Warped bed :( seems like a common QC issue

Bambu Lab X1 Series
210

That’s awesome. I did receive a replacement bed and it is warped as well, in fact a lot worse than the original one in the machine.

I talked to support, and at first they wanted me to install the replacement banana bed, but now they have agreed that if I am willing to wait they will ship me a new bed once they become available “in a few weeks”. As I have heard they are revamping their QC and expecting new, better QC’ed beds, by “end of March” as per another post above.

@All, if you want your money back you will always have that option. HOWEVER, if you want to make this work, then be kind with support folks, but remain firm.

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If there is anyone here from Europe who has a bent print bed left over from a spare parts shipment: Would you send me one before you throw it away? I live in Germany and will of course cover the shipping costs.

I would like to test if it can be straightened carefully at a certain temperature. :slightly_smiling_face:

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You really need to do the check on the bed and not on the build plate. I have a P1P with the textured plate and light shows through everywhere. With the build plate removed I have no light leakage.

Also as mentioned trying to slide a post-it under is probably better than light in this case. You don’t need perfect flatness. If the corner of a post-it won’t slide under anywhere you are flat within about .003 inches and that is more than flat enough for a quality print.

I’m sure some users did get warped beds, but I suspect most are just suffering from reading post and worrying and then checking with the light. Then they believe that there is a problem which isn’t actually there.

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Good point. If you do large prints the plates eventually get warped (and you’ll notice that the magnetic force isn’t as effective on the corners, hence print clamps!)

In my case I measured both ways, sideways, up and under, naked and clothed… just the sad banana bed as usual

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Following up on my support request, I received a follow up yesterday.

Hello,

Thank you for the update!

I have requested the replacement and it should be sent out to you.

This might take 4 weeks since we have added new quality control to make sure you won’t get a replacement bed with the same issue as the original.

As soon as the team has updated me with the tracking code, I will update you.

Best regards,

I cannot speak to other’s experience, but mine has been entirely reasonable.

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There are some concerns related to the heatbed flatness for the X1 and P1P. Due to the manufacturing process of the heatbed, it is impossible to have a perfectly flat bed. We have Auto Bed Leveling in place to compensate for the uneven bed surface.

The heatbed component has its own testing procedure, and the printer has also been subjected to strict printing tests before leaving the factory.

We understand that a perfectly flat bed is what everyone desires, and we are working on the supply chain, manufacturing process, QA, and logistics to improve the flatness of the bed and provide better flatness results.

I do have a bit of a problem with the above statement. Specifically that ABL is there to compensate for the impossibility of a perfectly flat bed. It’s not untrue, in the least. However, it strongly implies that those wanting flat beds are asking for the impossible and should be accepting what they have.

They are correct that a perfectly flat bed is pretty much impossible. Functionally flat isn’t. What is functionally flat? In the context of a 3d printer, I would consider it to be a variation of less than the minimum layer height. So, if the minimum layer height is 0.1mm, then the bed should be flat to -0.05mm to +0.05mm across the bed. If the minimum layer height is 0,05mm, then -0.025mm to +0.025mm, etc. These are not hard to accomplish, even in high volume manufacturing.

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After reading this thread I checked my bed and it too is warped to some degree. For most of my uses it won’t be too big an issue, and knowing that my bed curvature is along the x axis with the y axis appearing to be very good, I can orient my prints to minimize the impact.

All that said I can’t help but think that there’s an opportunity out there for an aftermarket bed to replace the stock bed. Certainly beyond my scope of design at this point, but I think it’ll be interesting to see if such a solution comes along.

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I am working with someone to build an aluminum bed. The reason for warping, as this person explained to me, is that both the plastic shroud and metal heating element are expanding at different rates. Eventually the Bambu beds become warped.

Nonetheless it is worth a try. A metal bed would be an immense upgrade

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No, we don’t know how many that is good, but it isn’t the point. Reporting errors here, tells Bambu Labs a lot, they do know how many are sold. So it actually helps Bambu Lab to improve. Being a fanboy and praise it all, doesn’t help Bambu Lab. Not saying that you are a fanboy.

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Exactly, and we don’t. I would like to know how many printers are affected, is it one percent? Five percent??
I am not a fanboy (well, maybe a little bit…) but I think that statements like

are misleading because they simply do not reflect the reality. They just describe the situation here in the forum. So people who just stop by to read a few posts may think that the product is really bad which it isn’t.
Hope that makes sense.

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The product is in fact great! I would recommend it anytime!
Even though I have a pretty severe X-axis bend. I am sure soon aftermarket beds will become available. I really hope Bambu Labs have the capacity to address those issues on time, but even if they don’t, they still did a great job!

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Please stop. Define “reality”. How many bent bed sent out as replacements for bent beds will it take to qualify as reality that’s acceptable to you? Bambu Labs themselves have admitted that it is a QC issue. No point in redefining what is the reality and what isn’t. Comments like yours are not helpful. I am not looking for a pedantic argument on “what’s reality” and I won’t respond any further to this line of faulty reasoning.

I understand your sentiment and your concern around alarmism, but that’s not what’s happening here. My own replacement is bent worse than the original and such is the case with many many others.

And YES, this should give people pause before purchasing this machine, especially people like myself whose majority use case is printing large functional parts which need to reasonably (not perfectly) fit well together. Resolve this problem and BL overcomes this customer concern. It is that simple.

P.s. I run a software startup myself; I understand “you win some and lose some”, but sometimes the ones you lose can become a major force in adversely swaying public opinion. Therefore minimizing customer concerns by quoting “what’s real” and what isn’t is a losing game. THANKFULLY BambuLabs realizes that and they are doing whatever they can to address the situation. Kudos to them! They don’t need your defense.

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I think there was a misunderstanding and I promise this will be my last comment on the subject. :slight_smile:
I totally agree that most of the uneven beds shown here are 100% unacceptable and it is even more annoying to receive a replacement that is even worse.
Bambu Lab must also appreciate that most people are willing to replace the bed themselves. The situation would be worse if they had to deal with multiple printers sent in for warranty repairs.
Please don’t forget that I suffered from the bed problem too.

I just don’t agree with the way some people write about this, because it makes it seem like all printers have this problem, which is simply not true.
I guess I still have to accept how a forum works and that some people should think twice before making bold statements.

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Thanks for the clarification man! Well the good news is that Bambu is working hard at resolving their QC issues. Their customer service is up front about this and agreed to send me another bed from the new improved QC’ed batch. Now isn’t that a sweet resolution or what :slight_smile:

You gotta hand it to these guys. They didn’t dig their heels in, listened to the customer and figured out a solution. I was holding off on ordering a couple more of these X1C combos but now I feel good about ordering them (though, will order them post March just to be sure they are from the new batch). Great example of issue resolution; these guys are going far for sure!

Ciprian, if you are reading this, you and the Bambu Team are awesome!

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Two issues here with your post, and trust me I’m truly just pointing out some misunderstanding, not “coming at you” :smiley:
Many 3D printers come with four corner leveling screws. This comes from copying earlier designs to save money in the design process, and a true lack of proper engineering technique that happened early on. Blame it on the early pioneers who were ‘winging it’ … LOL
Four points is NOT proper for “leveling” for a flat surface and can lead to warping. Actually, the proper term is ‘tramming’ and you’ll see Bambu calls it that, only using the expression “leveling” as a nod to the commonly misused term. It was something that drew me to the printer as I knew true engineers were involved with the design.
The proper way to tram a flat surface relative to a geometric plane is to use three points.
You’ll notice there are three lead screws for the Z axis as well, and this is proper engineering, unlike the two (or even one!) Z drives on cheaper printers. Four introduces the same problems as the bed screws. So from an engineering design point, Bambu nailed it.
The problems with the uneven beds does not derive from the mounting. They were delivered bad bed assemblies.
I personally think they may have sourced from a sub-contractor that, in an attempt to meet the suddenly massive demand for product failed to produce properly assembled beds or even sourced not flat plates in a rushed attempt to get product out to Bambu. In short, they got screwed.

I’m not absolving them from blame here, they built the machines and pushed them out the door knowing full well they were defective. I know, I have one of them, and I’m not happy. They knew their incredible firmware would compensate and put out acceptable prints for many users. Unless, of course, you were printing full bed parts or ones that mated.
But they are taking responsibility and handling the majority of the people.

They’re in a tough place. They didn’t want to not ship product this early in their existence, and now they have a quagmire to clean up. I doubt many of them are sleeping well. The fact that they addressed it in the the Blog is a tough step for them, remember that the Asian culture does not encourage admitting mistake, so there’s a cultural aspect here many overlook.

All this said - They have produced a wonderful, ground breaking machine. I suspect ten years from now we’ll all look back on this with laughter when they are huge and own a major stake in the 3D game. “Remember that fiasco with the beds on their first printer?” You’ll be laughing I suspect.

Am I totally PO’d I got a unlevel bed? Yep. Will I forgive them? Yep. It’s life.

Oh yeah - second issue - the Wiki post showing the bed screws. That is simply a quick reference point for you to ensure that vibration in shipping, or even a miss during assembly didn’t result in a grossly misaligned bed, not a standard to measure a properly trammed bed. They have a full procedure for tramming, but all procedures need a rough staring point.

Cheers!

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225

Awesome explanation, thank you !

I was thinking along the lines of 3 lead screws almost creating a fulcrum in the center portion but I’m a mechanic not an engineer lol

Your explanation makes sense and is greatly appreciated

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You’re most welcome! The amount of things to learn in this game is mindboggling.

I’ve been at it since late 2015 and I still feel like a beginner!
Not an engineer either, but I did convert one printer from 4 point bed to three, so maybe an “Advanced” beginner :laughing:

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Good explanation!

But, you must consider that the gantry (axis motion system in a CoreXY printer) must be perfectly aligned with the bed to get a perfect print (this means flat in the case of a printer). This you usually reach with adjusting the gantry or the bed - means a 4-point adjustable bed would be much better than a 3-point adjustable bed since you can not adjust the gantry anyhow in the Bambu Labs printers. :slight_smile:

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Why? I think there is no point in holdng a plane with more than three points. Just think of a rocking chair, it cannot happen with three legs.
The only reason for more than three points would be a more rigid mounting.

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I explained why. To align the bed to the gantry.

We don’t care if the bed is flat to the ground, we only care if the bed is align/flat to the gantry.
Means the nozzle needs to have the same distance in all four corners of the bed to the bed.
This means flat in our use case - which we cannot adjust with a three point bed in the Bambus.

The flatness of the bed can be absolutely perfect, but ABL needs always to work and no fade-out is possible if the bed is not absolutely perfect flat/align to the gantry.

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