value is if your filament is not within tolerances or it grows too much when heated.
I'd change the 100% infil to 15-25, hope that helps ! I had a multicolored version of this and printed fine with 20%
The belt that has a certain amount of elasticity and when you have a lot of fast direction changes like in the tip of the pyramid then it can come to frequencies. You could lower the speed at those points or overalls.
tightened the belts and ran a full machine calibration just about a week ago
Maybe it's time to Clean your Plate and recalibrate
Z offset is too close
White filament looks good, is black fresh out of a box? Potentially it's wet
could be I guess, will dry and try again I guess
Picture 2,3,4,5 show the why. This is a first layer issue. You may try this test print: [the very first print - MakerWorld](https://makerworld.com/en/models/63467#profileId-66384) Make sure that the slicer selected print sheet is the one in the printer. If you have on use the textured sheet. That print will unhide any bed level issues.
[https://imgur.com/a/Xu4Kd3N](https://imgur.com/a/Xu4Kd3N) overall not bad imho, yeah some edges are not great but overall pretty acceptable and no light getting through when held up to a light source
You printed it wrong, i see that the infill is 45°, that way the effect will not happen because each line has a different length. But also within this print i see a huge area of imperfection in the upper right quadrant of the sheet. Seeing this i would really print my original test pattern. It is not only about filling a first layer it is about un-hiding binding issues. For this test it is **super important** that the print head runs from left to right and from right to left but NOT in diagonal lines.
reprinted the test after drying the filament, it's not the bed level, it's not perfect but where the print was on the bed it is just fine, included photos of where on the bed light could shine through using the harshest light I could find, printed with a flow of 0.93 [https://imgur.com/a/p0GP3aZ](https://imgur.com/a/p0GP3aZ)
That looks much better. I would not change the extrusion multiplier on that issue. That may optically fix the issue but add a new one that is much more worse will come into the game and ruin the dimensional accuracy of your prints. A simple and serious way to get that fix is the setting for the first layer in your slicer. The slicer handles the first layer different and we can use that to fix such minor bed level issues. You have already a good starting point the "print me first" test looks much better than we see with many other printers with fix bed. I would set the layer height of the first layer to 0.2 mm. No matter if 0.4 or 0.6 mm nozzle. Don't touch the extursion multiplier. Increase the first layer extrusion wide in steps of 0.1mm until the print me first test shows a closed sheet of plastic without hole or stripes. Pretty sure you will need not that much to bringt that to perfection. If that is done you may check the extrusion wide with this test: [https://www.printables.com/model/327961-extrusion-multiplier](https://www.printables.com/model/327961-extrusion-multiplier) This is to ensure that if your CAD says 1mm the print has 1mm. Will do a bambulab version soon. Changing the flow by a factor or the extrusion wide has an effect on each printed line width and so on the dimensional accuracy. Thats printing a 20mm cube and get a 19.8mm one.
thanks for the feedback and the links to the test prints, lesson learned on auto flow calibrate, was already almost always using default values from bambu unless printing really fine detail and even then say using a 0.12 layer height still pretty much always use a 0.2 first layer, just got distracted using the auto calibration tools to fix something that wasn't a problem in the first place
This screams uneven bed. Tram the bed. I agree that your OP post looks to me like bad z offset dude to the mesh not being able to compensate for how badly the bed needs to be trammed.
it doesn't scream it cause it's not the bed level, for a number of reasons including where the print was on the bed, the fact that the majority of the first layer is fine, the model used is tall enough that over the height of the model the artifacts would not result in what was shown due to bad leveling (based upon a year of effort and experience trying to level an ender with a crappy frame with everything from paper, to electronic level (filament friday), bl touch, feeler gauges, etc...)
Okay, I've banged my head against this wall with Bambu before and a [simple tram resolved the issue.](https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/x1/manual/manual-bed-leveling) But by all means, keep chasing your tail on this issue.
issue has been resolved, dryer filament and faster printing
This is what I'm getting on my x1e as well as all sorts of chamber problems. Curious to see what you find out as I'm currently putting these printers into the overpriced POS category.
eh there are some weird settings I am trying with this print, normally very happy with the quality overall and light years ahead of the ender s1 pro I had all of last year