New to Bambu what’s your advice

Brand new to 3d printing. Zero experience. My son recommended the X1c. I coildnt be happier.

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I’m not going to quote any part of your question, but let me say, that after starting with a Lerdge-iX kit printer, and spending time using a makers mark, and even an Ender 3 v2 Neo for awhile, then buying the Bambu Lab A1, because the kickstarter campaign was canceled on a printer I was interested in, I don’t really understand why anyone would want anything else, evan with the A1’s recall! All the experience I’ve had with ender has been horrible, and I would never consider buying one, if you like messing with a printer constantly then Bambu is not for you, when they say automatic everything they mean it! You buying the printer is the most you’re going do! I drove 45 minutes to Micro Centers to purchase it, which took about a half hour for the purchase, then 45 minutes to drive home. When I got home it took about 10 minutes to assemble(not joking), I clicked a few buttons on the touch pad, and it “Automatically” with no input from me, calibrated, aligned, dampened vibration, and performed noise reduction in less than 30 minutes from opening the box, I setup the handy app on my phone, entered wifi info, and paired the printer, and printed my first print from my phone(not an sd card, or usb stick) in about 5 minutes. If you were following along with the time, once I got home I was printing "Perfectly " in less time than it took me to drive to the store. If thats a bad thing then I’ll take a bad printer anyday!

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Spot on. Good dry filament is essential in all printers, especially when you’re using a fast machine.

The silica gel boxes are the best and one few mods I’d reccomend.

My main advice would ne get a textured PEI bed but keep the printer door open when printing PLA - enclosure gets too warm and causes heat creep blockages in the extruder. The standard cool plate is good, just that the textured PEI is less fussy about glue and cleaning, releases lovely when cool too.

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Yup. They’re printers for people that like to print. If you like to fiddle with a printer a lot, go buy an ender 3 instead.

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I also came from an Ender 3 pro that was a continuous project just to hope that it would print. Just order the P1S and get the AMS, which i did not get and now regret.

Compared to the Ender 3 the P1S is heaven and just prints and with every crazy filament that I have tried. Running the calibration utility when you get a new type of filament means that I NO LONGER have to tweak temperatures, and every other variable. I did not even know where to find these settings for a couple of months. You will not regret the purhcase my friend.

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The only issues I have had have been of my own making and have been really easy to sort out on my own or with a quick youtube video.

nothing is perfect and people will always find something to complain about. also, mechanical things wear with use, so all printers will require maintenance. preventative maintenance is usually the best approach, just clean/lube a few things regularly and you’re good - often that’s just the moving parts and where they contact non-moving parts. that said you can often get by with fixing things when something is wrong, but there’s a non-zero chance that can lead you down a chain of other issues that could require investigation and action to fix those issues, which circles back to preventative maintenance.

that said - i love my x1c. for the price, form factor, etc - it’s an amazing deal. i’ve been 3d printing off and on for about 10-11 years and have had a few printers. the x1c is by far the best printer i’ve owned. i’ve had an ender 5 plus for a while - i ended up doing some massive upgrades to that after getting my x1c because i realized how much better it could be. klipper via sonic pad, exoslide gantry (way better than the v-slot wheels), direct drive extruder, better fans on the toolhead, magnetic print bed + a couple build plates, enclosure tent thing, reinforced frame (reinforcements printed with asa on the x1c). after about 500-600 bucks in upgrades it’s nearly on par with the x1c but, it’s not as fast, and the quality of the x1c is a little better - and that took probably 20-40 hours total over 3 months or so to get into a good working state. and it doesn’t have an ams, so i have to manually change filaments. i haven’t tried any of the engineering-grade filaments on that yet but some should work well, maybe not abs/asa because of chamber temp.

in other words, for about the price of an inferior printer + upgrades, and zero of the hours and hassle, you can get a really good printer that most of the time just works. and if you don’t care to print with filaments like abs/asa that leave a residue on the inside of the printer (and outside if your area isn’t well ventilated - don’t breath those fumes) then you’ll have to clean it less.

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I came to Bambu after owning an Ender 3 S1 Pro that was an absolute lemon. I fought with that dumb thing for over a year and only netted a handful of successful prints after spending a ton of money replacing bad parts and upgrades…. The X1C has been an amazing printer, runs great and I’ve only had a few print failures, all of which were my error. It took me a few months to get brave enough to try multicolored prints with the AMS but even that works great. I’ve printed both functional parts and “fun” projects with it.

Go through the various “must haves” videos to make your printing experience even better.

Pretty similar route that I had too. I rebuilt an Ender 3v2 with a better motherboard, 2nd z motor, bed probe, filament sensor, touchscreen and a fancy direct drive head. Had to compile the Marlin myself. Drove me nuts trying to keep it calibrated and was still slow, had variable results and plenty of failed prints.

The regular maintainance is easy and the wiki is very good on the Bambu site.

I own an X1C and an A1 mini. There is no doubt that Bambu makes a fantastic machine that is second to none. The issues that usually arise are related to customer service. I may be the odd one out here that is willing to say it, but I find truth better than any other way.
I started with an Ender that I fought with constantly. It currently sits in a corner and I use the single filament arm as a spool holder when I Need to respool some filament. It was absolutely garbage. I was about to just say screw 3d printing and I came across a video on the X1C. A pricey unit for someone like me who had very little experience with successful 3D printing. I found it amazingly easy to use. I still do find it remarkably easy to use. In the early days I did have quite a few issues with firmware updates failing and disabling the machine. I would have to find the old software and reload it to get it back online and working. For that reason I ignored updates for quite a while. It seems this has been remedied between then and now and I typically update when it shows up these days. Shortly after I bought the X1 I saw the filament “club” on their site. I had had a few small issues and thought I’d submit a request for further information on the “club” and knock out a few technical questions. Their customer service just plain sucked. It took 3 days to get a response. The way they responded was borderline offensive to me as a customer. They demand proof of purchase immediately and don’t offer support until you provide it. (they did in my case anyway) My inquiry of the filament “club” was met with the dumbest answer I have ever seen from any company. You don’t get the 6 month membership unless you buy it directly from them. Ok, fine. Then how can I join I asked? You can’t join. After the 6 months, you can’t renew. Yet they still sent me link after link about the “club.” Why promote something that cannot be purchased or renewed? It is just plain stupid and if that’s the way they intend to run it then they should just shut it down because if you got the free 6 months and loved it, to bad you lose it after the 6 months. They didn’t answer any of my tech questions, most of which probably only needed two to three sentences to resolve. (which I did on my own after this experience) I then received two separate responses apologizing for the first responses. They basically said they were sorry and wanted to resolve my problems. I never responded back as I was flat disgusted by their service. That being said, the machines are still top notch. Just have low expectations for dealing with customer service or plan on solving issues yourself. Also, they recently stopped selling the cool plate adhesives. I have little info on that other than what I read which was they are going to only the PEI plates. I have more issues with the PEI plates that you can shake a stick at. I never have any issues on the cold plate. The biggest difference I see is the sales end. Cool plates were $8.99 wile PEI plates are $15.99. Basically they doubled the price for the replace adhesives.
I’m sure there are plenty of people who disagree with me, but I thought you’d like to know a real experience. I, much like you, didn’t read the reviews or learn about the customer service issues until after the fact. I had been looking at buying their commercial line but after all that, I looked to other vendors to spends thousands of dollars with.

I have 2 X1C printers and both have been excellent over the past 16 months.

I had a fault in the camera on one units after about 6 or 8 months and Bambu replaced it without any hassle or delay.

I’ve been printing with Geeentech PETG and ABS for many months without a single jam and one.a.few failed prints which were probably down to fingerprints on the bead.

I’ve also used a lot of Fiberlogy filament but couldn’t get it on spools that fitted in the AMS so went looking for an alternative which the Geeentech is.

I don’t think you’ll find a better printer.

Happy Printing!

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I have been printing since 2011 and have built and bought many 3d printers but my X1C and AMS is the best printer I have bar none, the customer service was a bit naff when they first appeared but that is usual for a startup, the CS has improved 10 fold since then though.
I have had mine for 4 months now and I love it, I calibrated the printer for tramming and filament flow on day one and have not had to make any further tramming or flow calibrations since that day, the firmware is awesome and the UI is very intuitive, you will not be spending any time tinkering with it unless you have an AMS and want to re-calibrate its settings to save on waste filament when printing multi-colour prints but that is very easy to do following a YT tutorial.
Re order that printer, it will be blow your mind just how fast it is and the print quality is spot on!

My X1C is my 4th printer. The others required messing with, although not terrible. The X1C has been great out of the box. I’ve had about 4 issues in just over a year. One took me a day to solve. Finally figured out it was issue in nozzle assembly and when took it apart it was PLA Silk that had a string issue, like a twig, that plugged the nozzle. Replaced entire nozzle assembly and good to go. Spare parts are so cheap I have several but haven’t needed since that one clog. Had a couple filament breaks, easy fix in minutes. Probably because I don’t dry filament. I use all brands but don’t like cardboard spools. Now mainly use PETG because it prints great every time with no bed adhesive. Just clean with alcohol just before every print and good to go (PETG with engineering plate is my choice). It was very loud but recent software update reduced that a lot. I use Bambu slicer with almost always default settings. If $$ not an issue, get X1C. Otherwise P series is best bang for buck. I’ve never called for support after hearing about how bad they are, but then I tinker and solve issue myself even though I don’t want to. Fewer issues with Bambu than any other printer I’ve had or heard about.

I own ten X1C Combos (with AMS). One I’ve had for a year and a quarter, the others have been printing 12-18 hours a day since November. Out of those 10, I’ve been printing nothing but PLA, through the AMS, door open. No issues with clogged nozzles.

I’ve experienced a few issues requiring repair: two printers needed their Carbon X-Y assembly replaced (which is a PITA). As a part of the first printer’s issue, they also had me replace the toolhead boards but I think those were just a guess. I’ve had one AMS cover go bad, easy fix. And one AMS that needed a feeder motor/splitter assembly, also fairly easy.

Here and there we’ve had operator error, where we missed a printer poop on the bed during printing and it caused a print failure. I’ve also noticed that the PTFE tube at the top wears through fairly quickly because of the questionable design of rubbing it right up against the glass top.

The AMS path design is also a bit wonky, with misdeeds sometimes. And the AMS itself is optimized for Bambu spools but not others. I run mine with 90% PolyMaker so I had to print spool covers for the cardboard spools. Not a big deal.

Overall. I’d say the X1C Combo is your best bet if you want to print multi-filament and if you’re considering load bearing parts that use ABS or Nylon or whatever.

If you’re just doing PLA, you could get away with the P1P but…I dunno. Really depends on what you’re doing.

Just wanted to say that Bambu is relatively responsive. The first rail failure took a month from reporting to getting parts in hand. The second one took a couple of months. So support is hit or miss but you’ll eventually get the printer repaired under warranty if it has issues. They may be slow to respond with an engineering response, but eventually they get there. Also, keep in mind that any repair is completed by YOU with parts they send you. The X1C has sides you have to remove every time you want to fix anything major. The P1P does not, unless you add them. So maybe the P1P is a better starter printer? But enclosures are important for maintaining higher temperatures, if you’ll be printing ones that require it. (PLA does not.)

Anyway, hope that helps a little.

In the end, I have eight printers that have experienced no issues (running over half a day since November 2023), and only one actual AMS component failure. Not bad for a print farm.

I had an issue when I removed the nozzle to change it for another and I could not get the replacement or the original nozzle back in, it turned out that one of the threaded brass inserts that the nozzle screws go into had become proud of the surface, I called my UK vendor that I bought the printer from and I got a new extruder next day delivery, the Company is Technology Outlet, I have bought quite a few printers through them and their after-sales service is second to none.

I’m an ex Ender 3 Pro user. I “paid my dues” with that machine, learning many things about the nuances of 3D printing. I learned the discipline of ensuring bed levelling and z offset were in good condition before every print and I learned how to ensure that I always printed a perfect first layer. I enjoyed the learning and felt content that I had stepped beyond the threshold of rank beginner. I decided then that I was either going to upgrade to a top class 3D printer or get out of the hobby. By belonging to Facebook groups and forums like this one I decided that I deserved a Bambu Lab printer. I had almost settled on an A1 but no, the filament handling for colour takes up too much room, and there’s the risk of environmental damage to the open spools, so I looked to the P1 range, but again, no. The X1C has all the boxes ticked. Even though I don’t feel the passion to launch into exotic filaments, I can if I want to. Who knows what’s around the corner? Anyway it’s day two of my X1C. I’m currently printing spools to convert a batch of eSun cardboard filament

New Bambu user here, mine arrived 5 days ago.
My first 3D printer was a Sidewinder X1 at the start of Covid, after about a year I bought an Ender 5 Max and now I have the X1-C.
I’m not getting any younger, I have upgraded my previous printers in various ways and if one broke down now I wouldn’t have a clue how to delve into the settings or code to fix it. I’m past doing that stuff now, hence my decision.
I’ve done about 20 prints so far (PLA & PETG, various brands) and have had zero problems. I really like the way Bambu Studio works, especially when fed with pre-made profiles. It just doesn’t get any easier. Print quality is the best I’ve seen so far and I’ve just learnt that support material is no hassle to remove, worlds apart from My previous printers. so easy! Everything has stuck to the PEI bed fine so far, I don’t touch it, just wipe it with a damp cloth. Are wet wipes OK? That would save going to the kitchen sink :thinking:
Initially I thought I didn’t need the AMS but the other day I thought I’d try a simple multi-colour print - but manually. I couldn’t suss it out - so gave up. There’s a way of slicing and adding pauses to the gcode for you to change colours - but that’s by layer only if I’m not mistaken. I’ll wait for a sale on the units.
Buying a 3D printer and having it work out of the box without setting it up, tweaking, calibrating and replacing crappy parts is well worth the initial outlay in my mind, I’d thoroughly recommend anyone getting one if you just want to design and print without all the other hassles we’ve had to deal with in the past :slight_smile:

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help!! People… I dont know what happen

Looks like you’re trying to print too steep of an overhang.