Review of the X1 Carbon by the dutchman

Bambu Lab X1 Series General discussions
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Review of the X1 Carbon

Hello people ,

I have a X1-Carbon since a few weeks and found out some things , i think i need to share with you !!!
The X1 is a monster of a machine, really good made, strong , and delivering good prints and results
BUTTTTTT there some things to think about or complaints i have with this printer .

1.CUSTOMER SERVICE
Really bad, tickets need to be made for complaints and you never get the answer needed, therefore they send you to the wiki pages !!
If i need help or do have complaints i want an honest answer !!and taken seriously .
Bambu goes wild on our support they say, i dont agree …

  1. LAN CONNECTION
    WHY and WHY do i need to make all kind of stupid actions to get my printer to work?
    First you need a pincode, then you need a qr code, then you need a ANDROID phone to make a connection with the printer and slicer , TRULLY BAD !!

I bought this printer so i can print thru my own LAN network , BAMBU offers LAN connections BUT then you can’t use the onboard camera and the android app!!

  1. BAMBU PRINTS THRU CLOUD SERVICE ??
    Bambu uses cloudservice to print, why is this needed ? for me this is a way to monitor my printer, and that they can see what my printer does and what i do…
    If asked about that ,the answer is their cloudservice is safe ??? NO WAY !!! a cloud network is never safe , i am very curious why BAMBU thinks they are safe and reply this way …
    I do insist my privacy al lot ,BAMBU does not offer that ,this way

After each print the printer asks me how the print was …
WHY ??? so Bambu can monitor what i did ? i dont like that !
( its something like asking was the S*X as good for U as it was for ME??)

5.X1 HAS SHAKEN UP SYNDROME*
the X1 has a extreme shake problem, the fastness of printing comes with shaken problem!
This might not be very good for my printer i think, a solution is made but you need to BUY or print anti vibration feet yourself !!!
For the price we pay this must be solved or vibration feet need to be a standard thing

  1. THE AMS
    the AMS has some things to mention: its not possible to put wide filament spools in, they simply don’t fit… this printers takes a lot so lot of filament is used !
    AND most irritating is BAMBU wants you to use their filament with the tags in it ? WHY is that ?
    Also monitoring to see when my filament spool is empty so they can offer me a expensive new one ?
    When i want to print with third party filaments thats possible BUT i need to choose every time i want to print ,what AMS slot i want to use !!!
    I can’t preset it and my own choosen filaments don’t stay recognized in the AMS

Conclusion:
i think their might be more for you to consider and think about buying a BAMBU printer
( i will add some more things i find out when i do )
Ok the X1 is a good made machine, but software wise, firmware wise and mostly customer service wise they need to improve badly !!!

NB ( i am a dutchman, might be some english grammer miss takes )

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Sorry if i insult you, but befor bought my P1S i did research about it. Seen lots of reviews. I knew this would be a good printer (better then my old Enders) and i also knew there where some improvements. So when i bought the P1S i knew what i was buying.
After every print you download from MW BambuStudio asks how the print was. Yes, that’s not for Bambu, but to rate the designers profile.
Privacy conserns of a cloudservice? Your living in 2024, noting if private anymore.

My advice; Do your research befor you buy.

Met vriendelijke groeten van een andere Nederlander

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Don’t worry about grammar or syntax, not everyone here is a native English speaker. The important thing is for your message to get across, which it did.
As for your criticism, all of us (or most of us) are fully aware of BL’s “shortcomings”… either through our due diligence prior to purchasing the printer, or, like you, after the purchase (not desirable, but it does happen). And while all your criticism is well deserved, there are ways to go around some of these shortcomings you point out, and you’ll find
most of these solutions by going through the various topics on this forum, and what you can’t find here, you can always ask the user community. You’ll be surprised on how many people here are willing to help and provide really useful tips, experience and relevant information.
And while some shortcomings are a necessary evil (like being connected to internet for product registration, use of the camera and BL apps, as well as for firmware and software updates), some others are deemed by most users either unnecessary or highly privacy intrusive. Sadly, BL is based in China
and the GDPR ain’t applicable to them, though they are using a third-party , registered in Germany, for selling their products in the EU.
As for using BL’s “secure” cloud, as you’ve already found out, it ain’t by far secure nor private. There’s, however, the option of using the printer only in LAN mode (with the disadvantages you’ve mentioned) or simply using the SD card.
For the anti-vibration feet, as well as accommodating larger or broader filament spools in your AMS, several very ingenious and creative makers have shared for free STL files responding precisely to your needs. You may find them easily on both
printables.com and makerworld.com .
For the remaining of your criticism, even if justified and to the point, there are no other options ayt this time, especially when it comes to customer support, quality, promptness and transparency in communications. You do have the option to file a formal complaint with the Dutch Consumer Protection Bond, or even escalate those issues to your national or EU Ombudsman… but do bear in mind that they’ll be limited in their potential enforcement actions due to the fact that BL is in a different jurisdiction, outside the EEA.

Preserving one’s privacy is and will definitely remain a main concern for most Europeans. Using and relying on cloud service providers presents always security and privacy risks, that could be mitigated through heavy encryption where only the user has the encryption key, and the servers are localized in an EEA jurisdiction. There’s more to cloud security than just encryption, but this is a topic for later.
Executing a proper and full due diligence process prior to acquiring a costly product or service should always be a priority. Not being aware of the shortcomings because one hasn’t bothered with, or didn’t know how to execute it, should not be an excuse (and it’s not). But then again, not everyone is an attorney or a legal counsel to know these things. Nevertheless, such unfortunate situations do occur and teach those found in such situations a tough (snd costly) life lesson. At one point or another in our lives, we all have gone through such an unplesant snd unwanted experience… uiteindelijk leert iedereen van zijn leven ervaringen en zorgt ervoor dat hij ze niet herhaalt.

Mvg.:call_me_hand:

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I hate to break bad news to you, but those of us who have been around this forum for a while know one undeniable fact: Bambu does not care! Through their deeds and actions, they have proven that it’s their way or the highway. And as long as people keep buying their product, are they wrong?

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Purchasing a company’s product doesn’t necessarily mean that the user endorses the company’s bad behavior… acquiring and using Apple products doesn’t necessarily mean that the user likes or supports the manner in which Apple conducts its business… but then again, BL’s business model is very much a copy-paste of Apple’s business model… (how appropriate is the comparison I’ve just made, I leave it for you to decide). Nevertheless, BL does care for its…let’s call it “reputation”… although not to the point of improving its current support for the existing customers. While there are some who claim to have had a flawless customer support experience, there are many times more customers complaining of having very bad experiences. And many of those negative experiences are circulated more than the positive ones… in time those cumulated bad experiences will have a clear impact on BL sales, even if they come up with another innovative 3d printer flagship like they did with the X1series, as these printers target the “out of the box” users, and not the hard line “tinkerers”… so without proper customer support, most of the targeted audience/potential buyers will choose either a different product or simply choose to wait a bit longer for the next best “out of the box” thing…

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Your observations are spot-on.

Many of us remember Gateway 2000, a big name in the early PC era, but it eventually failed due to poor market anticipation and customer support. In contrast, Dell turned around its poor reputation by listening to customers, leading to long-term success.

Will Bambu face a similar fate? They’ve innovated with the X1, but their apparent lack of concern for customer feedback is worrying. As the OP pointed out, several issues need addressing, yet Bambu seems unresponsive. In a rapidly evolving tech market, ignoring customer needs can be fatal.

I hope I’m wrong, but without a shift in how they engage with their community, Bambu might find themselves overtaken by competitors who prioritize customer input. The lesson here: even market leaders must stay connected to their customers, or risk becoming obsolete.

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Maybe one point on shaking and anti vibration feet: I read that actually those feet are detrimental to print quality. The best thing to do is putting the printer on a rock solid surface. This could be a very heavy piece of furniture. I have attached a sideboard to the wall. Even if the high speed and high acceleration seen scary at first, you quickly get used to it. I haven’t heard of a lot of failures, so it seems they designed the printer to withstand those rough movements. I wouldn’t fear any damage from that.

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Regarding the AMS: I think you can find the specifications for the max spool size on the product page. They had to decide for an arbitrary size, so there will always be spools that don’t (edit: missing word) fit. Their choice seems reasonable to me, I could fit most filaments I wanted to.
I see the RFID tag as a pure convenience feature. You could even tear it out without any impact on functionality if you don’t like it. Then you have enter the same information that the tag populates automatically for you.

Choice of slot when starting a print works exactly the same for me wether I use bambu or 3rd party filament. I just have to manually assign type and color on the printer when I load a new 3rd party roll.

Can you explain where you have to repeatedly select slots ?

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Bigger spools:
https://www.printables.com/model/680027-hydra-pro-advanced-bambu-lab-ams

Use a managed Switch for more protection, you only have to use port 80.
Groet

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