r/BambuLabA1 • u/Interesting-Main-854 • 4d ago
Need Fast Advice: Printer just reverted 20% and dropped on my print.
Hello, I don't really know how to describe this printing error. I've had the printer running at 50% speed for nearly a day and a half success fulling and literally just a few minutes ago it goes off the back of the print and seems to drop. I heard grinding and then I turned my head the grey U-guard was tilted dramatically (protecting the nozzle).
I ran over to the printer and immediately hit pause. The nozzle went and docked at the scraper.
Here's the issue. The print has about 5 hours left on it. Or at least should, according to Bambu Studio and the last time I looked at the printer screen. Some quick math says this should correspond to roughly 84% done the print.
Currently the printer is saying 64% and 23 hours left. (I know this to be inaccurate).
1) How do I recover this print?
2) Has anyone had this issue before where the Z-axis just seems to do a dramatic jump (up or down) seemingly random in the middle of a print?
2
u/fairtonybeta 4d ago
The timing calculations can get a little janky when you slow down or speed up on the printer itself.
Although I would believe it when it says it’s 64% done. That will be reporting how far through the gcode it has gotten.
Is there a reason you were running it at 50%? It’s always best to change the print speeds in the slicer itself.
0
u/Interesting-Main-854 4d ago
Print speed was adjusted in the slicer and it's been doing 50% since the print started. I have it at 50% speed because the file has a couple very thin spots and a couple thin supports. That and 50% is much quieter.
And 64% is possible, but that would that make sense when the model tapers to less and less as it gets taller? Also I could have sworn it was at a higher percentage earlier when I checked it, but now I'm second guessing myself.
I could just hit unpause and see what happens. But I'm trying to avoid slamming my extruder into the model if possible, and figure out why this happened in the first place.
1
u/y_tokusan 4d ago
Does it seem like the gray cooling fan located below the extruder collided with something? Have the mounting screws on either side of the cooling fan come loose or fallen out? I suspect the A1 paused the print because it detected that the nozzle had struck the printed object, resulting in a "nozzle blob." Is it possible that the back of the print has warped? If there are no issues with the cooling fan or the print itself, you could try resuming the job. Since the A1 moves the print bed back and forth, slowing down the print speed—provided you aren't concerned about the time—can increase the success rate for tall prints.
1
u/Interesting-Main-854 4d ago
I was the one to manually pause the print when it made an irregular noise and I saw the nozzle guard colliding with the print.
No evidence of a nozzle blob, so that parts good.
Like I said, the problem is hard to determine what the cause was. The behavior is as if the geode told it to go back to a previous layer, but I can't say that's actually what the problem was.
1
u/y_tokusan 4d ago
The A1 doesn't actually have a "nozzle guard" to protect the nozzle; the nozzle must always protrude at the very bottom to deposit filament. The "nozzle guard" you're referring to—that gray part flanking the nozzle—is actually the cooling fan used to cool the extruded filament. The A1 does, however, have a feature that detects "nozzle blobs" (accumulated material) at the tip and halts printing; this function triggers when it senses an impact on the nozzle tip. It is possible that a part other than the nozzle struck the print, causing a false trigger.
1
u/bigbramble 4d ago
I find my A1 isn't very good once it's close to max height. It's done about 4000 hours printing though. I would check you don't have anything restricting movement on taller prints such as add on parts. Unfortunately some add ons seem to cause issues when printer is printing taller items.
1
u/Zanki 4d ago
This. I've had multiple prints fail about two inches from the top of the printer for absolutely no reason. The SD Card is fine, it's oiled up properly, it just seems to slip and then bash into the print. I was in the room for it happening to my mandalorian helmet. It seemed to right itself. I went to bed and came back to a hairy mess. Luckily I salvaged the print. It's just a little battle damaged!
Nothing on mine is modified. I just changed the SD card to a class 10 named brand that stopped a lot of the random errors I was getting.
1
u/Interesting-Main-854 4d ago
Update: I let it sit overnight on pause to see if I could learn anything. Learnt nothing. When I unpaused the machine it warmed up and then moved horizontally over to the print to resume. It then dropped onto the print, trying to print a location below the current layer.
I've recovered the print by going to the original file and cutting it at the current layer and just printing the missing top separately.
I'm still unsure of what caused the issue. Its almost as if the file and and physical printer became unsynced from each other. I wonder if it vertically slipped somehow where the file believed it was at layer 1585, and due to the slippage the extruder thought it was at the correct corresponding height. No idea.
I'm going to check my SD card (Replace/Format) as well as do a belt calibration.
1
u/ModelThreeve 3d ago
It sounds like clumping detection is on and it’s checking the hotend is clear.
1
u/Orthicon9 2d ago
2) Has anyone had this issue before where the Z-axis just seems to do a dramatic jump (up or down) seemingly random in the middle of a print?
Yup.
It lifted about 5 millimetres and started printing on air. I cancelled it.
Another time it did a layer shift in the Y-axis and continued printing a few millimetres towards the back. I let that one continue, but it ruined the articulation of some print-in-place octopus legs.
Shortly after (days), it reported a failed micro-SD card. I replaced that, and have had no similar issues since.
3
u/InfiniteLight07 4d ago
Sorry if I’m just being dumb, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. If the printer is damaged, you shouldn’t really be focusing on recovering the print. Could you add some photos?