Bambu Lab 3D Printers

Yes

Yes I tried cleaning mine with alcohol and it doesn’t like it, just a warm water clean

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I cleaned mine with fairy Liquid before printing with it, I’d never used alcohol, the engineer in me runs away… :rofl:

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The Dark Star is done printed with BBL LW-PLA, just need to order twin EDF units and as my new radio is backward compatible with all my old Receivers, even as far back as Frsky D8 it’s just a matter of when to assemble it.

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Looks good that

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Something I was wondering - do you guys use sand paper on prints? (wondering if to do it on my high speed drone that has a PETG body)

Only on rough bits, but hardly ever, amazing how smoothe these print nowadays

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I’ve found that the Aero filaments although smooth looking they do need a light sand with say 400 grit but not strictly necessary. If one intends to paint Aero, there’s a need for some prep work especially PLA as the paint bleeds.

With normal PLA you can get some good results by using something to fill the layer lines, body filler come to mind but it’s a lot of work in sanding to keep the weight down. The other method is to stand the print without direct contact in a jar with some thinners to allow the fumes to work on the filament, ABS done like this comes out completely smooth.

I got this from AliExpress in case I need to get the hard to reach places of a print, not needed it yet

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Following on from the Dark Star, which was a test run, I started to finetune for the BBL ASA-LW filament, what palaver, this filament is a real pain.

I spent the entire day trying to work out the best print settings for ASA-Aero but to compound it all the filament broke in the AMS which required a complete disassembly.

The only way to remove the broken filament, all of 21/2 inches was to remove a small PCB board…to my horror 4 magnets and 4 springs flew out and attached themselves to each other like old buddies…giving me no chance of knowing which ay around they are set… :scream:

At this point a small voice was saying…read the online manual, but as the voice wasn’t shouting or sounding panicky, I proceeded…as you do.

I got the magnets back into their slots in an orientation that looked right, reassembled it only to find the filament wouldn’t pass through, back to disassembling it.

Having reassembled the magnets which are there to activate hall sensors, I fed a length of filament into each channel and all worked as each magnet lifted out of the way and up to activate the sensors…happy me so I thought…

having reassembled :point_up_2: it I loaded filament to test it only for it to not load, looking inside the printer i could see the filament had got to the hot end and stopped, the first thing I’d checked was for a clog for which I’d found none.

I disassembled the hot end again and all I could see was a couple of slithers of tiny filament but as I run the gears buy hand they just stopped, further investigation reveled a tiny slither of black metal between 2 of the gears… :hot_face:

It’s back to the drawing board with the Panda sheet which is not holding ASA as I’d hopped… :thinking:

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I did the same when I had a blockage last year, there is a tutorial as there is for all maintenance items on the printer, that tells you where to hold a large magnet so that the 4 inside don’t go flying with the springs, I had to buy a new guide, and then found the missing magnet and spring, so have a spare

I tried that but it didn’t work for 3 of the magnets due to poles, used tape in the end… :rofl:

I watched a video yesterday where the designer made a 3 layer PLA base and then the ASA from layer 4, it worked for every print, will see if I can find it, it is a great idea

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I think I’ve seen that video but do post it if you find it…

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I looked on BB Store but thought of an alternative to spending £30…hence the tape which has worked just fine…

Should have taken photos of the hack… :upside_down_face:

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I just use the engineering plate for ASA, but I don’t use it much to be honest, just twice to make mounts for my outdoor cctv cameras

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I’ve always used the gold BBL PEI sheet which works just fine but needs the print removed off it while still warm otherwise it leave a trace…it’s actually better at 90C than the Panda but the Panda is better at releasing without leaving a trace.

It looks like I’ll have to experiment with Bed temperature to find a sweet spot, which appears to be pointing at higher Bed Temp…we’ll see possibly tomorrow after I dry the filament.

Here’s a preliminary ASA-LW test print from the Dark Star…still not happy with it or the print profile yet… this is one of the things I love about 3D printing…the tinkering… :hot_face:

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See I’d thought about it but a lazy engineer in me said “aaaha” what the heck…

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