I started with 3D printing in 2015 and a delta printer, after many years and thousands of hours of printing and upgrades i am looking to buy new printer that i don’t have to thinker as much with as with my old one.
My delta is a RostockMax V2 with Duet2 WiFi with 7 inch touch screen that i swapped in few years ago as the old one died. Installed E3D v6 hotend and custom metal effector. went thru 4 different extruders with last one being BondTech LGX that allowed me to print flexible filaments like Ninjaflex.
All that said, some parts on the printer are loosing tolerances, screws are getting loose more and more often from thermal cycling and its getting out of calibration more and more often.
I have seen some reviews of the Bamboo Lab printers and everyone is really happy with theirs. Below are few concerns i have:
Print volume advertised as 256^3 but in fine print that is not the case. It is locked to 250mm in Z and part of the bed is reserved for filament cutter.
Some filament and nozzle size profiles are really bad/unusable from reading posts here. Relying on community supported profiles for bigger nozzles, TPU filaments and so on. I thought that hardware and software being a closed, proprietary in order for the company to make the product work, not users trying to come up with solutions to their problems.
On the website it states that X1 will work with all kinds of filaments, yet i see people do not suggest printing TPU softer than 95. Yet i am printing A85 ninjaflex on my old printer, with 500mm bowden tube at 2.5 to 3mm^3, with no problems with 0.4mm nozzle. To me that seems like on oversight on a $1000 printer not to make the extruder compatible with softer TPU filaments.
Comparing filament path in P1 and Creality/bondtech (see pictures), the latter has a bit more support for filament, that bit more support made a huge difference for my printer and flex filaments.
All that being said, i am ranting here a bit and that comes from the chill effect on the excitement I had when i was about to order the X1 printer. I was really looking forward to getting one and now i am not sure if i really should and that makes me sad. I thought, after years of fiddling and upgrading and tinkering with my printer i would be able to just upgrade and not have to worry about much with the exception of some maintenance and cleaning.
I guess i am looking for some positive spin on it or should I keep looking for other options/printers.
I think the problem with the tpu, is if you try to use it with the ams unit. The bed size, if the last mm of size is important, then you need a bigger printer. You can fit a clip (apparently) to use the area used by the cut off, afaik. As for filament settings, if you are fussy, they need need to be more or less changed for each reel/colour that you use (never mind brand). The Orca slicer has pretty good calibation tests.
The full 256mm³ print volume is available, but not usable with AMS or automatic filament cutting. It’s a minor limitation that has never been an issue for me. If those last few cubic mm are critical, you should look for a larger printer.
The default Bambu and generic filament profiles I’ve used all work. Some can be improved with additional calibration. Filaments vary and fine tuning always provides at least minor improvements with any printer.
Thank you,
I am aware of the AMS not being compatible with TPU filaments. I was referring to multiple posts on the forum and redit talking about TPU jams in the extruder. Hence me comparing filament path in the Bontech vs Bambu extruders, with Bondtech being more suited to TPUs.
I do understand that each filament is different. My gripe is with showing off the printer with perfect prints out of the box and than finding out that it only applies to 0.4 mm nozzle and PLA filament. All that while selling 0.2, 0.6 and 0.8mm nozzles and not spending time to provide profiles that match the quality of profile for 0.4mm nozzle. I might be wrong about it, but i have seen few posts of people complain about the default profiles other than for 0.4 and PLA.
Thank you for pointing out the Orca slicer. i will give it a whirl with my printer.
I don’t mind the build volume being a bit smaller than advertised, the problem i have is that it is advertised as such. That is misleading, but that is my feeling about it.
Yet again my problem is with the reviews and advertising itself: “Look how great the prints are, such fine tuned profiles for filaments and perfect prints”. than after some digging on forums and such come to find out that it is not totally true. I do understand fine tuning and such.
Thank you for the link. i am aware of the AMS/TPU compatibility. I have seen some posts here, on redit and few videos showing flex filament jamming in the extruder. Might be user error, most likely. See my rant about the filament path in the bambu vs bondtech. Also i have seen some people had to modify/cut the shroud on the extruder assembly to access the tensioner bolt to prevent TPU jamming.
It is not my intention to just complain, my intention is to find out as much as possible about the product i am considering spending my money on, that includes the printer itself as well as the support. That is why i don’t understand you comment about complaining about something i did not use or owned, would you rather i make my decision about purchasing something without finding out as much as possible about the product?
Keep in mind that some of the printing issues you may see here can be user error, too. Filaments not dry, wild speed settings, too hot of printer chamber, or whatever. You kind of need to read their posts carefully and decide for yourself if it’s user error or printer fault.
I haven’t printed TPU. So far just PLA, ASA, and PETG HF. The printer has been stellar for what I do but obviously YMMV.
More important to me than the build plate size, is if you print by-object, there is in many cases a lot of space wasted. I changed my nozzle to 0.6 hss, and also the hot end to a cheap after-market variety. I’ve had no problem with it, other than the usual ones with petg. The bbl profile for petg was, for some folk not good, but I think that is often due to the environment in which the printer is used, also many users had not much experience, (believed the marketing hype) plus the fact that when printing at higher speed than many earlier printers, the filament needs more precise control, and petg varies so much between brands. Btw. I believe that bbl does not have their own filament manufacturing facility, it matters not to me, since I’ve never felt the need to buy their filament.
Fwiw, I bought a P1s, no ams, since I’m more interested in useful prints as opposed to ornamental. Now, other manufacturers have caught up with bbl, and I think now I would be looking for something more open source, something with Klipper, but for a machine that you want to treat like a closed system, then the bbl is fine. I’m not interested in the bbl idea wrt. maker’s world or their ‘cloud’, so that is not a selling point to me, probably the opposite, but in spite of that I do not regret buying the P1s.
I’ve looked at a lot of user reviews of other printers, most seem to have something along the lines of 'its the next best thing next to Bambu ’
I have a flashforge adventurer 5m Pro, and I’d say the same thing about my flashforge printer. It’s a great printer, buts its not Bambu great. Bought Bambu on recommendation, then found this forum right after I ordered. Reading some of the issues here I was thinking maybe I’d made a mistake. Those feelings were laid to rest after it arrived and I was up and printing within the hour.
Having a little experience now, when I see posted issues, I see user error generally.
Thank you all for the input. Most of my concerns have been dispelled and now I am a proud owner of a P1S, along with a Hardened nozzle and extruder gears. AMS might follow.
The thing I found, not using bbl filament, their generic profiles were a bit slow, and petg was hopeless. It may have been improved, but I fairly soon started on Orca slicer, since that had fairly comprehensive profiling test prints. (I changed the nozzle size, etc, and had to reprofile again), but coming from the extensive messing about/alterations I did on my Ender 3, that was not a problem.
Right now, I wouldnt go with anything but a bambu, qidi plus 4 or prusa xl if youre feeling rich. If youre feeling extreme, get a 500mm ratrig vcore 4 with hybrid drive and idex
