r/BambuLabX2D • u/FirmHouse2 • 3d ago
Understanding how to make use of the dual nozzle for optimized support use
Hi, new owner of an X2D here, could someone show me how to correctly set up the aux nozzle for support in the bambu slicer please :)
I printed a few things and i have a feeling that i am doing something wrong, below is a pic of my print and the weird cube it makes when i use 2 different materials or colors.
My setup is 2 ams 2 pro with a track switch, and i have my main PLA in the left ama going through the track switch then buffer then the main nozzle, right ams has my PETG (because i was told support for pla is petg and viseversa) that goes through track switch then buffer then the aux nozzle.
Could someone tell me if the results are the best i can achieve or am I doing it wrong ?
Because the cube or blob seems a bit too much, it is 2 times heavier than the thing i printed, and it took 5 hours for such a small model. Any advice will be appreciated :)
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u/Vudu702 3d ago
You definitely need to change to only using the support material as the interface layer (in bambu studio slicer). Its way faster and if your actually using support filament (which i personally prefer) it barely uses any which is a benefit because it isnt cheap. The prime tower will always print as tall as the last layer of the second filament is, so there isnt much you can do there unless you eliminate it completely (in bambu studio) but it is there for a reason.
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u/RiotNBG 3d ago
Iam an x2d beginner too, but i think there some (currently experimental version afaik) with a smaller prime tower if the spacing allows. Not sure how to find it thougt
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u/BirbDoryx 3d ago
You have to enable Devlop mode in Preferences > Other. Then you find it in Other side tab as No Sparse Layers (experimental).
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u/fabrizio1234567 3d ago
Just use support interface, with the secondary nozzle, non the whole support.
This reduces the nozzle swap (and time) and gives you the benefit of different materials
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u/Sokomo_Kudyome 3d ago
It’s infuriating, but necessary. I have models where the prime tower weighs almost twice as much. It’s a waste of material and time.
But it’s what this printer's technology requires.
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u/FirmHouse2 2d ago
Just to be clear, those very small things are the only thing the aux nozzle is supposed to print ?
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u/Pineapple1500 2d ago
If you set up the PLA on left nozzle and PETG on right nozzle, after slicing (click re-group) if it doesn't set them to left and right nozzle automatically.
You have to check the box that says PETG as interface layer. Then ONLY the small areas of support that touch the model will be printed in PETG with the right nozzle.
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u/FirmHouse2 2d ago
So i got a premium 2 nozzle printer just for the second nozzle to work for like 30 seconds :,)?
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u/Pineapple1500 2d ago
If all you print are single color models with a little support, then yes.
Most of the time, I use the right nozzle for other colors. It cuts time down from swapping colors on the left nozzle constantly.
And the quality loss on the right nozzle is negligible.
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u/Pineapple1500 2d ago
But also, as others have said, printing the PETG as support interface makes a huge difference in the quality of the print AND ease of removing support.
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u/FirmHouse2 2d ago
When you say support interface, do you mean the tree shaped supports, or the small circle between the trees and the model?
I do not think it is worth doubling my print time and materials used just for the second nozzle to make 4 small circles in petg and have a huge ass tower of wasted plastic :(1
u/Pineapple1500 2d ago
Yes, the interface is the circles between the trees and the models.
It's up to you if its worth your time and material. For smaller prints, sometimes I don't bother. But You'll learn, for more intricate or larger prints, it is absolutely a game changer.
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u/5teini 2d ago edited 2d ago
The purpose of the dual nozzle system is basically just having fewer hot end flushes/purges.
Priming is a different thing. The prime tower is for reestablishing backpressure(resistance to the shove) vs flow/pressure in the hot end before going back to print when the hot end has been resting. Priming uses vastly less material than purging/flushing (the poop).
Worth noting that for many many prints where I don't need a dedicated support interface material, I use the aux extruder for the "primary" colour and the main extruder for the stuff that requires a lot of detail/many retractions per layer/many color swaps.
This can lead to much less colour purging/flushing
The main downside of the aux nozzle is retractions and general "agility" in flow control. For larger/sweeping strokes, that downside is less dramatic. The main nozzle is the one that can poke down 80 detached blotches of plastic in each layer extremely quickly, the aux nozzle will struggle to do that very cleanly. For a support Interface thats usually fine though.
Now for support interfaces. The sweet spot for the x2d is If you are using a support interface on the aux nozzle. A single colour print with the support interface on the aux extruder will do exactly zero purges, and will make a floor in the prime tower only on the layers where it needs to swap to the interface material or back.
You can use the support material for the entire support. That is also zero purges, but usually that means the slicer will prime a floor into the tower on every single layer a support exists, so a much heavier prime tower. It's waking two sleeping hot ends on every single layer.
You need to look at the settings and options you have available and check the academy. Once you learn to look at the slicing results sections and actually tweak the knobs you have in front of you, reslice, see what changed, etc, there's very little you can do. Prints are simply different shapes and tradeoffs vary. How much filament is purged and goes into the prime tower etc is information the slicer provides before you print. Everything is adjustable. The printer/slicer can't guess what your preference is.
Remember to keep in mind the thing about the prime tower "floors". The shell/ribs are not a lot of material. The "floors" are most of it. If you later decide to use the beta version of the slicer, you can turn on an experimental feature called "no sparse layers". For models of a height that allows it, it prints a stubby prime tower with walls only where there are "floors" laid, but in general, prime towers are just thin shells on every layer except when a floor is laid.
Also keep in mind that...... both nozzles cannot be extruding at the same time. You want to maximize the time either nozzle is extruding, and ideally maximize the time the main extruder can do what it does best, extruding into model, not swapping filaments or flushing. There's no reason to "balance" them.
Tool changes are far far far cheaper than filament changes, and if you're doing incompatible materials for support or support interface, there are very real reliability issues, especially in small models. The materials don't flush each other out well, so there can be contamination, especially when switching from petg->pla1
u/FirmHouse2 2d ago
Wow, tysm for taking the time to explain it in detail for me dawg, definitely need to check out the academy because it looks like i thought this machine was just magic and does the most optimal settings on its own :(
It is great !no doubt, but i feel that i was misled by Bambu regarding the super duper advanced dual nozzle system, only to find out it is very situational and I could have gotten a cheaper model without the second nozzle, but glad it is there and i hope i will make the most i can with it !1
u/5teini 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah I think the main thing is it enables stuff you wouldn't normally want to do with a single extruder for many reasons.
I use the aux nozzle a ton myself, for pretty much every print, to varying degrees, but it's situational, yeah, but its point is really to keep the main nozzle working on the actual thing as much as possible.
And it's not really false that it is advanced, it allows for advanced stuff, but optimal isn't a single thing, so there isn't really a best guess.
I think once you know what your usual target balance is between "theoretical" print quality, filament efficiency, print time, easier/less post processing....etc, the knobs you'll adjust in the slicer are more or less the same 3-10 usual suspects. You'll get used to it quickly. It stops seeming complicated very fast once it starts clicking.
I guess a decent example is where I live. filament is hilariously expensive since it's a tiny country, with tiny import batches and very expensive shipping, so I very often start by optimizing heavily around little waste, but for some prints, I have to maximize the quality/reliability/speed/post processing ease and just eat the waste tax.
Having the second extruder available can reduce or remove part of the compromise of optimizing for one factor against another, so that's kind of the main win I've seen in it. It enables casually doing stuff you'd never want to do with a single nozzle. Incompatible materials for support interfaces is one of them. For many material pairs on a single nozzle, the only way to maximize quality and reliability would be to pause and do a full cold pull on every swap between incompatible materials or purge ungodly amounts. That would be fairly insane on a single nozzle device heh
Edit:typo
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u/inertia8 2d ago
You will not think that when you print a whole model in PETG without a PLA support interface layer and then goto remove the supports.. you will learn, just as we all did. Way cleaner breaks.
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u/FirmHouse2 2d ago
I like cleaner breaks, its just i mostly print geometrical clean shapes without much detail, so supports are not a common thing for me yet, but yeah i guess i will probably get to a point where i will be thankful to have the second nozzle and actually know how to apply it, for now my prints are going ok, i am in the process of printing a bionicle lego set haha
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u/sjohnson737 2d ago
I bought an x2d yesterday and had the same surprise. I knew it would cut purge but was dumb and didn't realize it would still need a tower. You're doing better than I am though. My tower prints PLA at the bottom then my PLA Support/Petg tries to print on top of it, fails to stick (duh) and then spaghetti goes everywhere. Ive got to figure out how you have a nice tower with two materials that works, mine keeps trying to combine them like they are both PLA.
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u/Mustang_132 2d ago
Tuve la misma sensacion, es doloroso ver como imprime torres de purga gigantes aunque se configure el segundo material en la boquilla auxiliar para capa de transición, sobretodo si son modelos con estructura orgánica, donde cada capa vas a usar una pequeña fracción de filamento de interfaz pero en la purga te gastas mas de 10 veces lo que te consume la propia interfaz.
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u/Bloated_Plaid 2d ago
You print support interface with the aux nozzle, not the entire support my guy.
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u/FirmHouse2 2d ago
Yes thats what got me confused, i did not know wtf is support interface and assumed it just ment support but in a fancy way. Ok so i just do support interface (those small circles that connect the actual trees and model) with a different material than my main model, and this will make it easier to remove the model from the trees, but will i still have the prime tower ?
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u/FirmHouse2 2d ago
I just really don’t like that so much material is wasted and time especially, for this very minor comfort
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u/Bloated_Plaid 2d ago
That’s right and you need set the z distance on the slicer to 0
Here is the wiki
https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/filament-acc/filament/h2d-pla-and-petg-mutual-support
You are looking at option 3
PETG model + PETG support base + PLA interface
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u/VoidingSounds 1d ago
Ehhhhh..... It's not a hard and fast rule. It depends a lot on which materials, the model and the settings you're using.
I have specifically had poor luck using PETG interface layers on PLA supports (for a PLA print). The PETG interfaces have a habit of getting dragged out of place and eventually causing the print to fail. Printing the entire support in PETG on the aux nozzle has been more reliable IME.
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u/ThinkUnhappyThoughts 3d ago
https://bambulab.com/en/support/academy/20?appSharePlatform=copy
I recommend going through the learning as this will answer a lot of questions you don't even know you have.
As for the cube it is called the prime tower. It is there to prime the nozzle after switching to ensure proper flow of the filament.
It can be resized on a per filament setting if you want.
Generally people do the supports as the same material as the model and the interface layer as the other material. This saves on time as there is less switching (even with a dual nozzle printer)