I’ve seen a handful of threads of people asking for (sometimes complaining about the lack thereof) of ethernet and IP settings, so I wanted to offer some info about what and maybe why.
Ethernet
The processor used on the AP board for the X1C uses a Rockchip RV1126 (or that’s what they tell me anyway, I haven’t pulled the metal shield off of one to check for myself). This part has a MAC built into it that brings out RGMII/RMII (e.g. reduced pin count gigabit and 10/100 interfaces), so it was/is a little bit of a head scratcher for me in terms of why the X1C doesn’t have ethernet. I mean they’d need an external PHY and magnetics, but those are tiny in terms of PCB area.
I believe on the X1E PCB (which is very similar to the one used in the X1C, with the addition of a mini PCIe style edge connector that’s used for the network board) that they bring SDIO and RMII/RGMII out. I’m not sure why it would only be a 100Mb interface, as RGMII is only 14 pins and SDIO @ 4 bits wide + control and VCC/VSS is only about 9 pins.
5GHz WiFi
As far as the 2.4GHz only WiFi goes, they used an Ampak AP6212 module that’s gluded up over SDIO. Ampak makes a module which is 99.9997% pin compatible (AP6256), sans for one pin for the FM radio antenna, which if they pulled to GND could potentially be a problem. The kernel driver changes to support the 6256 would be fairly minimal if any were needed at all. For someone who was reasonably inclined (e.g. wants to use hot air to lift the 6212 and put down a 6256), I’d hazard a guess that a 6256 could be made to work.
Network Settings
As far as the X1C not having the ability to set IP address, netmask, gateway, etc., this also is pretty bewildering. I would venture that the X1C and X1E have nearly identical firmware (they may well run the same image with the X1C having some bits “greyed out”) – but in either case, it’s a single dialog box to allow this. For the life of me, I really cannot understand what is being achieved by not offering this.
Anyhow, all a bit of a head scratcher … I mean I understand market segmentation (e.g. X1C vs X1E), but the difference in cost to them is almost certainly < 10 USD. Even at a markup of 400% for BOM->retail, who would be unwilling to spend $50 extra to have gig ethernet and 2.4/5Ghz included on these. The machines otherwise appear to be almost identical, sans a +20C additional for the hotend. There’s definitely not the value difference here of $1000 between the two machines. They should’ve just merged the X1C and X1E into the X1C and charged an extra $100 for it and called it a day.
To anyone from Bambu who’s listening: Although the lack thereof being somewhat indefensible from the point of view of anyone who does hardware design, the ethernet and 2.4GHz WiFi things are not a deal breaker, but not being able to set basic IP settings is pretty bad. I understand the want for market segmentation, but this was probably not the best way to do it.
Perhaps you might consider offering an upgrade AP module as one path out of this. Failing that, please at least add the IP address setting to the X1C firmware. We both know it’s trivial to do 