Weird Artifacts in First benchies
Good Morning All,
So I am just coming from a very terrible experience all around with Bambu Labs and got an MK4S kit with all the bells and whistles. Assembly went fine, all the checks passed fine, wifi setup was buggy and didn't want to connect but then I tried the NFC option and it went through smoothly. I got on to printing my first benchies to make sure everything looked okay. The first one I printed with one of the little coils of Prusament samples that came in the kit. I did this right from the LCD from the USB stick without changing anything. That benchie came out flawless. I mean even the hull line was minimal and you really can't get rid of that line anyway without some pretty extreme gcode hacks.
I installed Prusaslicer and tried again from my computer with the benchie downloaded from Printables and the Prusament sample. Again, as flawless as a benchie can get.
Then I installed all of the extra filament profiles from Prusa and tried printing the same benchie again with the new Hatchbox PLA I had with Prusa's default profile for it. The benchie was better than the first one I had gotten on the Bambu printer but worse than the first ones that came off of the MK4S. I searched around the internet and came across a post here I believe with some suggestions for editing the Hatchbox PLA profile that worked about 90%.
There is only one area on the bow of the benchie that is coming out with weird artifacts. I cannot figure out what could be the issue and I admit that I do not know enough about the MK4S or 3D printing in general to run the problem down on my own. Every other area on the benchie makes me happy except for the area circled in red. Please see the pictures below and advise. Any help is appreciated.
RE: Weird Artifacts in First benchies
Thats a cooling problem. Try rotating the part and see if the problem moves.
Also your elephants foot is excessive so you have too much squish on the first layer.
RE: Weird Artifacts in First benchies
My first layer is fine. That's not an elephant's foot problem. That's what remains of a brim I didn't bother to fully clean off. I had printed a couple benchies prior without a brim and, I don't remember why now, added the brim for the last couple I did including this one. I wasn't bothering to clean the brim fully because I knew the first layer was fine and didn't care.
I'll have to check the orientation of the benchie. I just imported into the slicer and printed it at whatever the default orientation was. I'll try rotating it and reprinting when I get home from work. If it is a cooling problem though and the problem just moves how do I get rid of it. The MK4S has that 360 degree fan right at the nozzle. Would just turning down the fan speed be sufficient to fix it?
This is a new build printer?
I would rate that print as good enough for the first month.
Every user builds their printer slightly differently and pre-built models are shaken up in transit so during the first few weeks of use the printer will run-in and settle its parts together; then you will have to go over the basic maintenance checks, lubricate and recalibrate. Even if you got everything dialled in perfectly today, it would all need re-doing.
Better to settle, temporarily, for a basic working printer and get some useful printing done, make your early mistakes, establish a routine and generally get used to the process. Then when you do your one month service you can take extra care knowing the new settings on your now stable printer are likely to last for several months.
Having said that, benchies are torture tests designed to help diagnose minor inaccuracies in otherwise well set up printers, it's not many years since a benchy that good would have earned considerable bragging rights ...
If it is a cooling problem though and the problem just moves how do I get rid of it.
@neophyl is right, rotate the print. This angled, unsupported overhang is an example of rather advanced fine tuning of the print environment.
When you do get to your first maintenance session look up how to fine tune the belt tensions, right now they're not perfect but don't touch yet, at this stage they are as likely to drift better as worse.
Cheerio,