As long as I have been on this forum I have seen a steady stream of issues with corrupted and problematic micro SD cards.
Are there any ways to use/convert to other less problematic storage from the current micro-SD option. The following is a stretch that seems most likely would not work but some powered device you could plug into the USB port hidden behind the P1S control pad. I specifically say powered because power draw from that USB-A port is its own problem. I have adapters that plug into USB that you can stick various different read/write media into but those would not really help.
I took a deep dive down this exact rabbit hole about two years ago when this topic came up on this forum, and I’ve been looking ever since.
What you’re suggesting would be described as a microSD host adapter. I went looking for hardware that would do this, and the closest thing I found was this DIY project:
In all fairness, I came to the conclusion that there is no real commercial demand for this product. At this point, it is basically a developer niche tool and a curiosity piece.
The real problem is how Bambu designed the P series in the first place. They place heavy write activity onto the microSD card, including cache-related writes, and that is exactly the kind of workload that is hard on ordinary consumer cards. In other words, they are using the card for far more than simple file storage, and that kind of constant write behavior is rough on microSD media.
There is, however, one use case where this kind of workload is already well understood: surveillance cameras. Those systems also subject cards to constant overwrite cycles. That is why high-endurance cards exist, and why they make far more sense here than standard consumer cards.
I switched to a SanDisk High Endurance card in my P1P, and since doing that I have had no microSD-related issues.
As mentioned by Olias, there are more specialized microSD card alternatives out there. For example, I’ve run multiple Raspberry ■■■(a 4 and a 5) 24/7 using Sandisk Extreme cards with the “A2” and “U3” ratings, without issue (knock-on-wood), for over a year.
Can you breakdown the SD card problems? I use them exclusively and here’s what I’ve learned. Video and pic imaging fills cards quickly. If a card is filled with this media during a print, the printing stops. Period. Insert every unknown printer problem imaginable here. Floods of posts & searches for why your printer no longer prints, fn junk! Lol. The fix is remove card from printer. Insert into computer and search every folder on the card. Delete the incredible number of pics or vids whild leaving the desired gcode files. Once the card as room again, insert to printer and print as usual. Is the card corrupt? My experience is when the card is completely filled by the printer, formatting will be necessary. To avoid loss of code, every slice I make is first saved to a harddrive. Second save is to the sd card. To avoid this issue altogether, I turn off the video & pic making option in settings.
Next issue: more than 1 printer. I’m running an A1 & mini. Each having their own card and card storage folder named to that printer. The original card that came with the printer is copied to a harddrive and identified to that printer as a backup. Since they are two different models, their cards do not work in the other printer.
Today, this is not an issue with the new P2S, because it doesn’t have an sd card. Wifi only. So, wifi goes down (expect more of this in the future), your printer stops.