Just ordered the X1C w AMS - I have a few questions to prepare for it

Bambu Lab X1 Series
1

I have been 3D printing for over 15 years, and am really looking forward to a (hopefully) better experience with the X1C than I have with my previous printers.

I plan to mostly print PETG, TPU, ASA, PC, and maybe Nylon if it isn’t a total nightmare. I mostly design and print functional parts, but I do make sculptures and stuff for fun some times.

I’ve seen some people say that they can print PETG on the engineering plate without glue stick if they spray it down with Windex first. Has that been confirmed by everyone who has tried it? I don’t like gluestick, but I don’t want to find out the hard way, AKA ruin the plate the very first time I use it. I’m used to printing on hair spray and glass as well as whatever kind of special glass they use on the Armillary Sidewinder, and a spring steel sheet with something like build tac on it.

Once I know for sure that I didn’t get a lemon (AKA troubled machine), I will definitely order a better build plate. The g10 lightyear plate claims to work with all the materials I plan to print with out needing glue stick or any other hold/release agent. Is that the general opinion of those of you that have tried it? It’s a lot more money than ordering sub $20 pei ones online, but if it is as good as it sounds, it may be worth it.

Anything else you think I should know before it arrives that wouldn’t have already probably been covered by me having watched over a dozen videos about the X1C, and read many hours of posts in this forum over the last few weeks?

Thanks!

2

123
1231411×562 85.4 KB

3

Thanks for the suggestions, @Hank .

I have already read some of those, but many I had not seen yet. I’ll take a look at all of it. I have about a week (according to tracking), so I will have more than enough time to go through it all.

Was your last suggestion, the one about wanting to get rid of some stuff shown on the slicer, a suggestion to use Orca slicer instead of the “official” bambu slicer? I already downloaded Orca and have been using it with one of my current printers. It’s a great slicer!
Will I be able to use it to print wirelessly, or will I have to use Bambu slicer for that?

4

You can handle it however you want, my opinion is never the only true one - you should just know that there is the Orca and the Bambulab Slicer but as I see you already know.

Wireless, by Orca you can install something (you’ll then be asked or something I can’t remember. But it went quickly and without any problems) and then wireless printing also works, with Bambulabstudio it’s already installed.

And don`t forget, you can run the entry Printer on pure lan mode… so you do not need the Bambu server at all. The printer may need to be provided with updates, for this you may need Bambulab Studio. Can someone correct me on that?

The lubricant for Z is required relatively quickly (In my case after the first switch on). At the beginning there is some excess grease on the Z-axies that you should probably put neatly in a small bag until you know how to deal with it (but it isn`t that muche grease you can safe but better than nothing)… Many people assume that the Lubricant is pur time control - but in my opinion it may could be a test of trevolution together with the leveling pressure sensor - i.e. the absorption of torque with resistance, which changes depending on the lubricant and degree of lubrication vary. But no one can say that exactly and it’s all just a guess. But if so, you will also need the exact lubricant lubricity…

Bambulab Fillament can be very helpful in the beginning…You always define filament on the printer and than you will synchronization it with the slicer…

5

Wireless works on both. It is straightforward.
Regarding the best one, it is up to you to decide.
I use both, as settings are “easily” shared between the slicers and for my other printer only, Orca, as I need the additional features.
I advise you to try both and give it time to see better which one fits your needs.

6

Yo mate, Covid here and high fever so apologies for spelling and lingo (english is like my 7th language) I do PetG and I cant remember now if I even tried anything else?!?
Heres my humble advice…

Get the golden textured build plate/plates (2 is nice, you can prep the second and do a quick swap and immediate start of next print instead of cooldown and prep)
DO NOT GET THE BLACK TEXTURED PLATES - GET THE UPGRADED GOLDSHIMMERING PLATES!!!

Your conundrum will most likely be to MUCH adhesion going PetG and wearing out the plates in combo with getting black miscolourment coming off the plates and your prints will not make you look like a happy camper… so heres the realitíes involved

Get the fluid gluestick (or a couple) along with the upgraded gold textured plate (2 is even better)

Get a jar of water and ISOpropyl alcohol (70/30 mix or something around that mark) and cut a small piece of some colorful Wettex original classic microfever sheets/rags (like 3cm x 7cm) First print on plate put on a decent coverage of gluestick then dip the cutout rag in water and go over the plate a quickie with circular motions (wax on - wax off, just like in karate kid)
NEXT print do a few gluestick draws over the buildplate and then dip the wettex cutout in the water and go over it a quicke with to spread out the glue evenly.
Remember to cap your jar e v e r y use and dont do crazy big batches either, better to fill’er up with fresh juice and avoid dust and juck traveling in your mix outta thin hair, its a quick refill…

This saves on gluestick but that is not the reason to do this, you dont want excessive buildup of gluestick since the prints will look like your dog drag-wiped his A over your plate/print. Some sensibility here and the glue used will be invisible and you reach an nice finishing touch aesthetically pleasing.

Now this will N O T be time consuming, at least not compared to go Commando on your textured plates. C will have you wrestle to get your prints off, especially supports and brims. The glue barreer will have most poop off by simple flex of your buildplate, and anything remaining will be lightyears eazier to just pop off by hand or a plastic scraper. (Theres printable hex scraper with just the plastic blade printable and replacable)

So it will save your buildplates from going bald and unevenly structured and this will in fact save you both TIME, coin and insure quality.

Sry for the length, crazy fever and I’m actually trying to find a mail from a forummate here about lube but I’m to dizzy to navigate the site, cheezus effin man-covid hit the spot!

One last pointer, for the love of G! Dont go with PetG ■■■■ brands to save a buck, it will drive you crazy! Get Stronghold, eSun or similar quality PetG! And get those suckers on plastic spools instead of paper, refill or some other timeconsuming stupidity that randomly mess you up for days of your life to save 1 dollar a poop. If somebody hands you an electric blue 3DFils roll of PetG - grab your bambuprinter and jump through the window without looking back no matter what floor you on!

Them the most important lessions on PetG…

May the force be with you mates,
/Silverbullit also known ass the Swedish Chupacabra (or douchebag or sphinxter on legs to the natives)

PS I also go with a filament dryer with a built in fan or e-zily moddified, sunlu s2 the upgraded fan version (Which I ordered butt got the prev without fan, sigh) or the Eibos new dual one (The successor to the Cyclopes which I got the day before they pressreleased the successor, cyclopes has some issues blowing the hot air on a small spot underneath the plastic rolls which plastic REALLY loves so you have to print a bag of mods for the cyclopes, I did and do like it post mod frenzy) Your PetG rolls are hygroscopic meaning they suck moist air worse than your local politician during election year, so you want to shut that PetG up, hang it out to dry and dont vote for it!!! DS

7

Yes, but the black textured have disappeared from the Bambulab shop… This was silently swept under the table.

8

Que bro?

9

Wow - you are right… they still saling it… :thinking:

Addendum:

Not listed on the international store and on the EU store “NOTIFY ME WHEN AVAILABLE” :thinking:

10

Well it’s the usual black friday scheme than :+1: :partying_face: :+1:

11

Thank you for your hilarious post. Your dog based description of what too much glue stick does to your parts especially cracked me up.

What do you mean by “colorful windex sheets/rags”. I only know of windex as a liquid spray in a bottle. I had read that people just wiped down the bed with windex and that it leaves residue that works without glue. Have you tried this?

I’ve also read that the g10 Lightyear plate doesn’t need any gluestick, and just works. You may want to try that to simplify the process. That’s my plan at this point.

I understand your point about cheap PETG. I’ve seen a lot of brands with names like, XYZABC123, and OENBHG. With names like that, you have to assume they don’t want you to take them seriously.

If things print well in ASA, I will probably end up using that more than PETG for the things I sell, but for some things, I really love the translucent look of colored PETG. Though it did dawn on me that switching between different temp filaments could lead to nozzle clogs.

12

Well, I didn’t check it now, but when I ordered my last PEI gold… I may have missed it… Wait for 4 months and we will see the facts. But there are definitely still texture plates lying around in England - at least there is no waiting time for the “texture plates” which at least I also don’t touch anymore.

13

Hehe, nice Electro!

Well me being a dumbass, they are called Wettex (and now you revealed how often I dustwipe my mancave :grimacing:)

Well I tried an entire shitpile of buildplates but they all went damaged surfacing pretty darn quick, the gluestick ammends that…

Also the time taking a print off a not gluesticked buildplate is A LOT OF TIME,
whereas with a quick ruboff with the wet wettex everything just pops off looking like a champ.
For me the time dragging a wet wipe over the plate is shorter than writing this sentence, maybe a couple of seconds.
For me removing PetG prints of a non gluesticked buildplate ranges from minutes to an quarter of an hr.

(I got 5 of those black textured bambu plates, 2 of them went bald over spots but BLabb sent me 2 golden shower sheets. I continued using the black ones that went south within weeks, their surface also broke on the next 2. Making it 4 out of 5. The fift plate was the first plate I purchased back then with my first x1cc and that holds up, I think that one will hold up like… forever? I have not reported no3 and 4, see no point as the golden ones behaves even better than my first black buildplate. With gluestick and a wet rag I feel these goldy ones will outperform anything else I’ve tried by horselengths.

I actually tried ASA and a couple of different types of filaments in order to see for myself what material would keep up best, PetG outperformed everything else and not by so slightly. It went Killstreak over the rest. PetG has some UV resistance, chemical resistance, material strength, prints great in the Bambus, holds up a lot better mechanically (You have some CF as in carbon enforced filaments, problem is they loose their ability to move and reshape back, cf just breaks clean off. Sure it has its purposes but for stuff I design and make I would love to find something even better than PetG, but nothing has come close as of yet.

So if you find something better please share mate!!!

14

From what I have read, people have had great luck with nothing added to the surface of the g10 Lightyear plate, and I think it even has a lifetime warranty. I think it’s about $50, so not cheap. But, if it really doesn’t need glue, and they’ll replace it if it ever gets damaged, I’m thinking it could be worth the $50.

If I get it I will definitely mention how it works out, here in the forum.

15

IFormer offers there Golden plates for Bambulab Printers (also other plates) do to a Black Friday by 12 USD per plate (20 USD discount). Of course there are other providers, but IFormer is also a printer manufacturer itself.

I check becouse the labeling of the Bambulab Goldplate will imprint into the Model - In the next model series I would lose 8% of the printed parts just because of this Bambulab Labeling on the PEI plate from Bambulab.

@BambuLab You should really adjust the print space to 246 x 256 in the printer description - since you are taking up the space for your Companies lettering. If marketing takes up the space, it should at least give up the space by advertising the printer.

16

I have X1C and print almost exclusively PETG because it is so easy and no glue stick. I use the Engineering plate, Bambu slicer, default settings for PETG, and wipe plate down with 99% alcohol just before every print. I use a microfiber cloth. My prints come out great, perfect adhesion and easy release. If plate is warm after build I just flex it; if plate has cooled prints come off mostly by themselves. I was printing with PLA with mostly very good results but had to use glue stick or brush on. Tried PETG and not going back. I’ve used cheap generic PETG at $14.99, the $29.99 stuff, and Bambu PETG; all with great results. Don’t dry before use but printed and use the 3 silica gel containers in the AMS. Just ordered 9 spools of Bambu PETG on their 40% off sale, so just $16.79 for a spool instead of $27.99.

1 Like