I recently posted about my lead screw nut wearing out and needing replacement. After getting some initial guidance from this forum (thank you!), Bambu Lab support confirmed the issue through a ticket, and they are now shipping me a replacement Z-axis lead screw kit.
It may take some time to arrive, which I understand—but I’ll admit I’m a bit bummed that my H2D is down in the meantime.
That said, this post isn’t really about the lead screw itself—it’s about the warranty and long-term support.
From what I can tell, this replacement kit isn’t available as a spare part for purchase. So what happens when the warranty expires and this issue occurs again? I got around ~2500 hours before seeing this failure, and based on what others are reporting, it doesn’t seem like a one-off issue. There’s a reasonable chance it could happen again—potentially outside of warranty.
So I’m curious how others are thinking about this:
What’s the plan when a critical, potentially consumable component isn’t available for purchase once the printer is out of warranty?
If how they’ve handled P1S and parts, it’s almost certain the part can be obtained through support, either fee or for a fee. I’ve paid for parts through support, and I’ve had support provide a part after warranty.
No, just the part I needed. I had busted the AP board (sd card). I wanted to pay as I had screwed it up. This was before AP boards were on the store. The only way I could have gotten it was through Support.
I think i was sent a link for the store that had a cart with the correct charge. I checked out just like any other purchase.
I believe this is a common engineering part. I don’t believe Bambu would have had custom sized lead screws and rods made. If you measure the size you can likely get it from a number of engineering part suppliers.
Guys, you’re REALLY barking up the wrong tree here.
Leadscrews and leadnuts are supposed to be lifetime parts, there is no world where the precision ground linear motion components should ever be considered a wear component. EVER.
The question isn’t “When is Bambu going to let us buy this part that’s never supposed to wear out in the first place?” it’s “When is Bambu going to get to the root cause and fix this unacceptable problem that’s impacting their flagship machines?”
I swear, some of y’all are just a little bit too eager to be obedient consumers. Stop undermining the greater good by giving Bambu an easy (and profitable) out, and start pushing in the right direction with the rest of us - Bambu needs to fix the issue once and for all, PERIOD.
I agree they need to find the problem and fix it. However
The point is mine is likely to fail, regardless of whether or not they find and fix the original problem. Lots of us have the printers that are likely to fail, and waiting until it fails and then ordering parts and waiting for them to arrive leaves some amount of undesirable down time.
Printer will be obsolete in 5 years. Why use 25 year parts in a consumer machine?
If it was, I don’t know, a factory machine that builds something that’s not going to change much, like bottlecaps, sure, there you put in the good parts.
Oh please. “The good parts” and “the bad parts” is a ridiculous trope that simply doesn’t exist.
Leadscrews are commodity items that are mass produced in dedicated production facilities totally irrespective of their end use.
It would be more expensive and more difficult to produce a special run of screws and nuts that would only last five years, when the industry standard would last much, much longer.
…and if that was the case, why would they do this by making the nuts fail sooner, when 90% of the manufacturing cost goes into the screw, and they’re replacing the screw and nut togther? If they wanted a 5 year life, they sure missed the mark…by at least an order of magnitude.
…and why do we only see this in H2 printers? They just suddenly picked up this design philosophy for their flagship next generation of printer? Didn’t do it in the X or P series?
…and nothing else in these printers fits the bill of “could be a lifetime item but for some strange reason isn’t”
@CarbonForge The only idea I have for the rapid wear of the lead screw nuts is “load”. I will not hold my breath waiting for a fix from Bambu. My personal direction here is to maintain the machine and expect nothing from Bambu. If Bambu comes thru with fixes, fantastic. In the mean time I will come up with my own solutions, as you said, lead screw and nut are nothing new.
This is a purchase request. You have to have an actual damage first (see the upload 2 pictures part) before they will ship it to you. Its the same as making a warranty ticket. I guess this route works if your product is out of warranty, but its not like you can buy it ahead of time to have on deck when the lead screw breaks again. They are forcing you to wait for it to break, have printer downtime, then submit a request to get a new part (that you have to pay $60 for btw).
Factories, especially in the PRC, produce a wide range of equipment with different standards for quality and longevity, and correspondingly different prices. What alloy is that made of? How precisely is it machined? How straight is that lead screw? How hard wearing is it?
