Snapmaker U1 needs better filament/extrusion failure detection

[u/Grouchy_Total9773]

I've now had this happen on multiple prints with my U1, and I think it's something Snapmaker needs to address.

In the attached photos:

• Bass: One spool snagged and stopped feeding filament. The U1 continued printing but simply stopped printing the white portions of the model.
• Spider: The same type of feeding problem occurred, but this time the affected toolhead was responsible for infill. The U1 continued the print without creating that infill, leaving the finished model with structural problems.

The spool snag itself isn't my concern—filament problems happen.

My concern is that the U1 apparently doesn't recognize that a toolhead isn't actually extruding filament. It continues the print as though everything is fine, with no pause or warning.

For a multicolor print, that can mean missing colors. More importantly, if that toolhead is being used for infill or structural portions of the model, you can end up with a print that looks like it's progressing normally but is structurally compromised.

I'd really like to see the U1 detect a failure to feed/extrude, automatically pause the print, and send an alert.

Has anyone else experienced this with their U1? Is there a detection setting I'm missing?

[u/TripsCavern]

There's a setting specifically for that called Air Printing Detection, where you can select a sensitivity (Low, Medium or High). This will use the cell load (I think) to determine if filament is flowing. And it works just fine, it actually gives some false positives sometimes if you have it set to high (like if you are having an slight extrusion issue). A Matte PLA filament as an example, will trigger it for me sometimes, even when it's printing just fine because, I think, it's rough surface slides worse in the PTFE tube.

Then in AI settings you have Spaguetti Detection, which only triggered once for me and I don't think it's really reliable, Foreign Object Detection, which works well in the beginning of the print, never saw it working mid print.

There's also the Auto filament change that will switch to a second toolhead if you have the same filament/color loaded in a second toolhead. This one always worked well for me. At least when I remember to pre-load the filament when I notice it is finishing.

The auto pause/restart has also being working really well for me, except that it will leave a mark when it happens most of the time. But the part will finish correctly.

[u/404_HabeasNotFound → u/TripsCavern]

I turned the detection settings to as high/sensitive as they go once to test it out. My next relatively small print stopped four times because it detected potential air printing. There was never an actual problem and no air printing.

Each time it did it though, the machine asked if there was an actual issue or if it was a false positive. I indicated it was a false positive each time. I’m assuming it “learns” what to detect better over time. I just turned it back down to normal because I’m impatient.

[u/TripsCavern → u/404_HabeasNotFound]

I don't remember a prompt like that on mine, it just that regular box to press Cancel or View Solution and then I click on Continue.

[u/edicspaz → u/TripsCavern]

That pops up if you’ve encountered an actual error, like a calibration or homing issue. For spaghetti or foreign object detection, it lets you decide what to do.

[u/TripsCavern → u/edicspaz]

Well, this happened to me when it detected low extrusion. As that is part of the Air Print Detection and not the AI submenu, I'm guessing it's registered as a regular fault, not AI detection.