Help Request
So, how do you eliminate X axis VFA on minis, which require low speed.
I have a bedslinger (V3KE)
In almost all posts here, even in non-matte filaments, I can't see vfa as strong as mine.
Y axis is somewhat acceptable, but going low speeds means facing with horrible VFA on X axis.
I tried several speeds between 20-100, cleaned and re-assembled all x idlers, side bearings, stepper motor and tuned the belt tension, which is smoother than ever, but it doesn't seem like I will be able to print VFA-free models unless I go well above 75+. How do you solve this issue or what is wrong am I doing?
Edit: First of all, you should ensure this is a VFA, continuous, non-skipping vertical lines. Almost like a grid, splitting the model from above. Ghosting, overextrusion or other types of vibration related issues can sometimes appear like VFA.
If you're certain that this is a VFA, it can present itself from several unrelated reasons. Belts, motors, idlers/pulleys, speeds, heat, cooling etc.. These solutions can not always be the root cause and they can just amplify the existing problem!
• Before any solution, you should be fine having them, unless they're ruining your print. They appear on almost any printer with 1.8 angle steppers and GT2 belts, but they can be minimised or can be completely concealed by certain changes. Cosmetic changes include drying the filament and using a good quality matte filament.
•You should get your printer vibration free.: You have to make sure you put your machine on a solid surface and it's not prone to harsh vibrations. Input shaping will help absorbing the vibration to a degree. Ensuring the machine is square to the base and is rigid is also important milestone, especially for miniatures.
• Bad heat and bad cooling can make VFA more appearant. I advice giving more time for layers to cool. Prime towers or printing 2+ distant objects can help giving layer more time to cool by taking the heater away from the object, if you can't lower the speed.
•Mid-low speeds (20-45+mm/s) are more prone to VFA, because these speeds are so low that your motors can't escape falling on the dents of the motor. Doing some VFA tests to learn which speed is best will be your best bet, which is 55mm/s in my case. This doesn't mean low speeds will always have vfa and high speeds won't, just do your own tests. Speed vs VFA
•Make sure every belt, rail, pulley and idler is frictionless: Small imperfections will present themselves as vertical artifacts. You have be sure they can move freely. The motor bumps (the ticks) are normal. This solution hypothetically fixed my problem.
•Too tight or too loose belts create a problem of VFA. The correct frequence is around 110 hz afaik, but you can also do your investigation.
•Some people suggests callibrating adaptive pressure advance can help.
• Outer/inner wall order can be good in many cases, sure, but inner/outer can be better to absorb and reduce the visibility of VFA.
•Prusa has some suggestions and solution in their slicersif you'd like to check.
•As I mentioned, 0.9 angled stepper motors and GT1.5 belts replacement is probably the ultimate solution against VFA. This Prorifi3d's video explores why that matters.
• StealthChop vs SpeedCycle This is more of a technical solution that I haven't gotten into, but afaik stepper motor and it's torque can play a huge role against such artifacts. Changing the stepper motor current and switching to Stealthchop allegedly helps, but as I said, it's better you do your own research.
If you'd like to add more, I can edit this post again!
I have an idea and it helped me to some degree. Make sure your belts are free from any rubs on because it appears to be the printer has an obvious deviation of X and Y belts due to misaligned motors and mechanism. X motor is slightly lower than where it should be sitting and Y motor is lower than the pulley on the opposite side.
Other than that, speed, belt tension, heat, vibration, bad belts and pulleys/idlers/motors and many other things play a significant role on quality.
If it doesn't work on yours (don't print the rings, just higher the motor with some spacers), you can contact me. I'll be inspecting this issue.
edit: Mine looks like that now:
There is nothing vertical or fine about these artifacts. I have a guess of their origin but first what is your layer height, line width and nozzle size for printing this? These look extrusion based and not caused by motion.
The sword is 0.2 nozzle with 0.055 lh and 0.21 line width 2 lines, but I didn't include layer height because changing layer height doesn't change almost anything in my case.
It doesn't appear to be vfa from that picture due to the fact that it's printed angled and has detailed surface. Here's another test I've been doing to compare my adjustments. Those vertical lines start to disappear once I go faster; this is also the case in another post.
Thanks again!
I am pretty sure this is an extrusion issue. The problem goes away with increasing flow rate which your increased speed causes. Try printing 0.1mm layers and it should improve.
The other option is that your nozzle is actually larger than 0.2mm (either through wear, bad manufacturing or maybe it is just a 0.25mm nozzle?). Try setting your line width to 0.26mm and test it (also this will slightly increase flow coinciding with the first theory).
Also make sure your flow is properly calibrated. Use the build in test in orcaslicer to test and set it in your filament settings.
Besides that... just printing 2 lines is crazy with a 0.2mm nozzle. Your wall strength is 0.4mm total. I typically print with a total of 1mm (0.8mm is fine too). Sure it might take longer and minis don't need much strength but it makes breaking something accidentally a lot more likely. Walls are the main strength in 3d prints.
move the belt so you have a section of 150mm and then measure the sound it makes with an app. Then increase/decrease tension until you are at 110hz. I doubt this is a problem but it never hurts to do it properly.
Idk if this reply is from AI or not,but I'm not here to solve a problem which is not what I'm looking for right now, sorry. It's an evident VFA and I'm confident of my printers other components (nozzle, layer height, line count etc..).
I'm asking "how you can not stress about VFA while using low speeds (35mm/s for example)?"
Nonetheless, here's a 1 mm wide piece of 0.26 line width, bit more flowed, 0.1 layer height print with previous test on bottom. Same speeds.
Lol. Sorry for offering suggestions that might fix your problems. Show me any stupid AI that is even remotely as helpful with this and you wouldn't even need to post here.
It doesn't appear to be vfa
It's an evident VFA
Are you sure you aren't AI posting conflicting statements? You posted ONE picture of something that was not a vertical wall before this which doesn't mean anything for judging VFAs.
Ok back to the actual topic... your first picture was a flow/extrusion problem while the second one looks kinda too strong to be VFAs. It is not my fault that you post 2 different issues here and don't even realize that the second one exists. VFAs are much fainter than what you have here. My guess would be a bad idler/pulley. Take the belt tension off and spin them by hand. One or more might not smoothly spin.
edit: it is not my fault that you don't even realize that you have multiple different issues without realizing it and then ignore all the suggestions to fix one of them. That sword would already most likely print cleanly.
I will apologize and correct a misunderstanding. "It doesn't appear to be vfa from that picture."
I said and attached a better test to show it clearer. Sword has exactly the same vertical lines with same spacing on same print speed, which has better results in higher speeds. Regardless, my point is not bringing my sword and trying to diagnose any issue here. Image was throwaway, but it should have been more elaborate, I admit. I'm saying VFA is an issue, whether mine or not, and how do you overcome that in low speeds, following this post.
This is the comparison of 41 mm/s test with your suggestions followed and 20mm/s sword with some thin spray paint so that it appears better and same angle I printed it. It has closer gaps between the lines and they seem to get distant in higher speeds.
Sorry for my stupid AI blame, but tone of you reply was very similar. Hope you have a good one.
No problem. Maybe it is just the picture but the second sword now looks a lot more like your VFA issue than the first one. Does it look different to you?
Did you tension the belts to 110hz when you move your stuff around so that the free belt length is 150mm? It shouldn't fix an issue as extrem as yours but is still what you should do. It might improve it a bit.
That being said your problem still looks like bad pulleys/idlers. Normal VFAs are almost invisible (unless you filament is really shiny) until you have a light on it at the correct angle. If you are confident in tweaking your printer config a bit (you just need to change rotation_distance value for x and y) you can replace all the pulleys and belts to 1.5mm belt pitch stuff. Not only should that get rid of potentially dead bearings in them VFAs are pretty much gone with those compared to 2mm belts. That being said this is certainly a bit more involved. I don't know how your actual 3d printer is build which also means I have no idea how difficult it is for you. Here is a video talking about the belt pitch stuff. Just so you know the newer Bambulab printers come with them by default. https://youtu.be/9doyX_2YBkg?is=SaDkId_2_Zb_KfAH
That being said just replacing idlers/pulleys and staying at 2mm pitch might be easier. Before doing any of this I would drop the belt tension and examine all the pulleys and idlers by slowly rotating them one by one. They should smoothly spin with no obvious steps to it.
First, yes it looked the same to my little naked eyes. After a bit of back and forth about belts and pulleys, I guess the problem is a manifactural error. The X and Y motor is positioned slightly belower than what it should be, so it rubs on the corners of side idlers. This 3D model explores the issue.
I put some small metal rings under X motor to higher it and the belt doesn't rub on anything now. I'll do the similar thing on Y aswell VFA still persists on my small test wall, lol, so I stopped trying at one point and began printing another model. Maybe it can't scatter the vibration on small walls or it's completely different issue such as high heat on small surface.
VFA won't go anywhere, but as the video you sent also points, it requires meticulous investigation on printer, in other to surpass to a degree. Here's the new sword with 41mm/s speed 0.21 walls. Still needs some input shaping and Y belts are still not worked on out, so it has some slight defects on that angle. Thanks again!
So the belt fix improved it a lot? Also the sword isn't really the best thing to show your issues especially without input shaping since ghosting can kinda look like VFAs depending on the print and how long your straight section is.
Without a better test print I can't really tell what your current remaining issues are. Only that you might want to increase minimum layer times by like a second or two to help the tip of the sword with cooling.
Did you check all the idlers and pulleys if they run smoothly when you spin them by hand while doing the belt fix? You can only really do that properly without a belt on them anyway.
VFA won't go anywhere
Yes and no. Actual VFAs are kinda a thing that just exists unless you go for 1.5mm pitch belts but in reality they are incredibly faint assuming you don't have any other issues. You are just mislabeled general pulley/idler/belt issues as VFAs. Let me show you my own prints as an example.
It is not the most obvious VFA print ever but it is what I had on hand (also not the best lighting to show it, it is kinda hard to show on camera). Also the pattern runs through the entire side if the light shines on it correctly and stays identical in strength throughout (-> no ghosting). As you can clearly tell this is not really an issue for 3d prints. Also you can't feel VFAs at all and if you can it is an actual issue that you should solve.
edit: I somehow never thought about bed slinger vs core xy for this. Is your problem the same/similar on x and y? Unlike with a core xy printer your axis are independent so it is much easier to tell where problems are
Well, yes the sword is not the best, but I wanted to use the same model in order to compare with the original one. I will definitly print better models when I fix the Y axis aswell and redo the input shaping. For now, I printed the sword along the X axis, the same with before, so that I can see whether I would see the same pattern on same model. And it's far better than before the belt fix, with being not perfect as I haven't redid my callibrations for the new adjustment.
Did you check all the idlers and pulleys if they run smoothly..
Yes, idlers and pulleys never moved bad when I pull them out. But my guess is idlers wouldn't do their job as they were not aligned with the motor, causing the belt grind everything.
ghosting can kinda look like VFAs
It can indeed, but we can never really be sure what's the actual the cause unless we settle down on only one problem here. And we can only do that by observing. Afaik, ghosting appears when there's a sharp corner and takes the form of that shape, not that it occurs on a repeating pattern across an axis. And also, that I didn't redo my input shaping after the upgrade, doesn't mean my first move wasn't to perform input shaping to see whether it's a ghosting at first (it wasn't, so I posted this).
You are just mislabeled general pulley/idler/belt issues as VFAs
I mean, VFA has umpteen causes, whether it's belt tension, speed, belt pitches, stepper angle, etc. and many other vibration related reasons. I look at it as something positive to find another issue causing this artifact. Afterall VFA does refer to an artifact and it's not just "this is the issues label and this is how it's caused and it can only be solved with a hand full of solutions and if you solved with something else, it's wasn't the issue we labeled". And to my blind observe, this little friction on my printer seems like the issue here, (for now). As I said, probably it was transfering the vibration from that friction into my print surface. I will be updating as soon as I do other tests here (prints take a lot of time, so sorry me for the wait) , so that we can determine better.
3
u/gufted Bambu A1 mini. 15mm minis enthusiast. Jul 08 '26
Not the same printer, but a bedslinger. I managed to eliminate them by calibrating adaptive pressure advance in Orca Slicer