3D Printing Today #592

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

News: 

H2C Release

https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/h2c?from=navigation

Segments: 

Cocoa Press2, Bambu Vortek Vs Bondtech INDX, Layer Height

Thing of the Week: 

Tool star Update

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7188404

threedprintingtoday.libsyn.com or 

Search for 3D Printing Today wherever you get your podcasts

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

As usual - I look forward to the podcast. 

I did check out the link - there's a nice Sales pitch type video on there. I think it's pretty funny that the 1st Serious print they show printing - is a Car License Plate! Seriously - what is THAT about - cause you can not Legally print a license plate in the USA - you need to get them from DMV! Anyway - here's the video:

      store.bblcdn.com/s7/default/6e5f989c15704801ae6e2c944fcbe744/Vortek_Teaser-EN_1.mp4

-K

[Bryan Eckert]

Hey guys great episode - but since I have one now I've been running for a bit I noticed a few misconceptions and questions you guys had about the H2C and Vortek.

Namely - and this is probably just semantics - but Vortek does NOT retract filament completely out of the hotend. Ever. The filament is cut at the heatbreak and remains in the nozzle as you can see from the picture attached of one of my nozzles in the rack. Just like your X1C, if you've ever changed the nozzle you'd see filament in the heatbreak. 

The machine also does not wait to retract, then swap, then push filament, then heat up - it does all of that simultaneously as soon as it cuts the filament. The AMS is rewinding, and pushing the new filament to the hotend as the nozzle is parked on the rack and the next one selected. IF a swap requires purging (i.e. changing the color/material in the nozzle) then that swap takes anywhere from 40 seconds to a minute depending on amount of purging needed. Nozzle swaps back to existing color take a lot less time, due to the AMS pushing/pulling filament simultaneously with the Vortek swapping the nozzle.

Lastly, it seemed overlooked or not understood that this is a DUAL extruder carriage. Switching between the left (standard nozzle) and right (Vortek nozzle) takes 8 seconds. When hotend swaps happen, there is a stopper that covers the unused nozzle, no wiping is necessary. Studio tells you to load the main color into the left hotend, and lesser colors into the Vortek side. The majority of color or material swaps will probably be between those two nozzles, and not through Vortek swapping the hotends.

Also, this got corrected - yes it most definitely does clean the nozzle. Better than my X1C, which like you I thought does a decent job. It has to, as when the Vortek swaps a nozzle, there is a small bit of weep out the bottom. One function that happens with a nozzle swap is the nozzle is heated to temperature as the filament is loading, and there is a "cutter" - not sure what else to call it - at the poop chute that cuts the little blip of drool off, then it wipes on the rubber wiper next to it. The cutter goes front to back and the nozzle tips pass through a slot to scrape off goo. Then it wipes side to side on the rubber wiper. I've attached a photo of it so you can see what I mean.

Also - you talked about "powering" the heater through the wireless connection on the top of the hotend. That is incorrect. The nozzle only has an induction coil, and that is heated by the electromagnets that are on the carriage that surround it when it's seated. What gets power is the chip that stores filament/nozzle information.

One thing you probably don't know is that Vortek allows you to pair nozzles to a particular filament if you wish, to avoid cross contamination between filaments or make sure abrasives don't print on the same nozzle as non abrasives. So for instance you can have a vortek nozzle that is only allowed to print PA-GF or something like that.

Some other questions you had - it comes with eight nozzles total. The left extruder comes with one .4 installed, and a spare. The Vortek side comes with a .4 installed, and 5 other nozzles for a total of four .4 nozzles, one .2 nozzle and one .6 nozzle (all standard flow). The Vortek rack holds 6 nozzles - it's the left extruder that makes it a 7 nozzle system.  Which brings up a good point - yes it only comes with one 4 slot AMS. The "ultimate" package comes with 2 full sized AMS units, a single slot AMS HT unit, 3 more .4 vortek nozzles and a .2 and .6 nozzle for the left extruder.

Oh yeah finally, since it was mentioned - there isn't a heat bed issue. 3DPrinting Nerd issued a retraction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFtvw5nd0BM  
Although, I personally think the gold PEI bed stinks, and the engineering bed is on par with my garolite beds I have for my X1C (unlike some I don't mind putting a little dimafix on the plate)

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

 It cuts filament at the heartbreak? How’s that? My X1C does NOT do that. But.. even if it did cut the filament (I don’t think it does), it would then have to purge past the cut otherwise retractions would not work so then what would be the point of the cut?. You’ll have to show how it cuts otherwise I think you got that incorrect.
It sounds like you’re saying that the heater is on the carriage? Got a pic of that? 

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Per your pic it looks like it leaves some material at the top of the heartbreak. Why do that? That is not in the melt zone. If it deforms it could easily go out of tolerance and clog the heartbreak! New filament will butt up against that to push into the thermal tube. I don’t see any value in doing that. Only issues.

[Jason and a Bunch of Wires]

Some thoughts I had on the latest episode, in particular on the topic of Vortek vs INDX, etc.

I'll start by pointing out that I've got 2 printers, both Bambu (X1C + 2x AMS2 + 1x AMS-HT, A1 + 1x AMS2). For me, at first, Vortek sounded amazing. Then I started to look more deeply, and I'm not as jazzed any longer.

First, I get the driver behind the (mostly) retracting from the nozzles - they're leveraging the large investment they've already made in the single-path AMS units. Are there technically better options? Sure, but they've already invested and aren't excited about chucking that investment. I get that. INDX seems superior with a dedicated filament path per tool.

Where am I sour on the solution? First, the whole motion-system with nozzles flying around. It seems needlessly large in volume and complexity. Secondly, electronics on the nozzle, whereas INDX has no electronics or wiring on the tools. Imagine taking a clogged nozzle and heating it to setup a cold pull or use a no-clogger on it, applying heat while trying to not damage electronics. Sounds like the express train to trashing a $40 nozzle.

It's easy to make more advanced solutions by introducing complexity. As pointed out in the show, that's what we're seeing with Vortek. The truly difficult thing to accomplish is building advanced solutions while maintaining simplicity. What's the most important part to segregate materials in? The place you actually do the melting. What's the best way to keep costs down? Only build the expensive parts once. That's why I think INDX is the way forward. If I was buying my first printer today, honestly, I'd probably buck up for a Core One L. It'll be interesting to see if Sovol picks up on the system as well. Imagine a next-gen SV08 or SV08 Max with INDX on it. 8, maybe a dozen tools. At that point, the greater problem is where to put all those spools. I envision a wall-mounted shelf, maybe with a couple of tiers above the printer holding dryboxes (homemade cereal box types, perhaps Polydryer boxes, or something else), feeding the tools via PTFE tubes. Definitely a commitment to space, but for folks wanting next-gen type multi-material printing, probably worth it.

On Wednesday, December 3, 2025 at 4:44:17 PM UTC-5 3D Printing Tips and Tricks wrote:

[Bryan Eckert]

Your X1C absolutely does that. Go remove the hotend, and you will see filament there just like in my picture. When you see the carriage move to the front left and smack the side at the end of a print (or between color changes), it's operating the cutting lever.

My (kickstarter) X1C has north of 7000 hours on it and I still have the original hotend that came with it, it's not a question of if it's reliable or has issues. The only issues the hotends seem to have is being press fit, and smacking something can dislodge the nozzle from the heatbreak (which is why grid infill is stupid)

I think what WOULD definitely cause issues is constantly retracting the filament out of the hotend thousands of times a print. Remember the good old days where if you set retraction too far your hotend would clog up? What's the difference in that and retracting the filament over and over and over out of the hotend during a print?

The chamber also doesn't get hot enough to worry about PLA or PETG sitting there in a nozzle when printing ABS - it's sitting in a chamber that would roughly be the same temperature the heatbreak would reach during printing PLA.

Also - you do realize induction heating is just a coil and magnets. The induction coil is the long part of the Vortek hotend. The electromagnets are on the carriage. This is relatively well illustrated on their webpage with the animation showing the nozzle being heated. They show the blue "magnetic force" flowing between the magnets and the coil on the nozzle heating up.

Here's a pic of the carriage, you can see the electromagnets on either side very prominently.

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[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Yeah... that's it... 

The AMS pulls the material all the way out when I do multiple materials on the X1C. The only reason I can see for cutting is to ensure softer material from the melt zone does not go up into that path. If it did it would likely clog the path. As such they then have to purge that bit that they leave in which in turn increases the time even more. IIRC the MMU also cuts the filament. Like I've said before all of this indicates a completely different design mindset which is not based on a good understanding of the end user needs. They are designing themselves into a corner. Kinda like what Ultimaker did. If they give me one for the podcast I'll take it, but I will not buy one.

[Bryan Eckert]

The X1C has to purge every time because it is a single nozzle.

The Vortek does not purge at all, unless color/material is being changed for the nozzle itself. So, for instance this morning I started a 2 color print using white and black ABS. The black in the left extruder, the white in the Vortek side. It simply went and grabbed the nozzle that it knew had white ABS in it, did a wipe/clean and started printing. If I was doing a 3 or 4 color print with the red and green also, it wouldn't purge because there are nozzles already with red and green abs in them.

If however, I changed the colors out to blue, yellow and orange.. then yes it would purge first print on each of those nozzles, but not subsequent uses of the nozzle. But you have to purge any system when introducing a new color to the color path regardless.

Since it keeps track of the nozzles via serial number, you can even take a nozzle out of the rack, then put it back in at a later date and have the machine read the nozzles. It will then know hey that nozzle has white ABS, I don't have to purge for this white ABS print.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/564c8679-55ad-46fc-934c-a4ab2ac78e5bn%40googlegroups.com.

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

So it has material at the top and it the sends the other tip of that material in and it does not purge. So the two tips of material are not fused as such a retraction before the material is down further won’t work.

[Bryan Eckert]

The material gets used up in the prime tower, and for single color prints there is the purge line at the beginning of all prints. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/58cf2a95-539c-4cec-bcfc-0228c5a7b60bn%40googlegroups.com.

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

OK... but you stated that it does not draw all the way out of the tool. Exactly how much does it retract and how much is left? If a lot is left in then there's a good chance of problems with retraction which you will see with smaller toolpaths. Purging within infill will not avoid that problem. If it retracts to only the small soft bit that was in the melt zone then it still has to withdraw and detract. As such it doesn't matter it's adding significant time which adds up fast with each material change.

I requested an evaluation unit to see for myself. Lets see what they do.

[Grant Zurko]

Kurt- they're printing a replica of the OUTATIME plate, most famously seen on Doc Brown's DeLorean :-)

On Wednesday, December 3, 2025 at 7:25:12 PM UTC-5 Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!! wrote:

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Hey Grant - thanks for feedback. I was looking at it - and, yeah - I could see and read the letters. But, didn't realize it was Doc Brown's plate. That's very cool indeed!

Thanks again,

-Kurt

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Hey there Andy,

Interesting segment on the Cocoa Press2 - and thanks for the shout out. I found the comments to Whitney to be rather fascinating. I loved his knowledge of chocolates - which was a Great perspective for this segment.

So - yeah - thanks again for another great podcast. Still listening now - to the Bambu/Bondtech segment. Very interesting discussion indeed. 

-K

On Wednesday, December 3, 2025 at 4:44:17 PM UTC-5 3D Printing Tips and Tricks wrote:

[Bryan Eckert]

BTW, since you own an X1C you can just enable the H2C in Bambu Studio, and find out all the various settings.

Some people say they have set it to 20-30 without clogging. Personally I don't think it's needed at all unless turning off the prime tower, and have no idea why anyone would put it past 14. 14mm draws it back to just before the induction magnets. The hotend itself is 56mm long, with the heatbreak located 12mm from the top. With that retraction at 14mm, the cut break gets pushed back past the heatbreak, and used up in the prime tower.

I don't know why they still list it as experimental, it was introduced over a year ago. With the original release of the X1C, there was only the short retraction and cut, leaving all material in the hotend. They found a longer retraction still proved reliable enough, and reduced purge waste. But since the Vortek doesn't need to purge unless you exceed 6 colors on the extruder (assuming you have 2 extra .4 hotends), you're only saving purge when you switch colors or materials out before a print.

BTW switching between the extruders on the H2D/H2C it retracts 2mm and puts the nozzle blocker on the nozzle.

Give me a test scenario you think will cause retraction issues, I will turn long retraction OFF and print it out. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/cfad0549-4635-4d04-9a87-cc8717f7cb6fn%40googlegroups.com.

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3527243

The toolpaths are not as tiny as I’ve experienced with other color prints, but it’s a good test. 8 hours on my E3d.

[Bryan Eckert]

Cool I’ll set that up and print tomorrow

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/c5cf4a94-cdd5-45bb-8995-3d4b752e9913n%40googlegroups.com.

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

WOW - Andy - that Colorful Print is UTTERLY AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't WAIT to see the Results of Bryan going Head-to-Head on his printer and coughing up the resulting print times!

Bryan - Kick Some Arse - I am STOKED to see the Results!!!

-K

[Bryan Eckert]

Whoa now Kurt, this is just to test retracting 🤣

So to torture it, I Turned off long retract when cutting, so all filament will stay in the hot end.

I’m not sure what size Andy printed it, but this thing is ginormous! As in, It won’t fit on most printer beds.

I scaled it to 50% so that it will have a lot of retractions as it goes around the perimeter. I am also printing it in two silks, and just for good measure I threw in a spool of my strong hero filament that is PLA around a PETG core, Which by the way has been sitting open for probably seven months since I last used it.

If that doesn’t torture the machine, I don’t know what will.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/84a123bc-17fc-4035-a60c-5d0a2246fe9bn%40googlegroups.com.

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

I think the beer can it sits next to is a pretty good way of seeing the size it should be printed at. I’m not sure why Bambu studio is enlarging it. Unless it’s because of known limitations.

Tiny toolpaths: an area which is a different color on another area which is less then a 1/4 of an inch. It’s a challenge for multimaterial methods because there’s not enough material placed to get a good flow.

The object in my pic was made with the E3d and the older Orbiter feeders. It did not use a purge tower, but it did do a prime string and a wipe. I’ve yet to try this with the XL. I’ve consistently gotten better and faster results with the XL over the E3d.

[Bryan Eckert]

Yeah I think I got it scaled about even. I was counting the top layer lines on some of the smaller leaves on your print and guessing a .4 nozzle.

The XL would rock this print

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/2934cacb-378d-445c-9660-47d5fcbaff34n%40googlegroups.com.

[Bryan Eckert]

So I stopped the print because the stronghero pla/petg hybrid filament decided it wanted to gum up the extruder.  I knew that filament was going to cause trouble, the purple and gold silks were printing great. But hey I wanted to torture it.

Gonna load in something to replace that and give it a go tomorrow, but it was looking alright except for that stone color filament. You can see near the top where it just wasn't extruding right. Definitely need to dry it, or maybe chuck it as it's ugly.

Now to clean out the extruder...

[Bryan Eckert]

OK, it turns out that it was not the PLA/PETG hybrid filament after all. It was the gold silk filament. There was a stretch of the filament that was brittle.  A piece must’ve broken off and got chewed up by the extruder, and it blocked the filament guide right above the hot end.

Which may be a good segment for the show. I see this more often. Now are these filament companies cranking out filament so fast that quality has really dropped?

I’m printing it again in red green and blue and the blue is some old two trees PLA that I have literally had since before I got my X1C. (Apparently, I don’t print in blue a lot) The filament is still good, I dried it in the AMS overnight, and the winding on the spool is immaculate. It Seems spools today have random brittle spots or the winding is terrible.

Anyway, it’s printing great now, And should be done in a few hours. Can’t wait to get home and see what it looks like.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/f1c2f722-c90e-4649-b03a-51e2f5050d3en%40googlegroups.com.

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

If this print is too much of a hassle I’ve got a much simpler print with a good tiny toolpaths test.

[Bryan Eckert]

It finished a few hours ago actually. Took 5.5 hours (Bambu includes bed level and stuff in print time). Wasn’t the print that was a hassle, it was the filament. Just have to wait till I get home to see how it looks!

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/9f52abc0-7647-4ffb-9cd1-b7444d331d7en%40googlegroups.com.

[Bryan Eckert]

Came out pretty nice!  5.5 hours.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/9f52abc0-7647-4ffb-9cd1-b7444d331d7en%40googlegroups.com.

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Looks nice... until I looked closer. I went and downloaded the file for myself and loaded it into Bambu studio just to be sure...

So there's gaps where there shouldn't be.. 

Start from the top of the mandala in your pic and count down 8 levels. The 8th level is a small oval with a blue internal area and the pale green is supposed to outline it, but instead there's gaps. Gaps that are consistent for each of these shapes. Same for two levels after that and others further down. However I really doubt those gaps are from a retraction issue. I think it's something else related to how Bambu Studio sliced this object. So I shrank the object in Bambu studio by 50% and sure enough, the gaps are in the preview. 

BUT... ignoring those gaps and zooming in on the pic of the print...

There are distortions on level five. Long oblong shapes that are mostly blue with a thin line of pale green down the middle. Those pale green lines have gaps that are likely due to an issue with the tiny tool path. Also  Level 7 the blue circles around the red all have distortions on the borders right where it's likely the start of the path was.

I had tiny tool path issues on a different area in my print, on the bottom level, however I printed it smaller then 50%.

The mandala is an extreme test... but there's a better, easier to print test... One I posted myself... The scanned piggy bank.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:919000

Color it with the Bambu color tool. In particular the buttons. Print it at 50% so it's about 6 inches tall. The tiny tool paths are the top and the bottom of the buttons. The E3D always had trouble with one or two layers. The XL always nails it and gets every layer nice and clean.

[Bryan Eckert]

Those gaps you speak of on the outer walls are probably from using standard wall vs arachne, as they are extremely thin. Funny that they are all symmetrical, and look on purpose. I honestly thought it was the design because of that!

I do have to tune a profile for that mint green, as it looks like some under extrusion with that color. Although my thumb covers the entirety of all those upper levels so the top down view is probably 800% magnification. The tiny dots of green on the very tip top I can’t really see either my naked eye. The green stripe in blue is barely visible! So yeah, a lot of areas smaller than the nozzle width on this one.

BTW, the blue and mint green are just some old spools that were laying around. They’re both really old. My X1C always did well with old filament, seems the H2’s do as well. My old Enders would have died printing this!

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/2958a348-8a14-4851-8f15-9f8f0dd0df9an%40googlegroups.com.

[Bryan Eckert]

Also, after the holidays, I plan to get a set of .2 nozzles. I’ll lop off the bottom and just print the top from that section with the green stripe. 

I suspect if I ran the high precision nozzle offset calibration, that would probably fix the problem with that green stripe. As the blue was in the left extruder, and that stripe is tiny.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/2958a348-8a14-4851-8f15-9f8f0dd0df9an%40googlegroups.com.

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Here's a 4 color piggy bank...

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2904710