Hey there. I’ve owned a few printers (to put it very lightly) back when we were helping our son run a 3d printing business as his senior home schooling. That ceased when he reached 18 and I’ve been using the remaining 2x prusa i3 mk3s that we didn’t sell off for the last few years, completely trouble free I might add. One of them as 356 days of print time on it. Absolute work horses.
I’ve just ordered a Bambu X2D because, well, the dual nozzle, chamber heating and AMS sounded pretty good. But I’ve just had a look on the bambu forums and there seems to be a lot of issues being spoken about – under extrusion, ptfe bend/angles causing too much friction and thus errors and failed prints, vertical banding and so on. Seems that there are a number of issues and after dealing with Creality machines back in the day before we invested heavily in Prusa I just want something that works. I don’t really want to tinker too much if I can help it. I’m now wondering if I should send it back, save myself $250 and just get the PS2 combo instead.
Buying a modern Prusa is financially not viable, so my options for something a little more modern that will do more is slim.
I’ve owned my X2D for about three months now and I haven’t had a single issue with it so far. I have about 400 hours of print time on mine. I mostly print with PLA, but I have several PETG prints that came out flawlessly. The duel nozzle is a life saver when you don’t know how to set the settings correctly. If you are going to print from PETG, make sure you completely dry the filament prior to printing.
The x2d has a big leap in complexity, so it’s gonna have a big leap in random problems from complexity. I don’t think it’s fan strategy is particularly good, but most of the rest I’m pretty confident will get patched up in time.
The x2d specifically in that pile of printers you mentioned is the most complex to operate too - you have 2 tune targets instead of 1 (DDE and Bowden, not just a pile of DDEs). That is if you want to use the aux nozzle as a printhead and not just a support maker. It does both well eventually. IDK
IMO: X2D if you want a good all-rounder, U1 if you make a lot of multi colour PLA toys, Core one if you want VFAs. P2S doesn’t sound like the machine for you as you are printing a lot and you will want the extra features of the X2D sooner or later.
No issues with my X2D since I bought it, but today is a new day and I can’t print anything at all. Still trying to figure this out.
To answer your question, the X2D seems a little premature at this time. Some of us have had good results, but some have not. I’m hoping that the engineering team can focus more on the X2D, but they may be working on some other yet to be released project for all I know.
If you need the heated chamber I would seriously consider one of the H2 series printers before anything else recently released. They are on sale right now and have been out for about a year now. Most of their bugs should have most of the bugs worked out. If I had this to do over again I would have just spent the money on an H2.
Prusa is an alternative, but everything I have heard is that you will give up a little print quality over Bambu printers (when they work).
Update: The printer printed a different file okay. The problem is the latest version of Bambu Slicer.
I’ll offer a slightly different perspective: No matter what you buy in this price range, there’s always the potential for problems with the hardware. They’re electronic devices, and while the quality is generally fine, there will always be some that malfunction.
Of course, as a customer, you expect flawless devices, but the reality is often quite different. That doesn’t mean they’re bad devices; it just means that no matter which brand you choose, you can always have bad luck.
That’s why I’d say: The best printer for you is the one that best suits your needs. It’s that simple. Unfortunately, they can all break down. If you want better service, you’re looking at a whole different price range.
To put things into perspective: If you look around the forum, you’ll see that people tend to post about negative experiences more than positive ones. At most, you just have a tendency.
I’d say you have to tinker with every 3D printer because there are lots of parts that wear out over time, or you might make mistakes yourself. By ‘tinker’, I mean replacing worn-out parts. If you haven’t had to do that yet, I’d call that luck, but it’s not the norm.
Although modern printers are advertised as ‘click and print’, we’re still a long way from that. That said, it has improved significantly.
You will see Bambu complains here because it’s the Bambu forum.
On Prusa you will see Prusa complaints and good luck with the Prusa forums.
Snapmaker is good for multicolour PLA and PETG. If you do any kind of engineering part you would be better off with the Bambu machines.
I can’t recommend Prusa. The hardware is previous generation and the software is very basic. Get creality, sovol or snapmaker if you actually want a modern printer and object to Bambu. Prusa Indx might be good if it works, but you still have poor software support.
edit By software I mean firmware. Also integration with the ecosystem though some people do not want that.
Then a BL printer is for you. BL explicitly said their goal is to make printers for the masses ( i.e. non-tinkerers) and have had a good track record of making easy to use and reliable printers (think 10K of printing hours without much trouble by average users).
Between P2S and X2D, only you can make that decision. P2S has been out for about 8 months now so it is proven. X2D is relatively new. If you don’t want to deal with the kinks, an option is to wait a while. But remember that there are more X2 printers coming out, so one would have to be clear about the need and not tempted by the want of the newest printers.
I don’t know about the X2D. I have a P2S with about 1690+ hours on it so far.
The P2S is great for single colour/material prints. As soon as you want to use interface materials for you supports or do multi colour prints then prints will take a lot longer and a lot more waste. I do love my P2S and it’s much better imo than the A1 I used to have. I’m just at the stage where I need more nozzles or a tool changer like the U1.
I was really thinking about getting the U1 for a few months & the more I looked into it the more I wanted to make the switch. The thing that made me not switch is that it’s not properly enclosed (I know you can get the top bit and make it enclosed). There is an annoying thick bar in the front when the print starts that you can barely see what’s happening until the plate lowers down more, and lastly where I live there is a lot of humidity in the air so I don’t want the filament sitting in the open on the sides of the U1 absorbing moisture.
I’ve heard some of the bad stuff about the X2D which is why I didn’t go for that either. I’d like to get the H2D but for that price you might as well dish about the extra bit of money and get the H2C and get a lot more nozzles.
I’m sticking with my P2S for now as I think in the next year or two there will be more options for printers with multiple nozzles or tool changers.
Honestly after using x2d for some time now I can not really recommend it as easy or high quality printer.
It prints, but second nozzle is absolutely not easy to use as the main one.
Things which bothers me the most are the deforming left panel from the heated chamber, not easy to control heating/cooling fans, and the somehow funny tilting and jerking around while printing. Also the crazy long and cramped filament paths. For me this are just bad and cheap design decisions.
Profiles for x2d are also mess for now.
At this point it looks to me more like Frankenstein somehow working thingy. I would recommend it only if you need exactly this set of features and do not care if jerks/tilts around while working at could deform from heat here and there.
Again in prints, but I have even some simple PLA models from makerworld sometimes with defects. And the AI camera is not able to detect very obvious spaghetti. Also if they are far from it or from the opposite side it also can not spot them.
The whole thing is made to be used with AMS but it does not support drying if you do something else, even if the fans are just cooling the chamber. So you need to get separate power supply per AMS, or if you have more AMS-es attached. The AMS though is not cheap and external power supply adds to the price.
At this point I feel like the A1 series and p1s are the easy to use workhorses, maybe even p2s but it start to get expensive. And x1 is the old top printer although very expensive. From this line above Bambu is getting expensive and much more complex. Really a1 mini and a1 seems to be very good price to easy quality ratio but their open AMS is nonsense for anything else but PLA. And they tend to melt a bit too much.
For me it is also design mistake the wi-fi only connectivity option. Direct cable connection should be available on any device at this price point.
With current Bambu portfolio you really need to chose wisely.
Right now I would still recommend the H2D and H2S over anything else. Both have been very reliable since they arrived, a few early quirks on the H2D but it’s all been resolved at least for my experience.
The bigger print volume generally makes life easier with big parts, often printing two big parts together instead of one part filling up an X/P series volume.
For professional use the H2 machines are a great fit, a solid upgrade over X1C level performance.
Edit: would also add, our confidence so far in the X2D is really good, but it’s still quite new here. We just bought our second one and anticipate replacing all the X1Cs with them while adding more H2 machines to suit.
You have to understand that the forums is where people come with problems, so that is what you mostly see here. I have owned a few brands over the many years and bambu have been the most reliable. I have close to 25k hours between X1C, P1P, a couple of P1S, H2D and H2C. Yes things break on all of them but its been minor stuff and overall they have been workhorses for me. I would stick with the X2D as the heated chamber and secondary nozzle offers a big upgrade in what materials you can print, plus dedicated supports.
This is very nice, but how this relates to someone problems with the specific brand and printers?
So because you have 25k h on p1 this means x2d support printing is perfect? Or the PLA print is actually better then A1?
This is why we have topic, do you actually have 100 h successful printing with x2d with supports on the aux? If so could you please show some examples how good it is?
If no could you please stop dismissing real issues based on your past experience with other products?
Let me tell you, so far all my support prints with x2d are hit or miss. And none of them is excellent or perfect. Zero.
If you have some model for comparison please provide link so we can test it.
But from other side simplest pla print easily get beaten by a1 for quality - artefacts and defects. With both bambu and other brands, dried filaments.
See the topics, you say the printer is excellent - and you see people sharing they sold their old a1/p1/x1/p2 and they are stuck as quality is not there. And the internet and youtube continue to repeat how excellent is this device?!?!
Common guys show some excellent prints, and please teach us how to use our devices.
