Flow ratios question

1

I’m starting to get a handle on the new K1 MAX but it has been a struggle. I was getting poor first layers, so I looked on YouTube and found a vid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewNdAh3VyZg) on this. The presenter showed that the flow calibration in Creality Print (Orca too) is not so easy to use since it is hard to tell the difference between the different printed bits. His solution was to print 3" round disks one layer thick and see how they come out, adjusting the flow by 5% each time. I tried it with PLA and the first one at .95 was pretty bad so I worked it down to .8 which was to low, see through actually. Now the filament I was using works best between .85 and .87.

I’m assuming that different filament might need different flow ratios. Any ideas?

2

Technically each filament will require different flow ratios. I find personally that I am too lazy to dial them all in, I have found the median values for each of my machines and I stick to that. Works well enough for any material that I plop in there, so I just stick with that.

Realistically you can dial them in on a line by line basis, so for one brand of material you have one value and another brand of material has another. Then just save those presets in your slicer, if you want to be really militant about it though you can dial it in on a spool by spool basis.

3

I too am lazy so I will go the easy route. Thanks.

1 Like
4

I"m adding this here instead of a new post. For some reason I’m frequently unable to submit new posts but I can add replies. This has happened in the past.

5

I do each filament. if you have calibers it is easy.

6

Orca slicer makes calibrating flow a breeze!

They have a section just for calibrating through the slicer

I’ll often go in this order
Temp tower, flow rate pass 1 and 2 (there’s a new test now if all your filaments are pretty close in flow factor), pressure advance and the max flow rate if you wanna go fast

7

Creality Print has the same thing, I find it difficult to tell which is the best FR by looking at the printed parts.

8

It’s a mix of look and feel I’m not sure what it uses to test since I’m only on orca and bambu

9

C Print looks to be the same program as Orca but the interface is rearranged some. They seem to be functionally the same.

1 Like
10

AFAIK that is true, I think it is just a reskinned version.

11

Orca, bambu and creality slicer and all based in Prusa slicer. I don’t use creality slicer at all. PS, Bambu and orca have a few differences here and there, interestingly the speed and quality of the slice varys based in the file. On files that I want the highest quality or big files I often slice it in all three and compare them. they are different and on occasion one will produce a clearly better version. it is variable which one as well.

being a photographer, this same thing has always happened with RAW converters, why I started comparing in the first place.

12

Yes it really is amazing how much of a difference you get from different slicers, and how inconsistent those differences are!

1 Like