An H3C doesn’t compete with the X2D.
But it would obsolete the H2C - if the H2C hadn’t already been rendered obsolete by various competitors’ machines.
Bambu knows how well the H2C is selling; I don’t. But “not as well as an H3C would sell” is my guess.
I have money in the bank for one of these, and I’m betting on “just after Black Friday”.
Better get it out before that, Black Friday is too close to xmas.
I feel sorry for those H2C purchasers.. I did some digging around noticed that Bambu Lab appeared to have submitted a priority filing in China around 10 days after H2C was released. Could have been down to the negative press of the slow timing change of nozzles, or it could have already been in the works…
I know this thread is about the FCC application, but if anyone is interested, there seems to be 2 main patent applications in China related to the supposed H3C, see links below and you can translate to different language if you want to read the description. The drawings tab has a collection of useful images.
CN122560412: WIPO - Search International and National Patent Collections
CN122560413: WIPO - Search International and National Patent Collections
I will have a read through and post anything of interest.
H3C will be the next printer for me. cant wait!!! 
I’m guessing this has better network connectivity… I wonder what else?
Its just their enterprise edition of the X2D, the same as the H2D Pro
The patents have already been shared several times on Reddit and here in the forum. It’s completely normal for a company to file patents on a regular basis. And contrary to what people often assume, these patents aren’t for finished printers - they usually cover specific functions or technologies.
Even if an H3C were released today, the development team wouldn’t suddenly stop working on an H4C.
No company with an active development department operates any differently. Why would they take a break? There’s always a significant delay between filing patents and releasing a final product. And it makes perfect sense: why rush a product to market - or speed through development and set up production - if the patent isn’t even secured yet?
The issue is that links to patents like these are often shared without any context, and most people assume they’re for a finished product - even though that’s not the case at all.
When Bambu filed the patent for the dual nozzle, for example, the A1 was shown - symbolically - with a dual nozzle. It didn’t really matter, because patents always focus on the function itself. The final product that came out of it was the H2D / X2D.
Any company in a competitive market making decisions on that basis is foolish. If you don’t replace your own products with better ones, someone else will do it for you.
Right, but its more the timing, i doubt they will have fully made enough money from the H2 development costs to rush the H3 out already, companies will always replace their products, but not all of them will literally eat in to their own product lines this early, there are too many costs involved with designing a new machine and setting up tooling for parts, support pipelines etc
So it will come, but i don’t think we are going to see it until next year
i agree with the timeline (i.e. itll be christmas, maybe after…)
the decision to replace the H2 with a H3 isnt necessarily one of how much money they made on the H2 but also where the market is moving.
If they indeed get a functioning toolchanger out (i.e something that just works out of the box for most users…) by the end of the year (or early next), they will still be positioned well, especially with the INDX debacle. If they f- it up however…
As for product lines and tooling for parts: if they are smart they will make the h3 as similar as possible to the h2, i.e. make it share as many parts as possible. An upgrade kit would be awesome, but likely not worth the money (both for the consumers and bambu)
I do not think the H2C will sell right now. They need a toolchanger immedately now before Snapmaker etc steals all the customers.
If I had to replace an H2C or H2D now, I would look very carefully at Snapmaker. For me it’s not automatic as I do mainly functional printing and the Snapmaker can’t handle as many filaments, but if I was any kind of flexy dragon fan it would be an easy snapmaker.
I confess I don’t really understand the fixation on swapping out the whole extruder assembly vs just the nozzle. Is it just that difference in load speed (<10 sec for full extruder changer, ~45 sec for nozzle changer)? I can see where that’s an issue for print farms, but as a home user, it wouldn’t be an issue for me.
Time is money. Less time swapping more time making. (simply put)
I’m with you, and I still know that from a pure capability standpoint, Vortek still is a superior architecture.
The issue is the swap time - I can’t deny that faster swaps would be nice.
I think there’s just a fundamental problem with the H2C architecture that won’t allow faster swaps.
HOPEFULLY the H3C is a Vortek machine with the necessary design changes to get swap time down to 5 seconds so it can compete with *rapmaker.
When the time saving gets into 15+ hours, it can be annoying. (35 seconds on a 200mm print with 0.16 layers = about that)
Plus the additional filament waste (on printers that produce this; not all do). Although I’ve noticed that this is more important in some regions of the world than others.
Yes, it would seem strange if they were to announce the H3C straight away, given that it hasn’t even been a year since the H2C was launched. It would be fair to assume that this would be a waste of money for Bambu. As far as I’m concerned, even if they were to release it, say, as late as March 2027, I still don’t know if we could even talk about recouping half the costs incurred in producing the H2C.
BUT… As someone rightly pointed out, the market decides… After all, they’ve already admitted recently that they brought forward the announcement and launch of the printer (presumably the H2C) due to announcements from the competition. And they faced a huge dilemma about what to do.
If they’d waited until the H2C paid for itself, they could have forgotten about being the market leader. The competition would have snatched thousands of customers away with their solutions. From what I’ve seen in the patent drawings (and if this is indeed the solution), they’ll be able to sit back comfortably in the leader’s chair once again. They’ll combine the strengths of their own products with those of the competition: an AMS for 10 filaments, fully interchangeable extruders - meaning FAST multi-colour printing with MORE than 4-6 colours. And then there’s the size. Probably something around 330 mm³.
I’m in no rush with this for the time being. Whenever a new printer is launched, I always worry about the usual teething problems. But even if Bambu doesn’t release a new printer straight away, it will simply make a tactical announcement about the arrival of a new product to keep potential customers waiting with bated breath for the launch, and it will keep hyping it up for months until it decides the time is right.
I was unaware they have already been shared on the forum, and I do like to search before I post so I don’t make myself look silly, so I guess I have missed those posts.
Quite right in what you have said around patents are really related to functionality as to actual finished printers, which I think would be quite difficult these days unless they come up with some revolutionary invention of a printer that doesn’t already exist today - perhaps I should have explained that in my original post. However, the timing of applications, particularly the date of the initial application, can sometimes be quite telling.
Anyway, I did read both patent descriptions and there wasn’t anything that stood out spectacularly in relation to the multi nozzle/toolhead functionality, but I did manage to spot this little snippet - again apologies in advance if this has already been stated/discussed before.
Understandably, in order to enable the A100 to adapt to different types of material lines or 3D model requirements or other requirements, and to accommodate multiple interchangeable print heads with differences in structure, performance, size, or material to match the requirements of different types of lines or 3D models, the A32 replaceable print head A32 is available and can be replaced, installed on mounting base A31 for use. This greatly reduces wash-out material waste, saves time on changing lines, and improves printing efficiency.
My take from that description indicates that the new multi toolhead functionality would have the capability to allow users to utilise multiple different nozzle sizes (or high flow nozzles?) in the same print session.
I do think the H3C will be Vortek 2.0 and replace the H2C with announcements/releases Q1, maybe Q2 2027 otherwise Bambu may be late to the game and have to play catch up.
Single nozzle toolchanger would be the best way, no alignment/offset for two nozzles, makes the toolhead much more simple. Hope BBL does not wait too long. And I hope it will have H2D/S build plate size and not another new form factor. I hope R1 and H3C fit in my budget.
Could also be marketing considerations. A manufacturer has to walk a tight balance between upsetting existing owners who’ve just purchased hardware, and providing competitive options against those being released by competitors. If their sources believe the competition is going to be delivering a new product(s) to market with features they (BL) don’t currently offer, then the preemptive maneuver would be to develop and release products of their own that provide similar or better functionality.
Complete rampant speculation on my part, but that’s how I see the situation.
I’d wager most consumers don’t care whether it’s a nozzle changer or a toolhead changer; all they hear is “no poop”.
If they can get the change speeds down, I could conceptually see the H2S (single), H2D (dual), H2C (6/7) and H3C (8+?) co-existing in a lineup providing BL get the pricing right, which is what IMO they’ve always struggled with.
Emphasis on conceptual though, maintaining a big range is a major commercial headache.
But they’ll annoy a lot of people if they do effectively make the H2C dogmeat.
H2C was announced on FormNext 2025.
FormNext 2026 is 2 weeks before Black Friday so… everything’s possible.
I don’t think slower swaps is a fundamental issue with Vortek - but a choice by BL not to do AMS changes in parallel, not to have two PTFEs going to the Vortek nozzle, and not to focus on speed.
The Prusa C1INDX is a fair bit faster on tool changes than the U1 for example - not due to the architecture - but due to different decisions on priming approach.
The h2C l<>r nozzle changes should be faster than the C1INDX - but they aren’t - due to BL decisions about priming and wiping etc.
Unless part of the H3C marketing is speed over quality/reliability then H3C tool change may well still be fairly slow.