I am very new to 3D printing and very interested in purchasing a BL P1S printer. However, I am quite nervous about making the purchase based upon all the reviews and comments I have read in this forum. It appears that any type of support especially for a newbe like me is nearly nonexistent. Additionally, it would appear someone needs a PHD in 3D printer technology to own a BL printer… Any and all comments would be GREATLY appreciated.
I’ve never printed in PLA at all before and Bambu labs printers were good to go from start. There are lots of videos on Youtube and other forums for help with new questions, but honestly they just work. I’ve barely had to touch settings, and learned how to use things like supports and negative spaces within a few minutes on Youtube.
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You will likely find any support you need here in the forum. That’s pretty typical, no matter what printer you might buy. Customer support from the manufacturer is generally about warranty claims. It’s not their job to teach you all about 3D printing. There are plenty of youtubes which do that.
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The best support you’ll find unfortunately is community supported right here in this forum. What you won’t find are Bambu labs employees responding here as you might expect a company to do in their own discussion forum.
You stated that you’re new to 3D printing but you didn’t mentioned what level of experience you already have. Depending on your appetite for conquering tech issues or if you’re not a technically inclined person or a DIY-spirited individual as Bambu’s own blog posts describe their customer base, then 3D printing may not going to be your cup of tea.
But if you describe yourself as one who enjoys the challenge of figuring things out and if you like to tinker but don’t want to take on a full-blown science project of many 3D printer kits, then the Bambu line is the closest you may come to an out-of-the-box first-print-in-20-minutes experience. There is zero assembly required; just unpack and be sure to remove the screws, which are well labeled, and watch the video for goodness’ sake!
Note: This product is still only one generations away from a “kit” than it is the kind of experience one has with let’s say an Office Inkjet printer. You will earn your tech stripes quickly or you’ll get frustrated and give up and find that expensive item gathering dust.
If you’re looking for a company that will walk you through any problems, you’ll probably be better off paying a little more and buying a prebuilt Prusa MK4. Their tech support, while all inside chat, is considered to be best-in-class as was recently posted by one of our community members in this post.
Use this link for a focused Google search on just the number of community complaints BL has had against them. Also, look at the reviews over the last six months from well-known YouTubers who will sheepishly drop in words like “Checkered support track record” or “lackluster support”.
It’s clear that Bambu just wants to ship product and customer service comes in as their last priority. The pattern is the same, the P1P was shipped as a DIY enclosure because they were in an obvious hurry and the skins that were intended for the P1S weren’t yet ready. Good gamble on their part but imagine how many of us felt when we found out that the “completed” product was just about to be released if we had waited. Then there is the A1 mini controversy that was released just two months before the A1 and really gave many buyers remorse and to mention the recent A1 safety recall.
And here is another filtered search link that confines the search to this forum alone. You’ll see the frustration many have experience with all sorts of issues ranging from mishandled orders to DOA products to just being treated like we’re idiots.
Here’s an example of a post a guy did on LinkedIn that represents the typical experience I’ve had when addressing support when I already know what I’m looking for. This individual stated it best with this paragraph.
Now mind you, if you’re lucky enough to not have any problems none this will apply to you. But if this post does nothing else, if you go in knowing what you’re in for, then at least you can temper your expectations.
Good Luck 
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Some really good advice and information from @Olias as usual. However, I’d say the current champ for out of the box user friendlyness in an enclosed printer is the flashforge adventurer m5. Especially it’s super simple hotend swapout. Unless you want to print with multi colours, then a Bambu Lab with AMS is the only one to consider.
If you consider an open printer, there’s lots available now that offer great out the box experiences for a much cheaper price than a P1S. An A1 mini or A1 (when it becomes available to buy again) with the AMS lite are a great printer for most users without a lot of experience.
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Anyone who buys a stationary drilling machine to drill holes in workpieces has to familiarise themselves with how to set up the drilling machine. it’s not necessarily difficult. It’s similar with Bambu printers.
If you don’t want to deal with the machine, you should look for a 3D printing service or another hobby.
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I haven’t tried looking, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are repair shops you can take your 3D printer to and get things fixed, analogous to an auto mechanic for cars. It’s a common enough tool that there’s likely to be sufficient demand for such a thing. Maybe even Geek Squad does it? BestBuy does sell 3D printers after all.
Olias, first let me say thank you for your reply. I have always enjoyed 3D printing and like creating models that I can then use in my other hobby. What I am finding out is there appears to be two types of 3D printer folks. The first are ones that have the time and patience to purchase a machine and then spent time tinkering with it to get to print anything. The second group are folks like me that are fascinated in designing and printing 3D printed models for use in other areas and don’t want to spend the time learning about feed and speed formulas as well as other tech issues associated with a 3D printer. I worked for nearly 40 years in manufacturing, so I understand about “PM” cycles and down time for machine maintenance. But what I don’t want to do is purchase a BL ‘P1S’ and immediately have tech issues. I am looking for an ‘out-of-the-box’ reliable 3D printer. Any and all comments and suggestions are very much welcomed. Your 3D printer knowledge appears it could fill many books mine on the other hand can only fill a one-sided sheet of paper. So again will will willining accept all your comments.
I think most people have no problems, but some apparently do. As some have pointed out on other threads, buying your BBL printer from a microcenter might insulate you from your primary concern, because if you got a lemon you could just return/exchange it and not have to wait on BBL support, which seems to be overloaded at the moment.
I am in the same boat. I pulled the trigger and mine is coming Monday. I have extensive experience with 2-D graphics, but totally new to 3D. Trying to learn all I can ASAP 
Being nervous is always good - it keeps you awake and sharpens your senses.
As long as the purchase goes beyond the point where your back is against the wall, you don’t have to worry about anything. If the price is too high, take a deeper diving board until you can handle the financel risk.
The brain reacts like muscle, it adapts to your requirements - it becomes persistent or flexible, it atrophies or it outgrows itself. So jump or leave it, you have to know that for yourself. Since finally only you have to take responsibility for yourself. When you are a jumper you always get yourself out of it and not just with the 3D printer. But if you’re not a jumper, then don’t jump since you’ll break something.
The worst answer were someone can give me - I did everything right. I would do everything exactly the same way. It makes me sad when I hear statements like that. Everyone makes mistakes (Even me. I just don’t admit it - but my harshest critic is myself. I judge myself mercilessly every day. But I also forgive myself and don’t get lost in the details).
We learn from our mistakes and getting better - so if someone were to do everything exactly the same, they wouldn’t have learned anything. If someone says that they don’t regret any of their decisions, that’s a good statement.
This week I threw away printers with a total purchase price of 2800 USD - the individual price of one of the 4 printers would no longer be 250 USD today (and even then they would be the slowest snails). They were still pretty up-to-date 2 years ago (in the top models $750 per piece range). If you are also unsure, go for a deeper board because no matter what you buy, in a year you will get twice as much for the same money, but the experience you gain will help you. But if you’re already ready to jump, splashing around in the children’s pool won’t do any good… And you don’t necessarily have to jump into the 3D printer pool, but I couldn’t choose the pool. These things also printing out broken plastic parts for a 1 million USD control until the original parts arrive… by things like this, minutes are counting like months.
My BL X1C is my first 3D printer and after a little more than a year I am still very happy. The minor repairs and maintenance very easy to handle by following the videos provided by BL.
You can find a lot of information online and people in the forum are most of the time friendly and helpful.
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I bought the P1S combo from micro center and have had one jammed hot end but that happens to hot ends. Wasn’t sure the AMS was needed but I’m convinced that it is. I’m on this site all the time and they make it sound bad but I think they are the vocal minority. Agree that service could be better but for all questions this forum really helps. I think it’s a solid machine but you can’t be a complete idiot. I don’t think it requires much 3d printer background, in fact folks with a lot of knowledge tend to over tweak things. Good luck.
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Thank you for your reply. It was helpful as well as all the others I have received. Stay well.
@Bruce9721 just pull the trigger and burn that credit card! 
And if you can squeeze some extra to get the X1 Carbon with AMS Combo, you’ll have even more fun, learn even more, make even more useful things.
I don’t think you need the factory support, unless you need to get a replacement part, as there are loads of helpful, willing people here and other places like Reddit, Facebook and many more. The Bambu Lab Wiki documentation is very good and there are more videos on Facebook than you can possibly watch. It’s not difficult to solve nozzle clogs, etc yourself with all this help, and the BL printers are remarkably trouble-free anyway.
The X1 Carbon is ten times more functional, capable, faster and significantly easier to use than a 3D printer that cost over $5,000 eight years ago. And Bambu Studio is easy to use and very functional. Enjoy!
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The X1C is without contradiction the most interesting printer at the moment. He has to know for himself whether he jumps or not.
We’ll see how much the X1C or the P1P will be worth in a year - I can handle it.
The X1C with spare parts may comes up to 1500 Euros. The P1P may up to 1000 Euro. Through these thing goes 25 kg of fillament in a month. That may would be another 500 Euros otherwise you have an expensive dust collector… So if you have 1500-2000 Euros on hand, you can think about.
Anyone who burns their credit card down at 1200 or 800 Euros should perhaps make their first experiences on a 300-400 euro printer until they can get what the printer can deliver… then you also know the benefits that a 3D printer delivers.
Today, as yesterday, I am firmly convinced that a 3D printer without CAD is worthless. Last week I got something from the internet that looked good - Wrong hope. Yesterday I drew it myself. We are in a time in which even trained designers usually deliver junk (Hopefully 3D printing will change that a little and these newbies trained by green horns are gainting some experience, but will take 10-20 years)… Given to this current situation, what should you expect from the parts that you get from the Internet for free? If I were to draw for Makerworld for a day, Bambulab would have to give me a new free printer every day… Everything else is hobby and playing around.
I am also new to 3D printing. I started 2 months ago. I decided to go to one of the affordable ($200-$300) ones first and try to learn it the best I could. I try to understand the hardware and also settings like quality, print speed, z-hop, support, filaments and other settings. I also try to learn calibration like stringing issues, warping and other bad results when printing. I tried different free 3D models and mostly use PLA and PETG.
A week ago I decided to go and get Bambu Lab P1S. I have been using this more and printing models and scaling it up. I noticed that since the slicing software (Bambu Studio) has more options in tweaking (I also use Orca Slicer on my affordable 3D printer) I noticed I have more control on what I can do. I have a filament from Matter Hacker and their PLA is so hard to get it dialed in for the good settings as they are prone to stringing and other printing issues.
What I am trying to suggest is what probably other would say is try the affordable ones first and learn the mechanics of the hardware and also settings before going to Bambu Lab printers.
Also, I have been reading reviews, comments and also watching YT videos of Bambu Lab Printers and I can see people getting frustrated about the device specially how slow (I mean slower than a sloth) response from their support but that does not stop me from getting a P1S. I like it and I enjoy using it.
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1000 Points and my Flashforge M5 is currently on sale in the USA for 290 USD. It also prints like crazy and one of them is standing next to the X1C - has currently even more running hours per month than the X1C… The week before, I get an M5 Pro and this week I will ordering the next M5 since you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth (without pro, closed printers are good if you need them. If not - it’s just an additional trouble). But I’ll wait with the printer order next week until the 20th to see what QIDI does… As I said, I threw away printeres with total cost of 2800 USD. 2 years old and not worth a single cent anymore…
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But then don’t expect miracles when you change
Color change (if you taking the AMS), a little more installation space, ASA and ABS if you need that. CF materials will be expensive but a big step back in the display control and also a littel more slow in printing and poorer accessibility in case of problems.
With the X1 you still have active monitoring such as spagetti monitoring, automatic first layer checking, etc. So if you really want to print kilos of fillament and let the printer do it for 1-2 days (of course at your own risk) then X1C.