Bambu Labs X1 Carbon - Initial Impressions

[wraper]

There's virtually nothing it does that's actually groundbreaking, Bambu just bothered to actually ship modern tech while the rest of the industry was content to rest on their laurels and ship outdated tech. Virtually everything Bambu implemented has been around for YEARS, just ignored by the other manufacturers.

What surprises me they put so much effort in doing so many things properly but epically failed with a bed design as if there are no dissimilar materials and thermal expansion present.

[meshtron]

I also bought an X1 Carbon (with AMS).  It is officially my first 3D printer though I've been designing 3D parts and ordering prints (typically SLS) for well over a decade.  The challenge for me has always been I don't want a "3D printing hobby," I just want parts.

So far, my X1 has impressed me and a buddy of mine who has built many 3D printers over the years from the simplest hobby ones to cubic-meter commercial ones.  Every time I've hit "go" it's pooped out the part I wanted.  There are a couple fiddly things with the filament drive, PTFE tube connectivity routing, etc. that are easy enough to work around and which I recently started working on to try to improve.

Anyway - very happy with mine (and no bed warping issues that I'm aware of) and I will likely get a 2nd one when this one becomes nonstop busy.

[pan]

I asked an experienced 3D printer user which one I should go for? He said the X1 Carbon with AMS was a good choice. I did not want to spend a lot of time with maintenance or tweaking of sorts, but as much out of the box as possible within a reasonable cost. For some assemblies I use it to print custom parts for my p&p machine. It has worked very well and saved me a lot of time during setup of a new product. I am more concerned about quality than time it takes to print. It can go all night as long as long as it is doing a good printing job; which it does:-)

I have not had any problems with the printing part, but recently I experienced a loss of connection with my wifi network. Whatever I did it refused to connect (not much I could do really..). I also tried using my phone. After trying and turning off and on a couple of times it suddenly connected to my phone. I could print my job. Don't know why it suddenly worked again, but it was annoying. 

[wraper]

I have not had any problems with the printing part, but recently I experienced a loss of connection with my wifi network. Whatever I did it refused to connect (not much I could do really..). I also tried using my phone. After trying and turning off and on a couple of times it suddenly connected to my phone. I could print my job. Don't know why it suddenly worked again, but it was annoying.

Did it actually lose connection with wifi? Maybe their cloud service was down which I've seen myself.

[pan]

Yes, according to what the screen "said" that was the case. But, then again it can be it has the same behaviour if the cloud service is down. I don't know. I just know it was full stop for a couple of hours. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

Yes, according to what the screen "said" that was the case. But, then again it can be it has the same behaviour if the cloud service is down. I don't know. I just know it was full stop for a couple of hours.

I has that once, but easy enough to use an SD card

[TomWinTejas]

It's been nearly a year, so I figured I'd update the thread with my experiences thus far.  I had hoped that the printer would eliminate the hassle associated with 3D printing that I ran into with my Ender 3, but hasn't been as smooth sailing as I had hoped.  I ran into a problem with brittle filament where the filament broke in such a small piece as to jam the hub inside the AMS (4 filament management box).  I disassembled the hub to remove the shards and it was constructed with magnets and they all flew together once I separated the top from bottom of the part.  Bambu Labs now has a guide on how to disassemble the hub, but it's still not a simple process.  It took me many hours of fiddling to get all the broken pieces of filament cleared of the path to the extruder, but eventually I was able to get everything working again.

There have been improvements to the Bambu Slicer where calibration has improved and they have modified the algorithm for heating the bed where the unit no longer causes my LEDs on the same circuit to flicker.  So I've been happy with the continuous improvements by Bambu Labs over the year.  They seem committed to supporting those who have already purchased the printer and the cost of replacement parts has been reasonable. 

As others have mentioned there were some cloud related outages that caused some not to be able to print easily, but I didn't happen to need to print during one of these.  They do have a LAN option where you can be self sufficient, but I honestly haven't dedicated any time to researching this or trying it... falling back to micro-sd card seems like a viable option if I really needed to print something.  Monitoring the print via the camera is neat, but really not anything I *need* to have.

[newtekuser]

I’ve had my x1c (no AMS) for almost two months and put around 100 hours of print time on it using PETG, ABS and PLA filaments from SUNLU and Fiberlogy. Using it with the PEI metal sheet, absolutely no problems.
The only failure I had was my fault using the wrong build plate which the AI didn’t catch which resulted in spaghetti mess. Luckily I was next to it and was able to stop it.
Needless to say I think the AI detection system is useless. The camera is nice to have but video quality is very poor.
The lighting is also very weak which likely is the culprit for the bad video.
Support is very slow to respond too. Initially I wanted to cancel my order and they got back to me in a week after I had already taken delivery of the printer.

This is compared to my Prusa mk3s which has been a total POS since day one. I do know folks swear by these printers and I really wanted to like it too. It’s the reason I went with a Bambu and avoid all drama caused by weak adhesion, stringing, first layer issues.

[Tony_G]

I'm a total 3D Printing NOOB (We had 3D printers in an IoT lab I used but I always asked the 3D Print guys to print my TinkerCad models) and I've waited deliberately until I could get a printer that was just a "tool" rather than requiring me to become a 3D printer expert.

I bought the X1C/AMS just before Christmas and I'm in the process of learning both how best to use the printer and how to create models in Fusion 360.

Overall, I have to agree with everyone else that this thing just seems to work - I'm sure that I'll learn about all the knobs and dials that can be tweaked to make even better prints but so far I've been very happy with the results that I've gotten.

If you have the money then I think that the X1C is a great entry point into making quality 3D prints straight out of the box.

Now if anyone can explain to me why Bambu Studio thinks that some of my Fusion 360 models are in millimeters instead of inches (yes, yes, imperial sucks) and then offers to scale them incorrectly I'd appreciate the heads up and explanation.

TonyG

[newtekuser]

I'm a total 3D Printing NOOB (We had 3D printers in an IoT lab I used but I always asked the 3D Print guys to print my TinkerCad models) and I've waited deliberately until I could get a printer that was just a "tool" rather than requiring me to become a 3D printer expert.

I bought the X1C/AMS just before Christmas and I'm in the process of learning both how best to use the printer and how to create models in Fusion 360.

Overall, I have to agree with everyone else that this thing just seems to work - I'm sure that I'll learn about all the knobs and dials that can be tweaked to make even better prints but so far I've been very happy with the results that I've gotten.

If you have the money then I think that the X1C is a great entry point into making quality 3D prints straight out of the box.

Now if anyone can explain to me why Bambu Studio thinks that some of my Fusion 360 models are in millimeters instead of inches (yes, yes, imperial sucks) and then offers to scale them incorrectly I'd appreciate the heads up and explanation.

TonyG

Are you sure the CAD models are exported in inches instead of millimeters?

[Tony_G]

No - I didn't see that as an option - Thanks for the heads up on that - Will go have a look.

TonyG

[mawyatt]

We are considering a Bambu printer per recommendations, what's the difference between the X1 and P1S models other than the carbon filter?

Here's our expected use.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/3d-printing/multi-color-3d-printer/

Any help is appreciated.


Best,

[ebastler]

The P1S has a smaller and simpler display/control panel, a lower resolution camera, no filament sensing, no LIDAR sensor, extruder and nozzle parts in plain instead of hardened steel, no built-in storage besides the SD card.

https://bambulab.com/en/compare

I don't have first-hand experience with either printer, but have looked around, as you are now. All reports seem to agree that the print quality and speed is identical betwen the two models, and that the lack of convenience in the P1S is minimal. A few reviewers mentioned that they actually like the simpler display unit of the P1S better than the touch screen of the X1; certainly a matter of personal preference.

My personal conclusion was that I will go with the P1S -- if and when I decide to upgrade my current cheap printer at all.

EDIT: If multicolor printing is your main intended use: The 4x filament changer seems to work well, according to all reports, but wastes a surprising amount of filament. In a multi-colored print it needs to switch filaments for every layer, of course, and it takes quite a bit of runway and the some "buffer" filament feed every time.

[wraper]

We are considering a Bambu printer per recommendations, what's the difference between the X1 and P1S models other than the carbon filter?

X1 has way better controller/display, has lidar and 1080p camera with normal FPS (P1S has 720p 0.5 fps). Mechanically they are the same.

The 4x filament changer seems to work well, according to all reports, but wastes a surprising amount of filament.

Depends on what and how you print. It depends purely on how many material changes per layer you need. Even if you print non optimized model, by printing say 10 of them simultaneously, you reduce waste per piece by 10x.

[mawyatt]

We are considering a Bambu printer per recommendations, what's the difference between the X1 and P1S models other than the carbon filter?

X1 has way better controller/display, has lidar and 1080p camera with normal FPS (P1S has 720p 0.5 fps). Mechanically they are the same.

The 4x filament changer seems to work well, according to all reports, but wastes a surprising amount of filament.

Depends on what and how you print. It depends purely on how many material changes per layer you need. Even if you print non optimized model, by printing say 10 of them simultaneously, you reduce waste per piece by 10x.

Does the X1 controller make any difference in print quality, or speed?

Not too concerned about filament waste as envisioned use with color change is only one change per print (example, embossed lettering in different color).

Best,

[ebastler]

Does the X1 controller make any difference in print quality, or speed?

No, it just affects the user interface. The control of the machine during printing remains unchanged.

[wraper]

Does the X1 controller make any difference in print quality, or speed?

Due to the lack of lidar there is no filament auto calibration and no additional lidar bed levelling and first layer inspection. IIRC people said that with cheap controller print job uploads quite a bit slower. The difference is more like ease of use rather than difference in print quality if everything is tuned correctly.

[5U4GB]

Slightly off-topic, but has Bambu Labs ever been contacted by the legal department of the world's largest laptop manufacturer?  I'm typing this on an X1 Carbon and it ain't a printer.

[mawyatt]

We just received the X1 Carbon. Our 1st print was a PCB bracket used in a prototype, the results was considerably better than anything we had achieved before with our previous printers.

2nd print was a preliminary test dial/scale disc with two colors, one for base and another for text/numbers, the result was outstanding!!

Anyway, thanks for the help

Best,

[CatalinaWOW]

Another new X1 user after two prior Creality printers.  Really impressed with both speed and print quality.  There a few points not previously mentioned.  TPU is not recommended.  The long feed tubes and much pushing and pulling of filament is probably the reason.  So now my Ender 3 Pro is dedicated to TPU.  The AMS has proved very useful though I have not yet done a multi-color print.  Being able to select the appropriate material without manually changing filaments is nice.  Filament loading is really easy.  Just clip the filament end and shove it in.  And the ability to automatically switch to a second roll of filament when one runs out is really useful.  The ability to use the short end of a roll more than makes up for the filament used in hot end cleaning and calibration at the start of each print job. 

I still feel more comfortable with parameter setting in Cura than Bambu Studio, but for more standard prints it is more than adequate.

Overall extremely good value for the price.

[mawyatt]

Another new X1 user after two prior Creality printers.  Really impressed with both speed and print quality.  There a few points not previously mentioned.  TPU is not recommended.  The long feed tubes and much pushing and pulling of filament is probably the reason.  So now my Ender 3 Pro is dedicated to TPU.  The AMS has proved very useful though I have not yet done a multi-color print.  Being able to select the appropriate material without manually changing filaments is nice.  Filament loading is really easy.  Just clip the filament end and shove it in.  And the ability to automatically switch to a second roll of filament when one runs out is really useful.  The ability to use the short end of a roll more than makes up for the filament used in hot end cleaning and calibration at the start of each print job. 

I still feel more comfortable with parameter setting in Cura than Bambu Studio, but for more standard prints it is more than adequate.

Overall extremely good value for the price.

We haven't tried TPU filament on anything yet. Have you tried TPU on the X1?

The speed and print quality is impressive, not just fast but with good quality as well, both together

Here's an initial couple test prints we did with X1 C, green bracket is with Bambu PLA filament, the other dials are with old PLA we had laying around.

Best,

[CatalinaWOW]

I am just reporting a recommendation from Bambu Labs.  I only use TPU-95 and suspect it would work, it did on my original Ender 3 with bowdin tube.  But haven't tried because the cleanup of it didn't work would be ugly.

[bookaboo]

Just another brief thumbs up for the X1 Carbon, we got one at work. While I don't use it personally the mechanical guys are raving about it, the speed is incredible compared to the Ender 5 we also have. Had no complaints on the Ender but the X1 can produce prototypes just as well as any external service we've used. "Good enough for the girls we go out with!"

[simba15]

Another serious thumbs down for the MK4

After having the MK4 for over 1 year the printer is great. Hit print and walk away, but any thing related to extra features esp wifi never working reliably.

The MMU3 has been delayed 3 times and after Prusa with my money for 6 months I might get it ( if it works no one knows)

Really wish I had chosen a Bambu over the MK4.

[exe]

I've been eyeballing x1c for about a year now. I have my trusty mk3s+ which I love and it almost never failed me*. But it's an old machine according to modern standards (enclosure, wifi, camera are missing, for example). It can be modded (and that's what I did). Modding is fun when I have time and passion for it, but for my next machine I want something that has most of features I need out-of-the-box. Seriously, adding wifi to my prusa was no joke and took more time than I wanted (buying parts, soldering, and troubleshooting).


*It does have some issues, mostly with noise (I know it's supposed to be silent) due to rattling and resonating. I managed to reduce it by applyng silicone glue to the various parts of power supply, that helped, but not eliminated it (I have "silver" PSU on my prusa).