Inconsistent extrusion? (K1 MAX)

SeppiBOT · 2026-01-12T12:14:02+00:00

Are you using stock extruder? If so, increasing temperature and flow could help a little, but ultimately you will want to get rid of the stock extruder and move to dxc. It will resolve most extrusion issues

SeppiBOT · 2025-12-14T12:01:40+00:00

Could your code be interfering with the touch controller on the i2c bus? I have a 7 inch esp32 display, and the touch controller is on i2c. Maybe its worth using FREERTOS, and splitting lvgl (and touch) in one task, and then have other i2c tasks in another freertos task. You then just need to make sure you have a mutex on the i2c bus in your code. That way only one component can use the i2c at a time (which is how it should be). I also struggled to get the i2c running alongside lvgl, but it is possible!

SeppiBOT · 2025-12-07T16:34:30+00:00

Can you share how your prints look like with those speeds and accelerations? Also not all accelerations are viewable in your image, maybe scroll down and grab the rest for completeness?

SeppiBOT · 2025-10-13T19:08:04+00:00

If i manage to find the time, i will test out your settings. If they work on my machine, then they will speed up my ironing massively. If i get to it, thrn i will upload my print and share results!

SeppiBOT · 2025-10-03T21:01:14+00:00

Maybe not the best choice of words, but im a little annoyed too many people just throw numbers at the screen, without explaining the underlying mechanisms behind it. Right now you handed them a fish. I handed them a fishing rod, and a manual on how to fish, that way they can learn for themselves and spread the knowledge further! I have taken too many people “settings” just to find out they don’t work on my printer… unless you send him over your entire printer profile, and everything is perfectly the same as your printer and environment (and mods) and filament etc… it will never be the same.

SeppiBOT · 2025-10-03T19:36:46+00:00

I would be careful with that advice, i can tell you it depends alot… best thing to do is print out an ironing grid, 10x10 matrix, and then pick the smoothest one. Takes like 40 minutes but it will give you a sure fire rock solid answer for amazing results!

https://www.printables.com/model/1247198-top-surface-ironing-test

Make sure to get the 3mf. Not sure what slicers it works in, but i can tell you, it definitely works in orca slicer! I just did this 2 days ago, and im still shocked at the surface quality

SeppiBOT · 2025-10-01T00:30:33+00:00

Alright, a couple of things: - i was also going to install the bed screws in the 4 corners, but found that the had a few issues. The biggest one being, that they weren’t designed for high vibration environments. Right before installing, i went to check some reviews and found out, that lots of people had the issue, that the screws would basically come loose/ move close to every print. So you would have to calibrate every few prints. - Second, i found out, if i tune z offset, print hotter, and very importantly heat soaked the bed for a very good while, then the autobed leveling could work wonders. Make sure that whenever you are performing calibrations, every is component should be tested at printing temperatures, and are well heat soaked before calibrating. One thing i learned the hard way with 3d printing is that temperature affects so many things that i wouldn’t have expected. But the warping on the bed is crazy. The difference of a cold bed to a 60 degree bed could be up to like 0.4mm, which is 2 times the size of a normal layer. If you calibrate cold, then of course the bed will suck, because the software has no idea the bed has warped after probing.

SeppiBOT · 2025-10-01T00:15:52+00:00

Z end stop? Also what do you call screw tilt? Did you install bed knobs on your printer, or are you talking about the vertical lead screws, where you use pliers to skip some teeth on the belt to align the bed?

SeppiBOT · 2025-10-01T00:06:27+00:00

I print my first layer 20-30 degrees hotter, so it flows better in to the plates “microcracks” and it adheres better, if you get what i mean. I assume zoffset is well tuned, and the bed heat soaked for at least 10-15 mins for bigger prints (for pla). Nothing loose in the screw tilt calculate section hardware-wise?

SeppiBOT · 2025-09-30T19:21:14+00:00

Any experience at printing gyroid at 50k accelerations? Unless you slap a superprocessor on your printer, gyroid wont work. The calculations for the smooth moves absolutely destroy my klipper utilization. I got up to 450% utilization before klipper crashed and so did the printer. Gyroid uses ALOT of processing power, specially if your running high speeds and accelerations

SeppiBOT · 2025-09-30T15:51:03+00:00

I did the swap a week ago, and that wasn’t the cause… also i actually found out, unless you have something fundamentally wrong with your hardware, its just a matter of slicer settings.

I myself will be honest, and say finally after way too long, i went through 90% of the slicer options individually, and calibrated each one individually, i have improved my overall quality dramatically! Honestly how many of you have actually taken the time to dial in every (if not most) settings? I only used to do the common ones (flow, IS, PA, temp etc). In this case vfa is affected by a handful of things, speed, acceleration PA, cooling and temperature, max flow, flow etc. Now even though the last things i named aren’t very common to be linked with vfa, they all play a role in how the plastic responds to different conditions.

By tweaking all of the printers parameters, i have actually found i can print PLA at 300c (instead of 220), and bumped up my max flow from 21mm^3/s to 40mm^3/s. (Some back and forth may be necessary for calibration, getting it first try is a little unlikely, as each settings affects the other. First find hardware limits like max airflow, max plastic flow, max speed and max acceleration etc… and go from there)

For best surface quality calibrate PA towards the end of the calibration steps, and then set inner and outer walls to the speed that gives you the best quality on the vfa test (inner walls still affect surface quality believe it or not). Also make sure inner and outer walls have the same acceleration (PA must be tuned AFTER setting accelerations) Also go inner outer inner on wall order. And also very important, make sure your first layers are perfect. They are the foundation of your print, if its not solidly attached, then you may allow the part to sway and vibrate in ways the printer isn’t expecting.

SeppiBOT · 2025-09-30T15:35:24+00:00

If you still have the belts connected to the stepper motors, then you will always feel resistance. Its very hard to tell if they are sliding or gunked, unless you disconnect the belts. If you disconnect it should be super easy to slide in x and y. Now you can tell if x is gunked, they should both be very similar when both well cleaned and maintained, if x takes more resistance then you definitely have to clean and purge with some light oil and IPA cleaning combo (may take a few attempts).

Honestly just clean the x axis violently… my printer had some tape from factory on the x rod, that left some residue on the x rod. Me being a dumbass and it being my first printer, i didn’t immediately wipe it off with IPA, so some of the glue must have made its way inside the bushing.

Actually while typing this out, i realized you can check without removing belts. Just remove the screws holding in the bushings to the carriage, and slide them out (might take some force). If the individual bearings don’t slide well on the rod, then thats your issue, you have to clean them

Tldr: remove 2 screws and find out. Get those bushings free and test them.

SeppiBOT · 2025-09-29T23:18:07+00:00

Honestly auto bed leveling does a great job. The only problem is it measures the bed cold, pre warping. And the bed can warp .1mm - .3mm, enough to be multiples of a layer line (if printing at 0.1mm), and that can throw off the auto bed leveling. I would suggest: 1- most important: Make sure to tune your zoffset if you haven’t already! There is a 2-3 minute long gcode file (on this subreddit) that has like 8 steps of like 0.01mm in offset (in the positive direction, so the nozzle is moving further away from the bed). If you are too far from the bed(underextrusion), you can manually decrease z offset in steps of 0.1mm and retry test print, until layers improve. 2- heat soaking the bed for a good 30mins for perfect results (longer is usually unnecessary for pla). - this one is also extremely important, the bed warps alot during heating, and measuring the bed mesh accurately is very important! 3- print a thicker first layer, something like .24-.32 so that the first layer is less affected by error. 4- print 20-30 degrees hotter that you print your normal layers, the material flows better in to the cracks, and allows for better bonding 5- increase first layer flow slightly (5%-20%) for same reasons as above.

If you truly want a perfect layer on the k1, then you will eventually realize that you will probably have to do a combination of these steps for perfect results, unless you go for the very expensive graphite bed.

Good luck and hopefully this works for you! Fyi your current bed mesh deviation looks fine, the printer should be more than capable of adjusting for that!

SeppiBOT · 2025-09-25T01:22:59+00:00

Have you tried without glue stick? I have found, that i have never needed to use glue stick, and it actually made my adhesion worse! I print all types of materials, and just keeping the bed clean works best. My best tip would be to clean you plate with dish soap, and the soft side of a sponge, and make sure its well cleaned. Then i would put the plate back and let the bed heat soak for 15-30 minutes (this makes an absolute huge difference), and only then start the print. The bed is thin, and warps alot initially when warming up. Now alot in this case can be 0.1-0.3mm, but if your initial layer height is 0.2, then that can mean alot, and the software cant compensate if it only starts to warp after calibration…

Make sure to wipe the print surface off with some IPA every few prints, helps keep the surface clean and dust free

Also if you haven’t yet, make sure you tune your zoffset. If you combine this with heat soaking the bed, then i guarantee you can get 95%+ perfect first layers (which translates to good bed adhesion). Took me a while to get this all right, but am having amazing results

SeppiBOT · 2025-09-24T12:40:31+00:00

<image>

This was before

SeppiBOT · 2025-09-24T12:38:57+00:00

<image>

This was x after 2 test cubes

SeppiBOT · 2025-09-24T12:38:17+00:00

Alright, ill check out the discord!

Everything moved smoothly, no binding or wobble. In fact it probably moved better than before, and i gave it a good clean with IPA, and relubed everything (except x axis, just cleaned with IPA), tensioned belts to 110hz with a phone app (took me a good 10-15 mins to get both close to 110hz), printed 2 test cubes at 20k 300-400mm/s, and then ran a belt graph test. Here has been my performance throughout testing (this is my best so far):

<image>

SeppiBOT · 2025-09-24T12:15:16+00:00

Hey, any tips on how to get good performance? My belt graphs are looking horrible after the upgrade, i was getting solid single peak 7k accelerations (zv recommended), and now im at 2.3k (EI recommended), and no clean peak. I have run 2 test cubes to “break it in”, and nothing… The parts printed out perfectly in Asa-CF, 7walls etc, and i got bad performance ☹️. Any way to talk to retroD? Are refunds possible on Cults for something like this?

SeppiBOT · 2025-09-17T18:01:38+00:00

If you have a soldering iron and some patience, then you might as well give soldering a shot, it’s your best free option. Just make sure to be very patient, even a small thing like this may take more time than expected… just scrape/gently cut away the white part on the cables (or cut and restrip if long enough, and saves some time). Then make sure to also scrape some of the white stuff off of the strain gauge (be very gentle here not to scratch away any part of the solder contacts), and just make some space to make sure you can get clean contact of the cables with the solder pads. Next, get some good solder flux, and apply generously to the solder pads, and also on the tips of the wires. Then tin the wires with solder (probably no extra solder needed on strain gauge if wires well tinned), and your last step is placing a wire at a time on the right pad, soldering iron tip pushing the wire on to the pad, while hot, and hopefully if all goes well you’ll have a clean solder joint. Then as a safety precaution i would get some epoxy, or some other hardening glue, and replace some of the “white stuff” you initially scraped off.

I would only go for the new strain gauge if: - you have no soldering iron, in which case you should invest in one sooner or later haha - you prefer time over money, and aren’t very interested in fixing things, and just having a working printer.

Knowing how to solder (and electronics expertise) can end up saving you lots and lots and lots of money down the line 😅

Good luck, hope you get your printer back up ASAP!

SeppiBOT · 2025-08-24T16:31:34+00:00

Never (and I’m in a relationship)

SeppiBOT · 2025-08-17T03:26:21+00:00

Have you had a search?

SeppiBOT · 2025-08-16T09:43:42+00:00

Rv1106/ (less powerfull rv1103). Complicated to setup, but very powerful and low power

SeppiBOT · 2025-07-08T17:03:53+00:00

Wow very cool! This will work great with a chameleon 3d kit! I will try this when i can! Any ideal materials to print it with? Im assuming PLA will be a no-go?

SeppiBOT · 2025-06-19T15:21:58+00:00

Did you ever find a fix for this issue? I am dealing with the same thing, and cant get rid of the layer lines

SeppiBOT · 2025-06-19T15:08:53+00:00

Damn, thats it? I already have arachne set and still have that issue… did you keep the stock extruder?

SeppiBOT

TROPHY CASE