I am SO frustrated: we’re forced to use the horrible micro-SD card slot in our new X1C/AMS for transferring files from Bambu Studio, and we’ve lost all hope of remote process control and monitoring. This is because at our university (like many) the WiFi is crippled. Please, BambuLab, consider how difficult you have made it to use your great product by omitting these two ports, and by making Bambu Studio ONLY work via WiFi.
This is a deal killer for us-- as much we like your printers, we probably won’t buy more for our labs at WPI unless and until this is corrected. FYI, we’re looking to outfit labs all over the campus, could mean a LOT of printers.
This issue would likely be the same for government bases (any location that is doing secure work). I did work on a Navy base for awhile and data connections were limited to wired connections. For us there it was no WiFi, no thumb drives, and I would assume that covers no memory cards of any kind.
I agree that ethernet would be very helpful - especially if we could do ‘Wake on LAN’ to wake the printer from deep sleep.
I don’t understand your comment about Bambu Studio only working via Wifi. It just needs to be on the same LAN and the PC/Mac running BS can be connected via ethernet or Wifi.
Other reason it’s needs a ethernet connection is the printer and computer have to be on the same subnet in “LAN Mode” and lot of network these days are using different VLAN’s for LAN devices and Wireless devices. With the cloud service going up and down a lot this past month it’s been hard as we don’t use SD cards and have computers and wireless devices on different subnet so can’t even use the printer until the cloud service comes back. Getting really frustrating for a printer that cost this much money. Heck if they don’t want to add the ethernet add the USB printing option and can use something like Octoprint.
We have tried that in our school setting. Not sure what the problem is, we even registered the MAC address with our netops, the printer just won’t see the internet. Wish it was otherwise, getting quite frustrated. What’s odd about this is that we have done the exact same thing with laptops connecting via wifi through a cheap access point to the building wiring, works fine.
There’s something strange about the protocol or ports that the printer is using (MQTT for example) that hangs it up. I’m not a network engineer, otherwise I’d put a sniffer on and see what’s really going on. That’s above my pay grade…
invisible – Perhaps I mis-spoke re BS. What I meant to say is that the fact that BS can’t use an ordinary USB connection to a hypothetical matching USB port on the printer means that I’m stuck working through their cloud no matter how you slice it (no pun intended).
I concur with galluccib above re USB. I am also a user of OctoPrint – it’s not quite as robust as the BS interface (assuming I could get it to work), but it’s a far sight better than sneaker-net via the microSD card.
I’m private sector. We have no wifi at all. We don’t do anything top secret but because we deal with identifiable info (think social security numbers, IDs, passports) wifi is not secure enough and everything is wired. I would never try to set up this printer in the office using a work network.
That said, I could bring it to work and use my own hotspot without issue. Well, the only issue would be why I’m not doing my job and playing with a printer but you get the idea.
What I love is that I can paint and set up prints when on break and send them from my laptop to my printer at home.
If you remove the foam tape from the extender board located on the inside of the top crossbar you will see a bunch of connectors including a USB connector. This board has the micro USB slot that the external memory card goes into. To me it looks like the hardware is ready.
I like to protect my privacy and therefore WiFi is not acceptable.
On a different note, abbreviating is a sure way to confuse your message. For example using BS means one thing and I know that is not what you meant.
This is the second printer I have that is insisting on a full time connection to the “home planet” to obtain full capability. This is a choice Bambu Labs has made. Perhaps in the future things will change but it will likely go against their business model.
I sent the first 3d printer back back because you could not calibrate it ran on default values, sure you can tweak in each job (except for the extruder flow calibration) but why can’t a machine be calibrate at any time the owner chooses?
As an long shot, I just read a German thread where the author replaced that I/O board. I will ask for pictures of both sides which may lead to more useful information.
There is a USB port for the camera that some have found to works a USB hub.
This suggests that Bambu may only have to drop an open source Ethernet driver into the printer’s firmware to allow support of standard USB Ethernet dongles.
We cannot use Bambu products our workplace due to this limitation.
I found an interesting web page, maintained by BambuLab. It shows the MANY network ports that are used in WAN and LAN mode. I guess I’m not surprised that, even with a little access point, my school’s clamped-down network doesn’t work for this printer.
I’m going to be in the same boat, setting up a x1 carbon in a university environment.
Our wifi isnt locked down but requires a active directory log in. We have generic log ins but assume its a standard find the ssid enter a password.
As for adding our own wifi router if we hooked it up to an ethernet port, one we have to assign a static ip to, it would be noticed on the network and main it would come around with wifi sniffers and find it. So opening ports probably isnt issue getting connected would be.
Click Windows Start Menu.
2. type “mobile hotspot” and open it
3. Click edit, name network, give it a a password and make the band 2.4ghz
4. Turn on “Share my internet connections with other devices”
5. Connect printer to [newly created]network(up to 8 devices can connect).
That is a free solution that I hope works outside of using a phone hotspot."
Poster wasn’t sure if it works behind school/work networks as the OP never replied back if it worked or not.
Thanks for the suggestion. This is actually one of the first things I tried. Due to the many ports that the printer uses, and the restrictions inherent in the on-campus network, it would try to connect but never quite get there.