Another SD Card Failure

Bambu Lab P Series Troubleshooting
1

My original SD Card was working perfectly, but I replaced the SD Card right after buying the P1S printer with a Sandisk Ultra 64Gb. Have about 100 print hours since replacing the card and it was mostly empty.

Today, I went to print a part and Bambu Studio said my SD Card was installed incorrectly or missing. The SD Card was so corrupted, neither the printer or my Windows 11 PC would even reformat it. !!! I have never seen an SD Card so corrupted that it could not be reformatted. I put a different SD Card in the printer, reformatted it, and am back in business.

I have read many times about people having problems with their SD Card in their P1S. Is there a solution?

2

You can slow the failure rate substantially by not recording video/timelapse to them.

3

Thanks. But i have not recorded video in a long time. That’s why the card was mostly empty.

Is this heat related? And if so, any way to insulate the card holder?

4

OP here. I just ordered a SanDisk “High Endurance” SD Card rather than the “Ultra” card. I found this mentioned elsewhere and think it is worth a shot.

5

You just may have got a card that was a lemon and failed early or depending on where you bought it maybe it was counterfit. Power loss and removing without ejecting can also trigger failure.
It sounds like it did act exactly like a failing card. It starts detecting excessive errors and goes into Read only mode, it can’t even be formatted.

6

Try the SD Association formatting aplication.
If it can’t format the SD, it’s dead:

7

Thanks, but this app does not have the option to change the format type. In this case, it needs to be FAT32. For an app distributed by the SD Card assoc., it is pretty lame.

8

Hi,
If possible can you update us how your Endurance SD card is getting on?

I’ve had my P1S for just over 5 weeks and my second SD card has failed, I used a 16Gb card from my DSLR camera uses the Ultra SanDisk SD cards it was brand new, the SD card that came with my original failed after about 3 weeks, and the replacement one latest just over 2 weeks.

It has been none stop to be honest, looking to see if this High Endurance card is any better.

It’s a shame that you are tied into the SD card for downloads and cache files, instead of USB option, you could install a small 3.5” drive or M.2 SSD.
who knows maybe Bambu would consider that in the future.

Cheers

Jimbo

9

This has already happened. The P2S uses a USB instead of a SD card.

Are you saving timelapse or video files? This will deplete the card write cycles faster. It is however not normal for SD cards to fail that quickly. I have several P1 series printers still on their first SD card and they have been chugging along for well over 2 years.

10

Hi,

No time lapse selected, I did just look at the print time I’ve completed 484 hours.

It could just be one of those things, fingers crossed.

As for the USB port on the P2S, I’ve just purchased my P1S, but good to know for future use. Thanks

Jimbo

11

Not corrupted. If the Flash in the SD card still worked, it’d reformat. What you’re describing is a SD card that has croaked. And while it’s annoying, it’s important to remember that SD cards are “disposable storage”. They’re not designed to be as reliable as a more-expensive SSD (which uses the same kind of Flash). They’re designed to be inexpensive, first. You just got one that happened to fail sooner. The next one you get might last until you decide to scrap the printer.

A “High Endurance” SD card is only a waste of money. These cards are significantly more expensive per gigabyte. Flash wears out with use, these cards are designed for use cases like security cameras that are writing to the card 24/7/365. Even if you print 24 hours a day, the timelapse videos don’t come any where close to that level.

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