If he’s happy with it, everything is fine. I’m happy when people are looking for what they want. I also think your post here is very good. And in my case also very welcome to me.
1000+ is a lot of money - 500 USD- too. Everyone calls it a “beginner printer” so if he like 3D printing or not, the money is gone. Or have I overlooked something?
There was a good tip at the end of the German-language YouTube video. So let`s point also out:
Yes it`s a god one but you need to calculate properly. Add. 50 bugs to the Bambu Lab A1 combo and you are by a P1P you can upgrad after you are in. The A1 will use more space as well. This should be pointed out.
The other thing, the X1C is also the low-price printer in the high-price segment - fortunately I don’t have to know what a good decision was or will be. They don’t sleep either.
Addition: I watched the German language video again with my YouTube partner channel since 2012 and gave him a thumbs up. I’m not the bad guy, just a very critical person
The design is well done and it’s understandable that Bambu Lab tries to get into other customer sectors.
BUT:
Instead of introducing new hardware every few months Bambu Lab should first do their homework and build reliable(!) machines with interoperable/interchangeble parts and long parts and technical support. They should care about their brand building quality reliable machines that you can at least recommend to others, too!
Currently I’m still happy with my P1P and ordered the upgrade kit for P1s. Bambu Lab should keep this way of upgrade possiblities! It’s a welcome move of keeping customers to their brand.
And thus completely limit innovation? I am not sure if this is a good idea. Especially the first versions of the machines, which they full admit are not as good as they want them to be, will likely be superseded and get major changes.
So I would not keep my hopes up, that you’ll get upgrades. Also for the firmware it will get messy, as you will have a bunch of different machine states after a while.
Personally, I also do not agree with this. I mean you get the replacement parts, they should keep that up for sure. They are priced very reasonable and, at least for me, the machine seems to be working totally fine, even after hundreds of hours of printing. So, I cant complain about their reliability.
Regarding the release cycle: Why? If they still support the older machines via software, what is the benefit of releasing fewer new products? Sure, my X1C might be outdated at the end of the year, but my iPhone is also outdated after at max one year. Still works fine, still get software updates. If BambuLab goes a similar route, why not?
The only problem would be, if they just ignore the software for their old machines immediately. But if we can get updates for like 5 years, sure. I’d be happy with that.
I agree with you. Softwareupdates should be made even if newer machines are released.
Mechanical compatibility does not limit innovation. Let’s say they’ll do a makeover of a P1P mainboard and you can buy it with new functions, reliable etc. the only thing required is that it fits mechanical in your old machine. Just an example.
Every manufacturer updates the innards of their products to improve it. If my P1P mainboard may fail in 3 years, I just want to buy a new mainboard instead of a new printer! Especially regarding modifications to your personal printers (casings, light etc.)
Don’t get me wrong: I really like Bambu Lab and my P1p. Company managed to get me away from Creality who didn’t care about customers. With Bambu Lab I have an attractive machine (with the risk of a newcomer) but the company seems to care about their customers and products. That’s why I decided to try Bambu Lab and buy from them.
Unfortunately, that is not true. At least not as simple as you make it sound. BambuLab printers are not made via one mainboard, as, for example, a Prusa. You have several different PCBs all over the printer. For example for the X1C you have:
Machine Controller board
Application Processor board
Screen
Extruder board
Extruder interface board
Heatbed Sensor interface board
Heatbed Piezo interface board
And I am sure I have forgotten one or two.
This is for example also the reason why the X1’s screen does not work with the P1. The AP board is completely different. Same with the hotend, it is completely different to the X1’s. The only part that is the same between X1 and P1 is, as far as I know, the two heatbed interface boards.
So, even if you can keep the mounting spots for the AP mainboard the same, you would still have to replace a ton of wiring, several different PCBs all over the printer, change some other parts, etc. It would be a major change!
The only time, this would work, if they are just reworking, lets say the machine control PCB. But they would have to keep all external connections the same, could not add any new sensor, not change a sensor to use a different protocol, etc. Only then, you could just replace one of the PCBs with a newer version.
But I highly doubt this will be done for any new machine. It would limit them hard.
Gotta love when people complain about complaining.
The one thing i havnt seen people complain about is that this new a1 can do color prints faster than a p1p, p1s or x1c, has more features that are useful and is cheaper with an ams. Heck, the a1 by itself is cheaper than an ams.If I was looking at a p1s and didnt need the whole bed all the time, i would just get the a1 and print in silence, faster. Almost forgot, at a slightly higher quality print also. Watch the review video i posted. How many print farms will stop buying p1p’s and start buying this lower profit margin printer?
Have a look at the car industry, nobody develops everything entireley new all the time. That would be financial suicide for a company. They are - as many other industries - using platform technology. One platform, different cars. No matter if you’re sitting inside a VW, Seat, Skoda, Audi… under the hood is all VW and multiple platforms.
I guess Bambu Lab is, especially after seeing the nice interview with “CEO Dr. Tao”, intelligent and eager enough, to design their machine platforms accordingly. The P1 and X1 share similarities.
Damn, they managed to make me think of an A1 mini as an addition to my P1P…
The printer is certainly not bad. I also think it’s good that this YouTube video explicitly mentioned that AMS is more of a color changing system than anything else.
I already saw the video yesterday - although I skipped many parts. I now went all the way through the video, although I had to try very hard not to skip a lot of.
So I do not overlook this faster coler change at all yesterday. But what I saw was a lot of videos that only came from one angle. Which don’t indicate enough who the printer is for. I saw a lot of enthusiasm. And between the lines: We need more beginners and don’t forget to like, share and subscribe… Maybe not what they wanted to say, but then the old hands see that the alarm lights go on.
I really think the A1 is at home in a world that I just don’t need to understand anymore. Not in a bad sense, just very far away from my world.
Well, may Bambulab send ones a A1 printer (or the next release) to the person how let me forget the QIDI I-Fast and ordered the X1C, reviews from him I really like (may to protect my blood pressure too ;-):
This is a very good idea to introduce this little printer. Specially for me, I like to modelize and print miniatures. Combine with the MakerWorld platform, it’s crazy how easy it will be to imagine, modelize, print and share my models.
Fellow Palette 3 Pro owner here. You don’t get poop, but you do get purge towers that can take up a lot of space on your build plate. The purge has to go somewhere. With the Palette you possibly get more material purged because of the imprecise knowledge of where the splice is. Not denigrating the Palette - it’s a marvelous device for single-filament printers - but the AMS solution is better.
You can buy the printer without the multi color, and I don’t need multi color (I just want a fast and reliable printer that can do 280C in production as upgrade from our mk3 Prusa. 180mm is OK), but how can it be used, what holds the spool then?
Yep, you can have your own opinion, just as I can. And there’s a difference between being quiet and not taking a position on a topic. I believe that’s called being a door mat.
And they send him one and yes the Video got a thumbs up, as well as a 300% view througe by a longtime YouTuber thrue the whole video who jumpe over a lot of containt time by other topic-related reviews. I’m very happy to give a relefant link for the Google Crawlers Spiders as well.
Thanks for the time spent for this conclusive informative relevant A1 Bambulab review which now hopefully will receive a higher ranking in search engines:
