Bambu Lab P1S Skew Calibration Results

Sabotage37 · October 9, 2024, 7:36pm

I thought I would post this as there has been a lot of discussion about calibration and I have seen some concerns posted about what printer to buy and if the BL printers will be adequate and what not. I’m by no means a fan boy. I do appreciate the print and go functionality of my BL. But it is not the end all be all by any means. Just my results.

Printed on a BL P1S with AMS using BL PLA and Elegoo PLA. Printer is completely stock and all original with about 550 hrs on it.

Curious to everyone’s opinion.

Thought Process:
I know Calilantern is the premiere. Honestly, I felt $13 was a little steep for it. Granted, I didn’t put in the work to design it but, yeah. My 2 cents. But then compound that with the fact that I can only change one plane of skew, I thought it even more so not worth it. Tell me if I’m wrong here.

What I did:
So instead, I went on a hunt for alternatives. I did find a couple. I ended up printing 3 different ones in different sizes. My results pretty much lined up with each other.

This is one that I printed.

My results:

The second model. (scaled up 200%)

And those results.

Honestly, part of my reason for posting is these results seem to go to be true. I expected more skew than what I am seeing. I did print more than once. Even tried different filaments. And checked my results with 3 different calipers. I use Orca slicer and did not have filament shrinkage compensation turned on.

If these results are true and believable I would assume my P1S is good to go, specifically for the LR4. And every printer is not the same but maybe I can relax on BL’s precision a smidge. (I almost bought the Flash Forge Doug has just to be safe)

If they aren’t true or believable then I can go ahead and buy the calilantern to get better values.

Curious what people think!

Thanks for entertaining a long read!

Michael_Melancon · October 9, 2024, 7:55pm

The danger with this one, although I did not download it or anything, is that from the picture, it looks like all the measurements are on perfectly square corners.

This can introduce measurement error if you have imperfect corners.

So you need a tuned printer in order to tune your printer.

I think the Califlower is better in this regard, and has gone through many iterations to reduce the amount of error that happens in measurements, including built-in guides to ensure your calipers are in the right spot, and taking averages of multiple measurements into account.

The first model, I’ve seen before, but haven’t tried. If I remember correctly, there were some mixed reviews on how well that one worked.

I didn’t study both of them, but it doesn’t look like it gives you the results in the same format, does it?

So if you apply each one, do you end up with roughly the same results in the resulting Klipper config?

To compare those to with Cali and see if it’s worth it to you, you’d have to run it yourself and compare the results.

Ultimately, if it works for you, then that’s all that matters.

I’ve never heard anyone say they regretted paying the $13, either, though.

Sabotage37 · October 9, 2024, 8:26pm

It doesn’t look like it which is annoying I admit. But they both seemed very close in their respective parameters.

I will probably end up printing anyway and see how it goes. If I have major problems I know the first place to go.

Very very true. I’m afraid I would lose my mind if I did it, it was way off, and then I also can’t change anything at the moment. But I’ll probably end up dreaming about it enough that I just buy it.