Anyone else excited to see what this will be? I’m guessing its a small unit that goes over the rear ptfe tube inlets and has a motor which drives the tpu at the same speed as the motors in the toolhead and maybe the AMS. Its really great to see bambu lab are adding improvements to the printers.
oh I didn’t see that one!
I’d seen those photos before but now I look closely I’m wondering what printer that is.
It looks like there is only 1 PTFE inlet for regular filament so not an H2D or H2C but it has a glass window in the side and a dark grey colour scheme so not an H2S or a P2S. The TPU inlet is also higher on the back than an H2.
If it was an H2 you’d also see two horizontal bars from the printer framework across the inside of the window.
Maybe it’s an AI generated spoof, but otherwise wtf is it?
P2 or X2 series.
First seen here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/comments/1plumvo/possible_x2dc_and_upcoming_accessories_leak_in/
I’m really excited too. There’s speculation here about the printer being the new X2.
Yeah, that’s why I said might be… Some have speculated the printer is a X2D with a second nozzle fed by a bowden extruder (that box). We’ll see… it could be both
I rather believe that this box is the TPU Feed Assist module, which should be available soon.
This is actually most likely not a feed assist, but rather second extruder, because there’s no enough space for it in the inside and it’s proved by another leaked images
I bet its both. Just guesses though. I bet the feed assist is a hybrid system and the assist portion will also be for a 2nd nozzle on the x2c. For tpu, I bet it will be bowden/direct drive push/pull and maybe not work on the x2c unless you swap the internal tube from normal bowden side to the hybrid side. When the hybrid side nozzle lifts, the feed assist will pull some filament back, to get rid of the slack created in the tube, for stuff like 85a that may bind up.
Oh bambu lab, beautiful bambu lab!
Can’t wait to try this. I’ve been putting off printing tpu for ages because I had to balance the filament dryer on about 7 boxes and monitor it every half an hour.
https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/tpu-feed-assist-module
Maybe I haven’t used it enough, but using my ams ht on top of my printer with tpu coming out of the external slot has worked well with 95 and 90a for me! Would this also work for 60a?
In their wiki it says (if there is an extrusion issue with TPU)…
“TPU filament used is less than 85A hard, and the material is too soft to be properly engaged by the extruder gears, resulting in extrusion failure.
TPU with a hardness below 85A needs to be replaced, and the official bambu Lab filament should be used to ensure reliable feeding.“
… so I think it might only be 85A and above?
Kindly could Bambu lab please confirm what tpu hardness you can use because it doesn’t seem to say. @SupportAssistant
Bang on! Just released by Bambu Lab with printed housing.
For TPU85A and above, no additional feeder is required. It feeds perfectly well with the extruder feeder. So, it’s a useless device. ![]()
In my experience, the hot end extruder does not reliably pull filament through the PTFE bypass tube. Especially for < 95A or if a drybox of any kind is adding resistance. Printing with soft TPU usually requires removing the PTFE tube entirely along with the top glass and feeding straight into the extruder. Not convenient, especially if you have the AMS 2 on top of the machine.
I have been using a Mellow LLL Plus external feeder connected to the bypass PTFE since I first got my H2D just to make it more convenient to print with TPU or 3Kg+ spools. It works well, but it was a whole project to get it set up and modified for this application. Having a similar Bambu supported feed assist that communicates with the printer will be a nice upgrade for me.
I print fine with TPU85A (SirayaTech Flex), feeding it through the auxiliary port directly into the right extruder. The spool hangs on a ball bearing hanger (for reduced rotational resistance). Long prints run without any issues. Do we all have different TPU85A?
Of course, there shouldn’t be any issues with more harder TPU when feeding through the auxiliary port.
As you mentioned, there is a lot a variation in TPU/TPE. I print with a lot of different TPU varieties which is why I felt compelled to come up with my own external feed assist solution. NinjaFlex 85A was a no-go through the bypass tube alone. Some 92A I had was unreliable (~25% failure). Some 82A TPE would work fine 90% of the time, but that is just enough to be annoying. I have some 60A, 70A, and foaming I want to experiment with more, but they won’t even feed through the Mellow LLL feeder without further customization because the filament path is not constrained enough. So, while this may not be useful for you and the filaments you print with, I’m really hopeful that it will be a more refined version of the custom Mellow LLL solution that has been very convenient for me.
Despite Bambu’s branding, I’m not sure the use cases are limited to just TPU either. I have used my external feeder in the past for a 3kg spool and a 5kg spool that were showing signs of underextrusion without the external assist. I have also used it for extremely brittle filament that kept breaking in the PTFE tube. With the external feeder, it would still break in the tube, but it wouldn’t matter because the filament was being pushed along by the feeder and not just pulled by the hot end. Anyway, for very finicky filament I have found it very helpful and I’m hopeful Bambu’s solution will be even better. I have ordered one, so I’ll find out soon enough.
To me, they should work without spending more money on something to take TPU. Money spinner.
I had high hopes for the TPU feed assist module and the nozzles, but it looks like this is simply Bambu Lab realizing that their original design was not suited for TPU, that the community wants TPU, and that they needed to fix that. So now the plastic part of the cold end is replaced with a coated metal piece and an additional motor is added to reduce resistance of the reverse bowden. Selling this as a high flow nozzle is somewhat deceiving, since the nozzle is apparently identical to the standard nozzle. Only the cold end is changed.

