I pretty much exclusively print PLA models and after printing dozens if not hundreds of models, out of any support material (mostly referring to bambu’s support for pla, and their other one support for pla/petg, as well as petg as interface) I found the support for pla/petg to look best as it’s kinda rubbery and soft almost like TPU, but it seems to be very hard to print.
I was having problems with the regular Support for PLA as well as PETG but I fixed that as I noticed my filaments were misaligned so ran an extensive perfect calibration of the bed leveling and all the other calibration settings and I can get support for PLA as the interface to print perfectly, but I keep having problems with the bambu Support for PLA/PETG, going as far as copying every possible settings in both filaments, printer settings, prime / multi-material towers, all that.
I can barely find info or other threads/posts about using this specific material as interface on the U1, other than random comments about simply “using” it but no details on any settings, so I’m asking for help in setting this up if anyone knows more about this.
The problem: The Support for PLA/PETG support interface material is curling, dragging, flinging, oozing, blobbing up all over the place, most notably on the prime tower but of course also the model.
Here’s a few examples of different prints showing what is happening.
And some of the settings in Snorca for the filament and other settings below.
I’ll look into the Snapmaker breakaway support profile, but I tried the Generic Support for PLA multiple times already, which also didn’t work well, and yes, I dried the filament at 55C for 12 hours, and i use Creality Space Pi 2-spool dryers (two of them) and dry at 65C during the print. I also have the good ol’ Ikea top so not sure if that helps or hinders the support interface material.
I have at this point exhausted every resource other than contacting Bambu (which I’ll do now in case they can give me tips). I contacted Snapmaker for help but they only had bambu’s support for PLA on hand so wasn’t able to test out the Support for PLA/PETG.
I just had a print fail before writing this, and it was the first time ever I had my prime tower actually fall down, don’t know what that says about the print settings.
I don’t think I mentioned in my post but I have a Bambu A1 and the Support for PLA/PETG prints beautifully with no problems on the A1, literally the same model, the same settings for filament and print settings (snorca and bambu have some differences but I did 100% of what is possible).
I personally prefer PETG as removable supports for PLA prints over specialized removable support filaments.
It worked best when I used white PETG for this. Other colors have more trouble sticking to the PLA.
Could be worthwhile to look at using PETG. I don’t know about the price of support filaments but Sunlu PETG is what I use and it cost me <€10 when bought in a 5-pack from Sunlu on AliExpress.
True, and maybe I wasn’t specific in my post, but I find bambu’s support for PLA/petg gives the same results as petg but with a matte finish whereas petg almost always gives a super bright shiny finish no matter what i use (i print both pla basic, matte, silk, wood, stonefilled, etc), except its harder to print I guess, which is why I’m so deadset on trying to get this to work on the U1.
For PLA or PETG parts, just use the opposite material as support, i.e. use PETG as support for PLA parts and vice versa. That works fantastically with U1, you really don’t need dedicated support filament unless you need it to be soluble.
But there is a bug in prime tower where it stacks two incompatible material on top of each other.
But first, I specifically like bambu’s support for pla/petg because it is extra soft and rubbery, it is actually much closer to TPU (when the filament is in the spool it’s very bendable and soft) and in my experience creates the nicest looking supported surfaces especially for rounded spherical objects which is what I’m mostly printing. This is most likely what makes it so difficult to print, perhaps Bambu A1 is specifically tuned to print it well but that is still something I completely do not understand. I copy the exact same settings from Bambu (and trust me I’ve also tried changing 100 things like temp, retraction, cooling, vol. speed, flow ratio, toolchange retraction length, which I’ve read on forms for TPU is recommended to change to 2mm instead of the default 10mm).
So that’s the main thing, the A1 prints it flawlessly, dozens of prints with the PLA/PETG support interface and literally 0 problems, the U1 for whatever reason just cannot print it for its life.
Also, printing PETG basic or HF (bambu) and even translucent give me problems as well, often getting it pulled or dragged or it curls, I keep having problems of it being pulled out from under supported areas somehow, like it prints the interface somewhat and then goes on to print the pla layer on top and it just pulls it out. I’ve tried low and high cooling.
Nope, trying everything and U1 simply cannot print bambu’s Support for PLA/PETG filament. Again it is much closer to a TPU filament though not exactly, so I understand it’s a relatively difficult filament to print but the A1 has 0 problems with it and I tried recreating the settings as exactly as possible but also experimented changing everything from temps, speed, cooling, retraction settings, etc.
There is nothing magic one printer can do and another not do. Have you tried creating a profile for this filament from scratch, using calibration towers to dial in the characteristics (see my previous post in this thread)?
Sorry I forgot to follow this, going to do that right now from start to finish. I thought I could just power through and play around with the nozzle temp, cooling, flow ratio and max speeds but none of that worked.
Previous commenter suggested actual calibration tests, is that what you mean? Or is it possible to just trial/error the nozzle temp, speed, flow ratio, etc?
No, that’s just a lottery. You need to tune each parameter in turn so you find the best value without altering anything else at the same time. If you change more than one thing at a time and the print gets better or worse, how do you know which tweak did it? Once you’ve found OK values for all the parameters (one at a time), go around the loop again to fine-tune them.
The calibration towers are designed to vary each parameter for you, throughout the print, so you can then read off the optimum. Orca/SnOrca top toolbar “Calibration” – those add shapes to your build plate specifically for testing.
If the filament type doesn’t match any of the offered options, choose “Custom” then set the top and bottom test limits manually. Lots of info available on YouTube.
Also don’t know why I only just now decided to check the actual chemical makeup of the Support for PLA/PETG material
Bambu’s current SDS lists Support for PLA/PETG as:
74.9–90% thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)
9.9–25% PETG
0.1–15.2% additives
No PLA listed
I need to research more guides to printing TPU (of course this is not that but it might help), and people suggest feeding directly to the toolhead instead of auto feeder, and a dryer box might make it worse, which makes sense because I started using Creality’s Space Pi dryer (2 spool, one on each side of my U1).
Yup, that I figured I just didn’t think it would have so much TPU with the PETG being used to make it stiffer, so I’m also going to follow guides on printing TPU 95A since it seems that’s the closest filament that the Support for PLA/PETG is similar to. The retraction on toolchange is probably a big factor as I was using the default 10 mm but looks like TPU is normally 2mm-4mm
