My aluminum plate just arrived from Kis3D, I’ve contacted them as well as Bambu labs in regards to the weight of this thick replacement bed.
Anyone already using this in their setup?
I’ve read some threads talking about the sensors of the X1C possibly having some issues. Also read that tramming is necessary after swapping it out.
I’m curious if anyone knows the maximum weight the X1C can hold on the bed? I’ve purchased BronzeFil PLA, which is a very heavy filament compared to regular PLA. It’s loaded with Bronze powder. I’m also planning on doing large build volume 3D prints… so I expect these BronzeFil prints to be quite large and heavy
Hopefully the X1C system, can hold this weight. You think it can lift 5 - 6 lbs? 10lbs?
I’ve ask Bambu support for this specification, and I’ll post what they say.
I’m also waiting on Kis3D for install instructions and any more additional info on this weight issue. I’ll post their response too.
Their plate does look amazing… CNC’d to tight tolerances. Magnetic bottom. Most importantly FLAT FLAT FLAT
The Kis3D plate is only 5 mm thick so it will be 2lb or .9kg (used a CAD program to approximate volume and weight) and that should be well within the spec that the printer was made to move. I haven’t measured the stock one, but that thickness doesn’t seem far different. So, I wouldn’t worry about that.
No way I would put a 5-10lb plate on it though. That will significantly change the resonance tuning and possibly put the adjustment out of scope. But as I said before, the Kis3D plate should weight in much lower than that.
I think this one will be fine. I’m thinking it will be very similar to the stock one.
I think most of us don’t. This may get people down to a deviation of .3mm - .5mm but I’d bet the stock one averages around .75mm - 1.00mm (with some around .5mm). So unless you make a lot of perfectly flat large surfaces, this mod isn’t really useful. But most of us like it to be as perfect as it can be, so, I understand the desire.
Personally, if I needed a perfectly flat surface, I would print it with a extra 1mm height and machine it down as needed. Granted… I understand not everyone has a 3D printer and a CNC mill/router. That said… I’ve never needed a perfectly flat piece of plastic. Plastic and perfect don’t normally go together well.
For me… using flat mated segmented 3D prints… I need as flat a surface as possible. So when putting all the 3D puzzle part pieces together… I have no surface to surface warp.
Currently, with the OEM Bambu bed, it’s got a concave bed. When matching 3d printed parts together (using the bed flat surface), the warp is not acceptable. I’d rather have a perfectly CNC machined flat surface…
Just trying to make sure the aluminum plate’s 2lb weight isn’t going to cause some issues. Bambu labs has a Wiki dedicated to ‘Mods’ to avoid… and will cause long term issues:
I think some are valid, some of their concerns seem a bit questionable… but I understand their reasons. Maybe a little bit too cautious?
But for the Kis3D plate, there seems to be lots of Internet chatter about how glass or aluminum 3rd party plates will hurt the sensors, the motors, etc etc etc
I’m just trying to do my due dillegence before install the Kis3D plate. I want/need the flat surface bed.
Interesting. I guess I have never closely examined my printer bed.
The parts I have printed on it seemed to have a pretty flat surface, but I seldom print anything that would have a bottom that would take up the whole bed.
I’ll have throw a straight edge on it and see if I can see what you are talking about.
Its common to see a concave or convex shape to the surface. Lots of variables. The magnetic sheet is not flat. Same with the $25 plate surface. The cast aluminum bed is not flat, and like the other two pieces in the puzzle, none will never be without expensive machining or molding processes. Add the pieces together and seeing a 0.8mm difference from edge to edge makes a fair bit of sense. But adding a plate like this should remove the flatness issue from one of the components, and that’s not nothing. The question is, is it worth $65 to you?
I just checked the flatness of my X1C bed a few days ago and it was perfect. I wonder what percentage of customers suffer from the various issues people report for the printers. I have had my printer since November and so far it thankfully appears to be perfect.
Sorry, didn’t mean to suggest this plate wasn’t flat. Honestly, I would expect near perfection on this one at 90 EUR. That would likely have a flatness of around 0.05 mm - 0.2 mm, or at least that would be my expectation based on price and what machining can do these days. However, you would need to add in a variance for the magnetic sheet. If you had a bed mesh profile available to see, I bet it would be in the 0.2mm - 0.5mm range which is excellent to good.
I don’t know what the tolerances are on garolite, but whatever samples I’ve seen always seems pretty darn flat. AFAIK it is also lighter in weight and lower in cost than the same thickness of aluminum. Also, it probably doesn’t expand under heat anywhere nearly as much as aluminum. So… what’s not to like about it? Is it the guaranteed flatness of the machined cast aluminum, which is also easy to source, the main attraction?
I hear you… if there are alternative materials like this garolite you mention, I’m in… Especially if it has greater advantages in weight reduction, heat expansion, cost, etc etc
I recently did a DIY where I affixed a 2mm thick garolite to an inexpensive spring steel build plate, and it worked out surprisingly well. At 2mm, it’s already quite rigid. I suppose you could get even more rigidity by going up in thickness.
As you can tell from the beginning of the thread, I was quite tentative about it. However, if you make it to the end of the thread, it turns out to be a cakewalk. i.e. very easy to do, and it seems to “just work”. One could argue (as explained in the thread), that it may even be better than Lightspeed, which I also just recently received, and which also work well, though not as thick.
Wow, every time I hear about garolite, I’m surprised. Garolite has a very low heat conductivity factor. Doesn’t seem like it would be ideal for beds… but glass is the same. One positive, like you mentioned, garolite doesn’t expand a lot which is good, so there is some positives.
Cast Aluminium tooling plate is very flat indeed - you can hit 0.05mm over a bambu size bed easily, and the heat transfer of aluminium is orders of magnitude better than garolite so your surface temperatures to the part interface - the only bit of the bed temperature that really matters - are still good.
I originally thought it might take a lot of heat soaking to get the garolite up to temperature, but at 2mm it was about 2 minutes. I haven’t added any delay code, because the printer has to do its usual dance (nozzle cleaning, etc.) before it starts printing, and that gives more than adequate time to finish the heat soak.
Anyhow, I’m not here to diss aluminum. If it’s working and giving you what you want, then that’s a win any day and all day long as far as it matters.
I put a straight edge on my P1P bed and it looked perfect too.
But I purchased my P1P over a year ago. I believe mine is a first run unit and has avoided the issues I have seen others post about on here. I wonder if the later runs had changes to bring the price down.
After some thought about this, one of the possible benefits I could imagine is better heat distribution.
I’ve noticed warping on printed models close to the edge of the bed plate. I wonder if having a large chunk of Al under it would help the bed heat uniformity.
Although it seems like a lot of people complain about warped beds, when you consider how many people have likely purchased the printer, a pretty small percentage are complaining about warping. I know that not everybody with warping issues is aware they have it and even if they do they may not post about it, but my guess is that overall the number is pretty low. It’s just that people are more likely to post about problems with their printer than saying how great it is.
