How many printing hours on your X1C?

Bambu Lab X Series Bambu Lab X1C
1

Hey all! I thought it would be neat to share how many hours each of us has on our machines and what, if any, major repairs we have undertaken. This has been a common thread in several car forums I am a part of, and it is always fun to get to hear the crazy miles/kms some folks are able to get out of their cars.

So, how many hours do you guys have on your machines? What repairs, other than routine maintenance, have you encountered?

Mine is still a baby at only 96 hours. And so far I have performed no major repairs.

Edit: for new X1C owners who may not know, you can find your printer’s printing hours by going to “General → Device Info”

2

225 hours. Not a single failed print, since i bought it.

You find the hours under “General/Device info”

3

235 hours, flawless printing so far!
No repairs.

4

605 hours with no repairs and no mechanical issues. The issues I’ve had have been self induced, things like the wrong profile or the wrong build sheet.

5

785 hours. No problems.

6

1500 hours! Only part change was the filament cutter blade.

7

Very cool! Do you run an AMS?

8

Yes i have two of them. I just changed out a data cable other than that they are OEM also.

9

I got my last Monday. It has been going nearly constantly since. Seriously. The only down time has been when I had to take one print off the bed and get a new one started and to add more filament. 157 hours according to the printer. However, Ive had several failed prints. Most are “spaghetti”, though most of those have been where the print head has knocked the print off the bed first. I’m using the stock/recommended settings for PLA except for infill and walls. I’m also using the stock cool plate and the Bambu glue (both glues have had issues). The best way I have found to have the prints stick to the plate is to heat the glue coated plate up to 60c before sending the print. Silent mode, rafts, brims, doesn’t matter, the prints randomly get knocked off the plate. There’s been more spaghetti this week than at Knights of Columbus fundraiser dinner.

10

1669h, X1C+2AMS. Only changed nozzle wiper :slight_smile:

11

Between the 5 x1 carbon combos I have I am at about 2000 + hours. One has 800

12

3640 hours on my X1C that I got in early January
Yeah, I know, I have a problem ;-D

I printed mostly PLA and PETG, few kgs of CF filament (PAHT-CF is great), a tiny bit of GF filament, few kgs of ASA, some CPE, just a bit of TPU… I like to try different filaments and I like to put them to use, but I don’t print many engineering parts.

As far as service goes - I try to take good care of it. Regular removal of filament bits from the bottom, regular vacuuming of the bottom and any orifices where it might get lodged. I lube it at least once a month, but sometimes sooner (if I’m doing other maintenance), I usually clean my carbon rods at the same time.

As far as issues and work go:

I had some weird layer shifts, even with minor collisions, but I tightened the belts a little bit more and it got better and haven’t touched the belts since.

I just fixed a long-standing “issue” if you can even call it that, where I had a very slight play in the toolhead (it was there since the beginning and I assumed it was normal). All I needed to do was take the back cover of the toohead off and tighten top screws. The effect of that play was extremely minor, you could only tell when solid infill was going on where it would lay perfectly spaced parallel lines but if it were to jump somewhere and go back those lines would suddenly have an extremely small (but still noticeable) gap. We’re talking maybe 0.1mm, maybe even less. On fast movement, there was a bit of noise from it which is now gone (but I have several other noises I’m concerned about :)).

There’s been some slight squeal going on from the toolhead for the past month, maybe longer, which sounds a bit like an idler, but there’s no idler in there so I’m going to assume it’s some debris lodged in the bearing. I tried cleaning the rods and getting some IPA in the bearing but it didn’t help, so I just try not to worry much. Worst case - new carbon rods…

Carbon rods condition is adequate - you can see some marks on them, some are slight ridges, mostly in the center even though I try to spread my prints over various parts of the plate, and there are some scuff marks in places where I think I had some sort of collision in the past.
I have replaced the nozzle wiper once so far, and I haven’t touched the cutter, but I did maybe 10 multicolor prints and half of those was a simple color change at layer.

AMS was upgraded with a Hydra mod 14 days ago, I should have done it much sooner :smiley:
I sometimes got “failed to retract filament” error, part of it was me trying to “upgrade” with smaller diameter tubing (don’t do that, there’s no point in it with out printers), part of it was helped by the PTFE toolhead guide mod. I also have slightly damaged first stage feeders because I did lots of printing with fibre-filled filament (not carbon fiber, but colorFabb Vibers PLA which has elephant grass) - it just ate the plastic guide and dug a hole. Printing AMS guides and putting some PTFE tubing on it helped a lot, then when doing the Hydra mod I blew air through it and cleaned everything and so far so good, no errors.

I am on my third extruder - not because of the extruder, but because of the PTFE tube lock on the top losing the tiny metal guides. Waiting for Bambu to make it available as a spare part.

I am on my fourth or fifth nozzle, even a hardened one gets worn over time. For me, it’s not CF filament that kills it, it’s colorFabb Glowfill :slight_smile: print a spool and the end gets quite a bit flatter. I don’t think the hardened nozzle is hardened enough at all. None of the previous nozzles are unusable, they mostly print fine, but I just change it when I notice the end getting a bit too flat for my liking or weird issues with extrusion or the wiper not working as good as on a new nozzle.

I did bed tramming because I saw some rather large bed mesh movement, but I haven’t extracted the mesh from the printer I simply trammed it like described in the Wiki and then eyeball-tuned it according to what movement I saw on the camera and did bed leveling again. Now I get much less movement than before. But as stated above - I don’t print many engineering parts or even huge prints, so I can’t tell you how much of a banana bed I really have :slight_smile:

Some lurking issues

  • That squealing sound coming from the toolhead, probably carbon rod guides - I’m not at all concerned about the cost, but I hate screws and I hate different length and size screws and this would be a huge job. Bambu, please make a hot-swap system or something on your next printer. That back panel could have some sort of quick release system, or at least captive screws or something… I don’t have a good workplace to disassemble the printer to bits :confused:
  • Belts sometimes have strands detached in places. I snip them if I see them, I don’t think those belts are going to snap anytime soon or something like that, but I wonder why it’s even happening. Thinking about it, it’s probably the same strand as it shows up in the same place.
  • Weird black debris accumulating on extruder gear… carbon rods? Belts? Not a lot, but it’s there after a while
  • Weird black debris on the AMS buffer and generally on anything behind the printer - I’d bet it’s the belts getting worn out, but again I don’t think they’lll disintegrate anytime soon… or rather hope?
  • Aux Fan is very noisy and was ever since I got the printer. Sometimes a tap or bump helps, I’m going to change it one day. I don’t think it’s the fan that is faulty but it looks like the glue pads on the back of it are detached (why didn’t you screw it all the way around on buffers, Bambu??)
  • Chamber fan is insanely noisy, I turn it off whenever it turns on, haven’t looked into whether mine is excessively noisy or not compared to others
  • Mainboard fan was noisy for the first month or two, a tap always solved it and now it’s not noisy anymore ¯_(ツ)_/¯
  • Bed heater cable behind the third pillar looked like it was rubbing against the bed screw, so I put some PTFE tape around it. Support said it’s nothing to worry about and I think I concur. It seems to be static and not rubbing really, but to be honest I only just now realized I haven’t inspected it in quite a long while.

That’s really everything I can think of now.
TL;DR: I like my X1C very much, I haven’t had any major issues and whatever minor issues I had I was able to solve over time.

13

Wow! Thanks for taking the time for that thorough report. It gives the rest of us a great idea of possible future maintenance. Let us know when/if you end up replacing the carbon rods.
I think it would be pretty neat if from this thread, we would be able to give a general estimation of the expected service life of some of the major parts like the carbon rods, stepper motors, belts, etc. (example: from community experience, the life of the carbon rod assembly is generally xxxx-xxxx hrs)

Of course, this would be a very general estimation. Since wear on the various parts can be accelerated or slowed by variables such as average print speed, types of materials printed, and even variance in quality of materials between batches of parts. So it would not be a hard and fast rule, but it would at least give the Bambu community some anecdotal information for what to look out for as different parts wear.

14

Well, I think that’s exactly why I wasn’t really able to find any expected lifetime values for 3D printers.
This thread would at best provide some anecdotal evidence, and I’m pretty sure somebody’s printer disintegrated after 100 hours because they got a lemon. I might just have been lucky so far :slight_smile:

I’d like to note that I’m not pushing the printer hard, if anything I tend to slow down my prints. If for example I know that something is going to print in 4 hours but I’m going to sleep then I just slow the speeds down or use Silent mode because I don’t care about the speed as long as it’s finished in the morning. I’m not sure if that still counts as 8 hours of standard printing, or if 8 hours of slow printing wears the printer down less than 4 hours of fast printing (Pretty sure the latter is true). You also get better results when printing slower, even if our printers print good and fast in Standard.

I have never ever used Sport or Ludicrous mode (or maybe once for one of the first prints), except when I wanted to speed up a print that was sliced slow or when the slicer slowed down the print because of layer time (or when printing in vase mode and not tuning it beforehand). If you care about your printer, just don’t do that. There’s a reason why Standard is the Standard. Ludicrous looks cool when you’re showing your friends, but don’t print like that daily and don’t expect the best results. I think the Standard mode is pretty fast and with larger prints you’re going to hit flow limit anyway even in Standard. If you then speed it up from the printer you’ll just end with a very weak, possibly underextruder print and much more wear on all moving parts.
I’m putting this note here because I see so many people say they always switch to Ludicrous mode thinking it’s cool (and it really isn’t :)) and I feel sad for their printers…

15

Hallo zusammen,

ich habe nun mit meinem X1c 1.300h auf der Uhr.
Meist PLA, PETG und ABS/ASA.

Vieles im Prototypen-Style bzw. selbst erstellte Kleinigkeiten.

Aber auch viele Remix-Arbeiten.

Mittlerweile habe ich:
2 Abdeckkappen für den Extruder neu, da sich die Magnete immer wieder lösen,
1 Neues Druckbett, das aber immer noch krumm ist.

Mittlerweile auch schon die zweite 0,4 mm Düse, da die erste einfach fertig war.

Ich bin immer noch sehr zufrieden mit dem X1c und auch mit den Support durch BL, denn auch wenn es mal länger dauert, es wurde mir immer geholfen.

Es stimmt schon, wenn man mit den BL Mitarbeitern so redet, wie man selbst auch angesprochen werden möchte, dann klappt das.
Denn die Supportmitarbeiter können nichts für einzelne oder Serienprobleme.

Grüße aus dem Norden von Deutschland,

Hello everyone,

I now have 1,300 hours on the clock with my X1c.
Mostly PLA, PETG and ABS/ASA.

A lot in the prototype style or self-made little things.

But also a lot of remix work.

I now have:
2 new cover caps for the extruder, as the magnets keep coming loose,
1 New print bed, but still crooked.

Meanwhile also the second 0.4 mm nozzle, since the first one was simply finished.

I am still very satisfied with the X1c and also with the support from BL, because even if it takes longer, I was always helped.

It’s true that if you talk to the BL employees the way you would like to be spoken to yourself, then it works.
Because the support staff cannot do anything for individual or series problems.

Greetings from the north of Germany,

16

I run a business where I sell hobby robot parts and 3D print parts for kits In selling in addition to a commission based printing service for others. The vast majority of my 1140hrs of printing on my X1C since I got it in around February have been in either TPU or Carbon Fiber Nylon. Had a few issues here and there but overall the reliability and serviceability of this machine are amazing.

17

X1CC 3200hrs and counting as a kick starter backer. Printer has been fantastic.

18

1003 hours on my X1C - lots of high temp PC/PA/PET. Apart from general maintenance, I’ve had to resolder theJST connector for the thermister back onto the little board in the print head and repair the extruder gear when the pin holding the idler came loose. Other than that it’s been perfect - love the reliability, material versatility and speed of it

Edit: another post reminded me that I also had to replace the control board fan.

I’ve had various 3d printers over the last 6 or 7 years and largely accept that they are machines that invariably need maintenance and will break down from time to time. Given the benefites of the X1C over what was/is currently available, I would buy the X1C again in a heartbeat.

19

1000+ hrs on my X1C

Most printing PLA/PETG,
sometimes ASA/TPU

printing most of the time on textured PEI without any glue

Replaced:
1x Mainboard Fan (replaced with Noctua because overall much more silent)
1x Bed #BananaBed;
2x Nozzles (clogged);
1x Filamentcutter (dull/stuck);
1x Textured Plate;
1x all internal PTFE Tubes of AMS

So far im very satisfied with the X1C, one of the clogs was my fault, the bend Bed was a bit mehh but not that critical for me because im mostly printing small parts (10x5cm) and my bend was not that critical, with the new Bed everything is fine.

Had a Prusa Mk3 before (still sitting unused in the closet) but the speed of the Bambu … realy nice!

And all replacements of real Hardware (FAN,MB) was free of charge from Bambu, support just takes a bit

21

Where can you see the time worked with the X1C? I can not find it. In the printer or in Bambu Estudio? thank you