Filament tuning guide

Chapter 01

Before you start

Every filament is a little different, even the same material from another brand or in another colour. Tuning finds the settings that suit your spool on your QALAM. It is done once per filament: the results go into a filament profile in OrcaSlicer, and every print with that filament uses them from then on.

What is tuned, and where

Some calibrations belong to the machine and some to the filament. The QALAM looks after its own; this guide covers the filament.

Get ready

1. Dry the filament. Most “bad filament” is wet filament. In Pakistan's humid months, especially the monsoon from July to September, PETG, TPU, nylon and PC soak up water from the air within days. Wet filament crackles at the nozzle, strings, and prints rough, weak parts, and no setting fixes it. Dry it first (times are in the material table), then tune. Tuning wet filament gives you wrong values.
2. Start from a clean, level printer. Wash the build plate with warm water and dish soap (or wipe it with isopropyl alcohol), make sure the nozzle is clean, and check that a bed map exists for the bed temperature you will use: Settings›Printer Calibration›Auto Bed Leveling (how).
3. Check the filament diameter. Measure it with a caliper at five places along a metre of filament. Good filament reads 1.72–1.78 mm everywhere. A small, steady difference is corrected by the flow test; filament that jumps around by more than this will never print evenly.
4. Use OrcaSlicer 2.3 or newer, with the 3DISM QALAM profiles imported (how).
5. Keep a notebook or phone note for the values you find. Each test only takes a short print, and you will type its result into the profile before running the next.

Do the tests in this order

This is the order OrcaSlicer's own calibration guide recommends, and each test builds on the ones before it. If you go back and change an earlier value (for example the temperature), run the tests after it again.

Each test is a short print. Together they take an afternoon, most of it unattended.

Chapter 02

Make a profile for your filament

Never tune inside the 3DISM profiles themselves. Make your own copy for each filament, named after the brand, material and colour, and put every result in it. The 3DISM profile stays untouched as a known-good fallback.

Pick the closest 3DISM profile to start from

If you do not have one of these profiles in OrcaSlicer, ask 3DISM support on WhatsApp for the files and import them with File › Import › Import Configs… (how).

Save your own copy

1. On the Prepare tab, choose your QALAM in the Printer list, then the starting profile from the table above in the Filament list.
2. Click the edit (pencil) icon next to the filament to open its settings.
3. Click the save icon at the top of the settings and give the copy a clear name, for example Sunza ABS Black – QALAM 400. Click OK. The new profile is selected, and it appears under User presets in the Filament list.
4. On the Filament tab of the settings, check the basics:
   • Type must match the material (PLA, PETG, ABS, PC, TPU…). The QALAM's start routine is told the filament type and the bed temperature, and uses them to prepare the right bed map. A PETG profile left on PLA can start with the wrong one.
   • Diameter: 1.75.
   • Density and Price from the spool or the maker's data sheet, so the weight and cost estimates are right.

Chapter 03

Temperature: the temperature tower

The nozzle temperature comes first, because every other value depends on it. The tower prints the same shape in blocks, each 5 °C cooler than the one below, so you can see in one print where your filament looks and holds best.

Run the test

1. Choose your QALAM and your new filament profile in the left panel of the Prepare tab. Every test prints with the filament selected there.
2. Open Calibration › Temperature from the menu bar. The calibration menu only works on the Prepare tab.
3. In Temperature calibration, pick the filament type and check Start temp (the hottest, at the bottom) and End temp (the coolest, at the top). The step is fixed at 5 °C. Good ranges on a QALAM:

   Filament	Start temp	End temp	3DISM profile prints at
   PLA	230	190	210 °C
   PETG	260	230	255 °C (PETG_EZXY)
   ABS, ASA	270	230	248 °C
   PC	300	270	290 °C
   TPU	240	210	220 °C
   PA-CF, PC-CF	The range printed on the spool

4. Click OK. OrcaSlicer opens a new project with the tower on the plate. Slice it and send it to the printer as usual (how).

Read the tower

Each block is 10 mm tall. Count the blocks from the bottom, starting at 0:

• Strings, blobs and a glossy, slumped surface mean too hot.
• Overhangs and bridges should be clean and not droop; droop means too hot or too little fan.
• Surface: a dull, rough or crumbly face means too cold.
• Strength: once the tower is cold, try to snap it at each block with your fingers. Where it breaks easily along a layer, the layers did not fuse: too cold.

Pick the block with the best balance. If several look equally good, take the middle of them. Go towards the hotter end if you want strong parts or plan to print fast (hotter plastic flows faster), and towards the cooler end for fine detail and the least stringing.

Save it

Use the same value for both, or 5 °C more for the first layer if it sticks poorly. Then leave the test project and save the profile (how).

Chapter 04

Max volumetric speed

How much plastic the hotend can melt per second, in mm³/s, for this filament at this temperature. OrcaSlicer slows down any line that would need more, so a correct value lets the QALAM print at full speed without thin, weak lines. Set it too high and fast parts come out under-extruded; too low and every print is slower than it needs to be.

Run the test

1. Put the temperature you found into the profile first. For a fast filament, use the hotter end of its good range.
2. Open Calibration › Max flowrate. In Max volumetric speed test:

   Field	OrcaSlicer default	On a QALAM
   Start volumetric speed	5	5
   End volumetric speed	20	25
   Step	0.5	0.5

   The 3DISM profiles already run PLA at 15 and ABS at 18 mm³/s, so a range up to 25 leaves room to find the real limit. For TPU, end at 12.
3. Click OK, slice and print. The test is a thin, single-wall shape printed in vase mode, a little faster on every layer.

Read it

Find the height where the wall first turns rough, gappy or thin, or where the shine changes. Measure from the bed to just below it with a caliper or ruler.

The test is a best case: real parts also retract, turn corners and change direction. The margin keeps them clean.

Save it

Chapter 05

Pressure advance

Molten plastic in the nozzle behaves a little like a spring. When the head slows for a corner, pressure is still high and the corner bulges; when it speeds up again, the line starts thin. Pressure advance pushes slightly early and eases off slightly early so lines stay even. It matters most on a fast printer like the QALAM.

Choose a method

Run the test

1. Make sure the temperature and max volumetric speed are saved in your filament profile.
2. Open Calibration › Pressure advance. In PA Calibration set:

   Field	Set to
   Extruder type	DDE (direct drive). Every QALAM has a direct-drive extruder.
   Method	PA Pattern
   Start PA / End PA	0 to 0.08 for PLA, ABS, ASA and PC; to 0.10 for PETG; to 0.20 for TPU
   PA step	0.005 for the first run (0.01 for TPU)
   Accelerations, Speeds	Leave empty: the test then uses the profile's own outer-wall settings.

3. Click OK and slice. The plate only shows a placeholder block; the full pattern appears in the preview after slicing. Print it.
4. For a precise value, run it once more with a narrow range around the best result and a step of 0.001–0.002, for example from 0.020 to 0.040.

Read it

Look at the tips from close up, in good light. Choose the value above the tip that is sharp, with no blob at the point and no thin or missing section on either side of it. If two look the same, either is fine.

Reading the tower instead: the value goes up once every millimetre. Measure the height where the corners look best:

Typical results for a direct-drive QALAM are about 0.02–0.06 for rigid filaments; the 3DISM ABS profile uses 0.03. TPU needs much more.

Save it

Advanced: adaptive pressure advance

On a fast machine, the best pressure advance changes a little with speed and acceleration. Adaptive pressure advance lets OrcaSlicer pick a value for every line from a small table you measure. It is optional: if your measurements at different speeds all come out nearly the same, it gives you nothing, and the single value above is enough.

1. Run Calibration › Pressure advance, method PA Pattern, with PA step 0.001, Accelerations 1000,2000,4000 and Speeds 50,100,150,200. That makes 12 test patterns on several plates. Make End PA high enough that the slowest pattern shows a gap at the top end. Do not go above 4000 mm/s² without asking 3DISM.
2. Print every plate. Each pattern has its flow and acceleration printed on it.
3. For each pattern, write one line: pressure advance, flow, acceleration, for example 0.032, 10.5, 2000. If two values look equally good, take the one from the faster test.
4. In the filament profile, tick Enable adaptive pressure advance (beta) and paste the lines into Adaptive pressure advance measurements (beta). Keep a normal value in Pressure advance as well; it is used as the fallback. Save the profile.

Leave Enable adaptive pressure advance for overhangs off unless you are comfortable experimenting; if you set Pressure advance for bridges, start at about half your normal value.

Chapter 06

Flow ratio

The flow ratio fine-tunes how much filament is pushed for every line. Filaments differ slightly in diameter and in how they melt, so each needs its own. Too low leaves gaps between lines and weak walls; too high gives ridged, over-full top surfaces and parts that come out slightly too big.

Run the test

1. Open Calibration › Flow ratio › YOLO (Recommended). In OrcaSlicer 2.3.0 and 2.3.1 the submenu is called Flow rate. There is no dialog: a new project opens with eleven small test blocks on the plate.
2. Slice and print. Each block's top surface is printed with a slightly different flow, from −0.05 to +0.05 of your current value. Each block's name in OrcaSlicer's object list gives its number, for example flowrate_0.01 or flowrate_m0.02 (m means minus); note where each one sits on the plate before you print.

Read it

The top of each block is a pattern of curved arcs with a small spiral printed last. Choose the block whose top is smoothest: no gaps between the arcs, no ridges, and little or no visible line where the spiral meets the arcs.

For even finer steps, run YOLO (perfectionist version) afterwards: 16 blocks from −0.04 to +0.035 in steps of 0.005, read the same way.

The older two-pass method

Pass 1 and Pass 2 are still in the menu and give the same kind of answer, but the numbers on the blocks are percentages and you multiply instead of adding:

Save it

Most filaments land between 0.95 and 1.05; some, like the ABS 3DISM uses, are lower. If the flow ratio changed by more than about 0.03, print the pressure advance pattern once more to confirm.

Chapter 07

Retraction

Before a travel move, the extruder pulls the filament back a little so the nozzle does not ooze and leave strings. The 3DISM printer profile already sets a retraction that suits most filaments: 0.65 mm at 40 mm/s on the Pro 400 and 0.8 mm at 30 mm/s on the Pro 300. Only tune it if a dry filament still strings after the temperature test.

Run the test

1. Open Calibration › Retraction test (Retraction in OrcaSlicer 2.4).
2. Keep the defaults for the QALAM's direct-drive extruder: Start retraction length 0, End retraction length 2, Step 0.1 mm.
3. Click OK, slice and print.

Read it

The retraction length goes up by one step for every millimetre of height, above a 0.4 mm base. Measure the height where the strings stop:

Choose the shortest length that gives a clean gap. Longer retraction than needed only slows the print and, on a direct-drive extruder, can pull soft plastic up into the cool zone and cause jams. If the tower still strings at the top, do not go further: the filament is wet or too hot.

Save it

If the result matches the printer's own value, leave the box unticked so the printer profile's setting is used. TPU is the exception: keep the short retraction from the 3DISM TPU profile, because flexible filament buckles in the extruder when pulled back far.

Chapter 08

Cooling, bed and chamber

These have no calibration print; they are set from experience with each material. Start from the 3DISM values in the material table and adjust from what you see.

Chapter 09

Tolerance: parts that fit together

Printed holes come out slightly smaller and pegs slightly larger than drawn. If your parts have to fit together, for example a bearing in a housing, a bolt through a hole or a snap-fit lid, this test shows how much clearance your filament needs.

1. Right-click an empty part of the plate and choose Add Handy models › Orca Tolerance Test. (In OrcaSlicer 2.3.0 it is in the Calibration menu.)
2. Print it with your filament profile and your everyday process profile, the settings your real parts will use.
3. Try the printed hex tester, or a 6 mm Allen key, in each hole. The holes have 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 mm of clearance. The tightest hole it slides into is the clearance to design into your parts.

To fix holes without changing your designs, make your own copy of the process profile and use Quality tab › Precision › X-Y hole compensation (a positive value makes holes bigger) and X-Y contour compensation (a negative value makes outside shapes smaller). Change them in small steps, such as 0.05 mm, and print the test again.

Chapter 10

Tests the QALAM does itself

OrcaSlicer's Calibration menu also has tests for the machine rather than the filament. On a QALAM most of them are already done better by the printer, or set by 3DISM in the firmware. Skip them unless 3DISM support asks you to run one.

Chapter 11

Save, check and back up

The one habit that matters: after every test, leave the test project before you type the result in and save. The tests put temporary values into your presets, and saving while a test is open would keep them.

After each test: leave, enter, save

1. Read the result off the printed part and write it down.
2. Start a new project: File › New Project (Ctrl+N). OrcaSlicer says Some presets are modified and offers Transfer, Discard and Save.
3. Click Discard. This throws away the test's temporary changes. Do not tick Remember my choice.
4. Open your filament profile's settings (the pencil icon), type the result in the field this guide names, and click the save icon (Save current Filament).
5. In Save Filament as, keep your profile's name, choose User Preset and click OK. Preset Inside Project would keep it only in one project file.

Do one real check print

With all results saved, print something real with your new filament profile and your normal process profile. A quick standard is the 3DBenchy boat: right-click the plate › Add Handy models › 3DBenchy.

Back up and share the profile

1. Open File › Export › Export Preset Bundle…
2. Choose Filament bundle (.orca_filament) (or Filament presets (.zip)), tick your profiles and save the file. Only saved user presets are listed.
3. Keep the file somewhere safe. On another computer, bring it in with File › Import › Import Configs…. It is also the file to send 3DISM support when you want a second opinion.

When to tune again

• A new brand, or a new batch of the same filament that prints differently.
• A different nozzle: another size (make a separate profile, for example … 0.6 mm), or hardened steel instead of brass, which often needs 5–10 °C more.
• After drying a spool that had been printing badly: the old values were found with wet filament.
• When the season changes and a spool that used to print well starts stringing: dry it first, then re-check the temperature.

Chapter 12

Material starting points on the QALAM

Where to begin for each material. The temperatures, fans, flow ratios and limits come from the profiles 3DISM uses on its own QALAMs; your tests then move them to suit your spool. When the spool's label disagrees, its range is the one to test across.

Temperatures, fans and the enclosure

The bed temperatures above sit inside the QALAM's three bed-map ranges (60–80 °C, 80–100 °C, 100–120 °C). If you change a bed temperature into another range, measure a bed map for that range first (Auto Bed Levelling).

Tuning values

The flow ratio of every brand is different, so treat these as a starting point only; ABS from one maker can need 0.91 and from another 0.97. The pressure advance column is the upper end of the test range, not a value to use.

Drying

These are typical values for a filament dryer. Follow the maker's figures where the spool gives them, and never dry above the temperature the spool says, or the filament fuses on the reel. Keep dried spools in a sealed box or bag with silica gel.

Chapter 13

What you see, and which test fixes it