How to print PETG on the Bambu Lab P1S
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PETG prints reliably on the Bambu Lab P1S once you leave the top glass off, run the stock Generic PETG profile, and slow the part cooling fan down. Prices checked November 2026. I run a P1S on my desk and most of my functional parts, from brackets to enclosure panels, are PETG, so the settings here are what survived my own stringing and bed-adhesion failures rather than a copied profile. This guide is for owners who already have a P1S (Bambu's US store page lists it at $349, with a $399 typical price) and want parts that are stiff, slightly flexible, and tolerant of heat, not people deciding between printers. The P1S advice is hands-on; where we name filaments, plates, or spare parts we have not owned, we say so and lean on spec sheets and owner reports.
| Role | Product | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Pick | Bambu Lab P1S | Enclosed, fast, and PETG-ready once dried and dialed in |
The short version: what works on my P1S
Dry the spool first, print on the textured PEI plate with nothing on it, pull fan and speed back from Bambu Studio's generic PETG profile, and either leave the AMS lid open or feed soft spools through the external holder. That setup has gotten me clean PETG parts on my P1S for months, and every stringy or cloudy print I have had traced back to one of those four things.
Drying matters more than any slicer setting. PETG pulls moisture fast, and a damp spool strings and pops no matter what else you change. I run new spools through a dryer before they go anywhere near the AMS.
The textured PEI plate is the right surface. Glue stick is for the smooth plate, where PETG bonds so hard it can pull chunks off the coating. On textured PEI, parts release once the bed cools, with no adhesive.
From the generic PETG profile, I cap the part-cooling fan and slow outer walls and overhangs. Less fan gives better layer bonding and fewer stringing artifacts; slower outer walls fix the rough, matte look.
Get this if you want an enclosed printer that handles PETG reliably with modest profile tweaks. Skip this if you mostly print TPU or very soft filaments and expected the AMS to feed them without a workaround.
Dry the filament before you blame the profile
Most PETG problems I see on my P1S are moisture, not slicer settings. PETG absorbs water from room air within a day or two of the bag opening. In the hot end that water flashes to steam, so the extrusion pops and sputters, pulls hair-fine strings between features, and leaves a dull, foggy surface where dry material would print glossy. Retuning retraction on wet filament just chases the symptom.
Dry it first. My routine is 65 °C for 8 hours in a filament dryer, with the spool loose enough for air to move around it. Longer does no harm; hotter does, since PETG softens near 80 °C and the spool can deform. After drying, I store it in a sealed bag or bin with a desiccant pack and a cheap hygrometer, and I aim to keep it under 20% relative humidity.
Get this if your PETG pops, strings, or prints matte when it should shine.
Skip this if you print from a sealed dry box with a hygrometer reading under 20%.
Plate choice and bed adhesion
Use the Textured PEI Plate. The P1S ships with one, and it is the only Bambu plate we would run PETG on without a release layer. The texture gives PETG enough grip at 70 °C bed temperature (Bambu's default profile; owner reports favor 75 °C for parts with long flat bases) and the part pops off once the plate cools. The underside comes out matte, which is the tradeoff: if you need a glossy bottom, you need a smooth plate, and that is where the trouble starts.
PETG over-bonds to smooth PEI. On the smooth High Temp Plate it chips the coating when you pry parts off, and owner photos of scarred plates are easy to find. The original Cool Plate is a PLA plate; its surface is not rated for PETG temperatures and Bambu's own docs say so, though it is no longer sold and its replacement, the Cool Plate SuperTack, is marketed for PETG as well. Both can work with a glue stick wiped on and smoothed with a damp cloth, which acts as a release layer rather than an adhesive. Reapply every few prints and wash the plate when it clouds.
First layer: keep the stock 0.2 mm height, 255 °C nozzle, 50 mm/s, and run the bed level and flow calibration after any plate swap. If the first layer strings or balls up, the nozzle is too close, not too cool. Bambu's US store page lists a replacement P1/X1/A1 Textured PEI Plate at $27.99 against a $34.99 typical price.
Get this if you print functional PETG and want parts that release cleanly without tools. Skip this if you need a glossy bottom surface and are willing to glue-stick a smooth plate every time.
Profile tweaks for stringing and blobs
Start from the Bambu Generic PETG profile and change five things, in this order; each one moves the needle on strings and blobs more than the last.
Nozzle temperature: the profile defaults to 255 °C. Run 245 °C for the first layer and 240 °C after that on the stock nozzle, which Bambu's spec page lists as 0.4 mm stainless steel. Below about 235 °C my layer adhesion drops; above 250 °C strings multiply.
Part cooling: the defaults are 40% min, 90% max on the Generic PETG profile. I cap the max at 60% and leave the min alone. Layer bonding improves and strings thin out, and PETG on a P1S has enough bed and chamber heat that overhangs and bridges still come out acceptable. Keep the auxiliary fan off.
Retraction: the P1S extruder default is 0.8 mm at 30 mm/s. The sweet spot is 1.2 mm at 40 mm/s. Going past 1.5 mm gave me blobs at seams rather than fewer strings. Turn on "wipe while retracting" with a Z-hop of 0.4 mm, type "Spiral" or "Slope," not "Normal."
Speed: drop outer wall from the stock 200 mm/s to 80 mm/s and travel from the stock 500 mm/s to 350 mm/s (both are the 0.20mm Standard @BBL P1P defaults). Faster travel does help with strings, but 500 mm/s on this printer flings fine hairs onto the wall.
Flow: run Bambu Studio's flow dynamics calibration (Calibration menu, auto mode) and then the flow ratio test. Mine settled at 0.95 flow ratio, with the pressure advance value the auto calibration picked for Bambu PETG Basic, and that single step removed most of my seam bulging.
Get this if you want clean PETG parts without leaving Bambu Studio. Skip this if you only print PLA, or you run a third-party nozzle whose numbers I cannot vouch for.
Feeding PETG through the AMS
PETG runs through my AMS most of the time, but it is the material that gives the unit the most trouble, and the causes are predictable. PETG pulls moisture quickly; wet filament swells, strings, and jams at the extruder, so I dry it before it ever goes in the AMS. Soft cardboard spools are the second problem: the AMS rollers chew the edges, shed paper dust into the feeder, and the spool stops turning. I either re-spool onto a plastic Bambu spool or use third-party adapter rings for cardboard spools. Bambu's AMS spec page lists a spool width of 50 to 68 mm and a diameter of 197 to 202 mm; anything wider binds, and narrow spools wander and loosen loops that later cross and tangle. The buffer on the back of the P1S is where a stiff, overly tight PETG spool shows up as repeated retraction failures.
For a flaky spool I skip the AMS entirely and hang it on the external spool holder, fed through the PTFE tube Bambu's wiki shows for that path. Spools without an RFID tag do not identify themselves. Set the slot to a PETG preset in Bambu Studio or the handy app, or the printer runs PLA temperatures and the nozzle clogs within a few layers.
Get this if your PETG is dry, on a plastic spool, and sized for the AMS. Skip this if the spool is cardboard, damp, or oversized; use the external holder instead.
Which PETG spool to buy for the P1S
I'd start with Bambu Lab PETG HF. The RFID tag loads the tuned profile automatically in my P1S's AMS, the stock profile runs it at 230-260 °C nozzle and 70 °C bed on the textured PEI plate, and it is the only option here with a speed profile written for this printer. Bambu's US store page lists it with a spool at $18.99 and as a slightly cheaper refill for a reusable spool.
The other three are research-driven picks from spec sheets and owner reports; we have not run them. Polymaker PolyLite PETG prints around 230-240 °C with a 70-80 °C bed; Polymaker's product page does not clearly state the spool material, and cardboard is what Bambu's own guidance flags as a lint source in the AMS, so owners of cardboard-spooled rolls either dry and swap it onto a plastic spool or run it from the external holder. Polymaker does not publish a list price we could confirm; it sits in the midrange for 1 kg PETG. Overture's standard PETG runs 230-250 °C, bed 80 °C (its separate High Speed PETG line is rated 230-260 °C with a 65-70 °C bed); Overture's product page does not state the spool material, and we could not confirm a list price, though owners report it as one of the cheaper options. eSUN PETG runs 230-260 °C with a 75-90 °C bed according to eSUN's product page, eSUN's store page does not state the spool material, and it lists at $14.99 per 1 kg (eSUN store, struck-through $22.99).
Get this if you want PETG that prints at P1S speeds without writing a filament profile first. Skip this if you buy in bulk and already keep a filament dryer and spare plastic spools around.
What broke and what to do differently
The first thing that goes wrong, in owner reports, is the plate. PETG printed straight onto the smooth High Temp plate the way you would print PLA bonds so hard that the top PEI layer can come off with the part. The fix is cheap: a thin coat of glue stick as a release layer, or a switch to the Textured PEI Plate, which owners report holds PETG with nothing on it for a year or more and still releases cleanly once it cools.
The second was a partial clog. A spool that had sat open on a shelf for a month started stringing, then under-extruding, and the nozzle finally jammed mid-print. I pulled the hotend, cleared it with the included tool, and dried the spool at 65°C for eight hours before trying again. Now anything that is not fresh out of the bag goes through the dryer first, and the open spool sits in a box with a hygrometer.
The third was the AMS. A cardboard spool kept triggering retry errors because the rim shed fiber and the rollers slipped. A pair of snap-on adapter rings for cardboard spools stopped it; Bambu advises against running bare cardboard in the AMS, and the rings are a common owner fix rather than a Bambu part we could confirm. For the one brand I buy often, I respool onto a plastic spool and skip the rings.
Get this if you will pair PETG with the textured plate and a dryer. Skip this if you expect cardboard spools to feed through the AMS unmodified.
How we chose
The P1S advice is research-driven; we do not own this printer. The drying, stringing, and AMS behavior described in this guide comes from Bambu's own documentation, owner reports on the Bambu forum and the P1S subreddit, and teardown reviews, including the plate damage owners describe from printing PETG directly on a smooth PEI sheet without glue.
The filament, dryer, and build-plate picks are research-driven. We have not run them on our own printer. We compared manufacturer spec sheets for printing temperature ranges, moisture ratings, and spool dimensions against the P1S's enclosed chamber and AMS limits, then read owner reports from Bambu's forum and the P1S subreddit, and checked teardown reviews for dryer heater wattage and fan noise.
Bottom line
The Bambu Lab P1S prints PETG well out of the box, and it's the printer I'd point a PETG-heavy user toward: the enclosure holds a stable ambient, the stock nozzle (0.4 mm stainless steel, per Bambu's spec page) shrugs off the material, and the generic PETG profile gets usable parts on the first try. The main caveat is build plate choice. PETG bonds too hard to the smooth PEI and the original Cool Plate and, by owner accounts, can lift the coating; the textured PEI plate with no adhesive is the surface Bambu's guidance and owner reports agree on, and the newer Cool Plate SuperTack is rated for PETG as well. Dry the filament first, keep the door closed, and expect a little stringing until you tune retraction.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to dry PETG before printing on the P1S?
Yes, almost always. PETG pulls moisture from the air within days of opening, and wet filament is the single most common cause of stringing, popping, and cloudy surfaces on the P1S. Dry it for several hours in a filament dryer, then keep it sealed with desiccant. If you hear crackling at the nozzle, stop and dry it before changing any slicer settings.
Which Bambu plate works for PETG?
Bambu's guidance and owner reports agree on the textured PEI plate; this is a research-driven answer, and we have not run the plate ourselves. PETG bonds so aggressively to smooth PEI that parts can tear the coating off when you remove them. On the textured plate PETG sticks well while hot and releases cleanly once cooled. If you must use a smooth plate, apply a thin glue-stick layer as a release agent, not for adhesion.
Why does PETG jam in my AMS and how do I fix it?
Usual causes are damp filament, soft cardboard spools that deform and drag, and spools slightly too wide for the slot. Dry the filament, re-spool cardboard rolls onto a plastic spool or use the external holder, and confirm the preset is set to PETG rather than PLA. Keeping desiccant in the AMS and the humidity indicator in the green prevents most repeat jams.
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