I’ve recently become sensitive to PLA printing on my ‘bedslinger’ design… My Prusa MK3S sits next to my home office desk and with much PLA printing this season, I’ve developed some irritating (but not yet serious) skin rashes and have linked them to PLA printing. I’m looking into the X1C/E models, but don’t need the commercial features of the X1E… However, does anyone know if the X1E filtration system might be able to be purchased and installed on the X1C? Or if a complete venting system exists for the X1C. The printer can be situated next to a window and I can vent externally.
The most convenient for you would be just buy air purifier with Hepa filter. You can also print some adapter that will suck air from printer into the purifier intake of.
there are a few interesting ideas in the bambu forum around that ( one was on the window) , i added an exhaust duck and fan above the printers and that did the trick. My second desk is by the printers , but i do not use it all the time. and the same i have prusa and X1C and had some issues with ABS/ASA some month ago but not with PLA . Most Air purifiers with Hepa are not good enough what i found.
@crab look some of the existing forums on the subject
I’ve done some simple non-scientific tests and it seems the chamber airflow on the X1C has airflow issues.
It seems the fan holes on the rear panel are much too restrictive. Add to this that the carbon filter also restricts airflow.
The two together seem to kill most airflow from the chamber fan.
I still have more tests to do, but you can see the results yourself using a tissue next to the fan exhaust, watching the airflow.
Simply removing the rear cover significantly improves the airflow even with he carbon filter installed.
You only need a slight vacuum in the chamber to keep the toxins from escaping. The only important part is having a real sealed carbon and hepa filter. No hepa and over time youre just going to be blasting fine carbon dust everywhere which is probably even worse for you.
For temps, the aux fan is for circulating air and also cooling when the door is closed and the lid is on. The one missing item is adequate hot end cooling to stop heat creep. I fixed that by cutting out the screened sections of the hotend cover. Now I print everything with the door closed and lid on while a bento box scrubs the air. I am also still using the poorly designed bambu carbon pack too, but i keep the fan at a minimum. Just high enough to control the temps and create that slight vacuum.
I performed another test on my X1C.
In stock configuration (carbon filter installed, and the rear panel installed), I placed smoke inside of the chamber (using a burning incense nugget), and the smoke was never evacuated from the chamber!
It’s a very visual test that’s easy to see.
The smoke just stays inside of the chamber.
I have more tests to perform.
But IF you use an external extraction vent hose to try to send fumes out a window, etc., do youself a favor and remove the carbon filter. This helps a lot to get chamber air extraction to work. The smoke test confirms it.
I need to test again when using the carbon filter, but without the rear panel restricting the chamber fan airflow.
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Arguably good news for the OP, no air comes out of the printer. Who needs a filter at that point? 
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The carbon filter that comes with the printer does an okayish job removing smells, but is a serious bottleneck for airflow if you want to use the chamber fan for any kind of cooling. I went ahead and used it up until I made my magnetic vent extraction hose and fan setup and installed a bento box.
I did some of my own testing with my setup to measure small particles and VOCs/smells. My measurements were taken with an AirGradient AQ meter placed around the top left of the door. I did basic test prints using ASA to see see what it’d pick up. No vent fan and no bento box yielded a rise in VOCs/smells and spikes in small particles. Bento box only on removed almost all of the VOCs/smells with a minor spikes in small particles. Vent fan only on no VOCs/smells and no spike in small particles. Bento box and vent fan on had same results, no rise in VOCs/smells and no spike in small particles.
The 65 cfm duct fan I use to vent places a small amount of negative pressure on the chamber which results with no VOCs or small particles escaping the printer. Smoke tests around the front glass panel show air moving into the printer at a very slow rate. This is what I was hoping to see, which helps remove fumes, but not a lot of heat while the vent fan is on. Chamber mostly retains heat, though it can see a small reduction of up to 1 degree while running. Printing with PLA I just have the vent fan turn on with the chamber fan automatically so that it’s probably pulling cool air into the chamber and going outside. It’s does a decent job keeping things cool enough.
While I probably don’t need it with the vent fan, I use the bento box in conjunction with the vent. I rather like the 2 stage approach. Plus I have a 3rd stage, which is my air purifier that utilizes a hepa filter and carbon filter.
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I decided that I was getting a headache printing even with pla and petg.
I went with this unit.
https://www.printables.com/model/515707-bambu-x1c-hepa-filter-active-carbon-pellets-sectio
I left the original carbon box out and that improved the air flow out.
The wife more often than not wrinkles her nose when she comes to the shop. Always something stinky going on. While concentrating on printing ASA and PET-CF for 3 days straight I noticed that she didn’t complain so I think I made some headway and my headache has gone away. My plan is to add on a hose and an inline fan to take the bad stuff to the outside. I assume if I ever do some ABS that the external deal will be necessary.
Did you open door or top to let replacement air in?
Interesting, airflow is important for smell
That’s a great idea. Do you have a link to the duct and fan setup?
I’m planning on doing what this guy did. But if you do try this, I suggest keeping the duct as short as possible with as few turns as possible. Not sure how much it matters for just removing air but I know that’s a big consideration for wood shop dust collectors.
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It may seem stupid, but I would be more confident about putting the printer in another chamber and using a specific fan to vacuum the contaminated air.
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That would certainly work, but I think this actively vented duct solution is going to be just as good. Any small amount of negative pressure should be enough to keep nasty stuff from leaking out.
The potential issue I’m thinking about is keeping temps up when printing ABS. But maybe a variable speed fan set to low would be fine without pulling temp down too much.
For PLA I’d rather not even have the top off, so if this keeps it cool enough, great. I’m not planning on using ABS too much anyway.
After reading the link above and it mentions that external fan powered venting is not recommended, I’m second guessing the external fan. I wish whoever wrote the wiki provided reasoning for why it’s not recommended. I’m guessing it’s temperature related.
The internal fan is pretty weak, but if you remove the carbon filter to vent outside, I would think it still generates enough negative pressure that there isn’t significant inside leakage. So maybe an external fan isn’t needed.
So maybe an external fan isn’t needed to do outside exhaust, but what I’m unsure about is printing with low temp materials. For ABS we’d probably want such an external fan off (or at least set very low) so that temps don’t drop too much. But for PLA or anything heat sensitive, if you don’t want to remove the top of the printer (which I don’t) - maybe that external fan is still useful to control the temperature?
If so, maybe it would be ideal to use a lower powered adjustable speed external fan for low temp jobs… especially if your exhaust duct is long or has a lot of turns.
Update on this after trying it for a while. I’m only really doing PLA and some PETG printing, but I’ve had no problems at all exhausting outside. It seems to keep temps down well for PLA (**but I haven’t done a large print with PLA yet) so there’s no need to even open the door to reduce heat. Unfortunately no tests with ABS yet, so I’ve no idea if the temps required can still be maintained.
I feel like I already mentioned this somewhere but here it is again anyway…
I used this for the vent:
This fan inline with the exhaust pipe (which I recommend using the metal dryer ones designed to take heat, rather than plastic ones):
Generally I keep it near the lowest speed setting, but it’s nice to crank up the speed if you want to be sure you’ve pulled the gross air out after a print is over.
For the exhaust connector I used the one on the Bambu wiki, but it doesn’t fit very well on an X1C so I recommend finding an alternative for that.
So fun fact, I noticed that I was also getting no airflow from the chamber fan to the outside of my X1C. Using a piece of paper I determined that the chamber fan was acting as an intake. I submitted a service ticket stating this.
This is their reply:
“Hello,
Thank you for contacting Bambu Lab support, and please excuse the delayed reply.
We use a vortex fan, which draws air in from the outside and blows air out from the inside to accelerate gas exchange. Please use it as normal.”
Now, I man not be the smartest man out there. But it seems to me that the system forces fresh air through the carbon filter, pressurizing the chamber and exhausts contaminated air into the surrounding area. Considering the poop chute equates to a giant air leak.
Obviously someone at Bambu doesn’t understand basic fluid dynamics.
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Welcome to the forum.
After a quick smoke and flow test, I can confirm your assumption is 100% correct. The fan does create a vortex as they claim, but only when the filter is installed. However, my measurements show a massive drop in airflow: with the filter installed, the fan outputs just 0.12 CFM at a distance of 3 inches through a 3” diameter duct compared to 18.34 CFM without the filter.
This suggests a serious engineering flaw. Rather than addressing the issue, they’ve rebranded it as a “vortex fan” to make the poor performance seem intentional. In reality, it’s just a standard PC fan that, when paired with the filter, is essentially useless.
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