Since getting the P1S last week I have been unable to reliably bind the P1S to my account. Here are the steps I follow:
- Reset wifi settings on printer.
- Delete the device from the mobile app.
- Use the QR code with the mobile app to start the bind process.
- The bluetooth configuration already exists from previous attempts, and moves to step 2.
- I select the wifi network and enter the password.
- The printer gets an IP address assigned.
- At this point the app is stuck with a “Connecting” spinner and eventually times out after 5 minutes or so.
- I have also tried binding using BambuStudio on the Mac, binding via access code and IP address, but that never works either.
- I have set up a dedicated WiFi network for the printer that uses the same VLan as my main wifi. Here are those settings:
- I’m using a dedicated WiFi network because all my other ones have special characters/spaces in the name and passwords. Other posts indicated that those could pose potential issues with the Bambu printers.
- I am sometimes able to get a brief connection if I completely factory reset the P1S, but it doesn’t maintain, and after a few attempts at printing (which often fail due to unstable wifi connection) eventually BambuStudio is unable to connect to the P1S anymore.
- This is my only printer.
- The AP is in the same room, with clear line of sight.
- I am using all Unifi hardware for network. I have heard that there seem to be compatibility issues between Bambu printers and Unifi networks, but nowhere specifically has been able to identify what is wrong.
- I have tried shifting the WiFi to channel 6 with 40MHz channel width, which doesn’t seem to help.
I have not yet contacted Bambu support, figuring the community will be much more supportive and effective at providing a troubleshooting direction, if not a solution. But I’m open to creating a support ticket, if that is recommended.
Thanks for any suggestions as to what I might try to further troubleshoot the issue.
Update 1
I decided to remove the bluetooth connection from my phone, completely quite the Bambu mobile app, erase the network settings on the P1S and power-cycle it, then start the process over anew. Now I get this warning when trying to bind the printer after entering the wifi name and password:
Update 2
Since I am always able to get an IP address, I decided to ping it and see what happens. Turns out the P1S has huge packet loss!
42 packets transmitted, 39 packets received, 7.1% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 18.559/2773.039/13467.131/4044.947 ms
Any recommendations on where to go from here?
Update 3
I tried connecting the printer to my normal IoT WiFi network that has all the other IoT stuff on it, and would you know it, the printer connected, despite the password having a special character in it.
That tells me that something with the other dedicated WiFi network I had set up was not working right, so I deleted it and will use the IoT network and see how that goes.
How frustrating.