Getting a new 3D printer, my there are so many

[usagi]

I'll just repeat what I posted elsewhere:

I have been 3d printing since 2011, I have had many printers.

The Bambu X1C+AMS is the best printer I've ever owned, hands down. It's the first printer I could recommend to a complete newbie and be confident they'd be successful out of the box without fiddling. I've been printing more on this printer in the past 6 months than I have in the past 6 years.

Now Bambu has the P1S available, it is unbelievable value for money and one I would easily recommend for beginners.

[abeyer]

Now Bambu has the P1S available, it is unbelievable value for money and one I would easily recommend for beginners.

I dunno, I think it depends a lot on the beginner... maybe they are good value, but imho they're still quite expensive as a first device for someone who may not even stick with it or use it frequently. Given how many ender 3 and similar cheap but reliable bed slingers are out there and getting retired as people move to some of the newer printers, they're almost free for the taking. Why not start with those and make a decision from there? Seems like a good way for a beginner to evaluate "Do I enjoy this enough, and see enough value in it, to justify upgrading to a $1k+ tool to make it easier?"

[mikeselectricstuff]

Now Bambu has the P1S available, it is unbelievable value for money and one I would easily recommend for beginners.

I dunno, I think it depends a lot on the beginner... maybe they are good value, but imho they're still quite expensive as a first device for someone who may not even stick with it or use it frequently. Given how many ender 3 and similar cheap but reliable bed slingers are out there and getting retired as people move to some of the newer printers, they're almost free for the taking. Why not start with those and make a decision from there? Seems like a good way for a beginner to evaluate "Do I enjoy this enough, and see enough value in it, to justify upgrading to a $1k+ tool to make it easier?"

That depends on the "..but reliable"  part -  for a beginner, they need something that just works with minimum messing about. Nothing's going to put someone off as much as something that needs endless fiddling to be useable.
I have no idea how the Ender fits into that, but so many of the comments about Babmu are to the effect of "it just works" that it seems that's relatively unusual...

[abeyer]

I don't have enough experience w/ different printers to really have an expert opinion... but I bought an ender 3 some years back and even if I were to bill my time out at my consulting rates, I don't think I've ever spent $1000 worth of "fiddling" with it (beyond the initial assembly and calibration, as I bought it in kit form.)

It's a good fit for my fairly light usage, and if my only option were the $1k "just works" I wouldn't have bought a printer at all. Not saying the Bambu isn't a good option for some... just that it might not be a blanket recommendation for everyone.

[Simon]

Bambu labs is not all that it is cracked up to be. I continue to see people struggle with their materials on their printers. Their profiles are all wrong. I wasted £10 worth of material before realising that this must be the case as it just would not print the simplest model properly.

I don't know if it is the printer or the materials but I have a roll of petg that I have to print at 5mm^3/s or I just get a mess. petg is usually 12mm^/s. Their own matte PLA on their own settings chosen by them was very poor.

Bambu labs did one thing and one thing only. They made a mechanism that could move fast, an that is it, not print fast, move fast. Look at their specs, they never say print, always move. As for 3D printing they don't seem to know more than the average beginner themselves.

Complain on their forum and you get the post deleted, well I suppose at least it is not full Chinese style censorship....

[xrunner]

I don't have enough experience w/ different printers to really have an expert opinion... but I bought an ender 3 some years back and even if I were to bill my time out at my consulting rates, I don't think I've ever spent $1000 worth of "fiddling" with it (beyond the initial assembly and calibration, as I bought it in kit form.)

It's a good fit for my fairly light usage, and if my only option were the $1k "just works" I wouldn't have bought a printer at all. Not saying the Bambu isn't a good option for some... just that it might not be a blanket recommendation for everyone.

Same here - I got an Ender 3 Pro about four or five years ago. It actually worked very well "right out of the box" until ... it didn't. When it didn't make a good print I realized - this is not something ready to be sold in a Walmart. My gosh they couldn't handle the returns because of disgruntled customers.

Since then I've modded it a WHOLE lot partly to improve it and partly because I enjoy doing it. But this sort of machine - hobby - ain't like getting a toaster oven and expecting it to give you great toast for ten years with no issues. I don't care how well made the 3D printer is, you are going to have problems - because there are too many variables at play for it to give you good prints each and every time. It's still partly science lab experiment and will be for some time to come. A paper printer is a reliable and predictable device, a 3D printer ain't.

The final problem is where it all comes together at the exit point of the nozzle onto the print bed or previous layer. Temperature, humidity, speed, material quality, residue/dirt in nozzle, nozzle wear, heat sink cooling fan speed, part cooling fan speed, extruder accuracy, software control, adhesion, bed temp, stupid slicer settings, software bugs, and just an unpredictable set of physical properties of the whole printing environment - it's a complex mix of variables that don't always do what is desired because the machine has no idea how to compensate for them in real time. Plus the quality of the original model you are printing, and then how the model is prepared for the machine - the slicer. I don't care how good the machine is the print can turn out bad not because of the machine at all but because the G code file wasn't prepared the best way. So yea yea spend $1000 on a 3D printer and see if it produces quality prints the way you want each and every time. It won't happen as often as you wish. But if you understand this, it can be a very useful tool.

[ToHu]

I did try different low -mid end FDM printers, including the MakerBot and i was sure that there is no really usable 3d printers under $5000 until i bought a used Formlab SLA.  I use this one already 3 years, i print a lot of parts, and those are not toys, but real parts mainly for product prototypes and low volume productions, but i have also some parts for our mass production, very small parts that i can print 50 at a time. For those 3 years i have one misprint, and it was partially my fault.  Definitely is something i do recommend. It has a lot of benefits compared to many of the popular SLA.
1 - it's a laser not DLP
2 - you have a resin cartridge's , it will itself, siting on the desk next to may workstation, no smell, no mess.
3 - the speed and quality is quite good for an SLA
4 - formlabs offer wide range of materials
The only downside is the price of the resin, you no need to buy a original resin, but in that case you don't have autofill, or you need to hack the original cartridge rfid, but having on mind all the benefits i can leave with the resin price. Regarding the thanks and platform, Formlabs recommend to change the resin tank on each 1-2 l of print, but if you careful you may print 5-6 liters before you need to change the thank. The building platform i never change, i have two that allow me non stop print, one of them was used come with the printer, the second one is new. Both of them works well and i do not see any reason to be changed.
I don't want to sound like an advertisement, but this is probably one of my best buys ever, it payout hundred times.
Also having SLA allow you to print real parts, most FDM's are even not close to the quality, strength and usability of SLA parts.   
 

[baldurn]

no it does not take 20 minutes to set up like people claim, it needs a really solid surface or prints will be rubbish, I managed to get their benchy to print after I modified their settings and even at slow speed it was awful. it's like these people don't get 3D printing, the build plate was set to 35C, I don't know what is special about their PLA but i never got anything to work in the past at under 50.

So, sure, I got it to work when "I" sliced a model, very nice too, so apparently it's just a case of actually understanding 3D printing. I struggled to get the printer to link up to my account, maybe their chinese servers went on holiday too. Frankly I feel lied too, this was not the dream setup it was meant to be. Maybe they listened to all those hardcore people that complained that it was being made too easy for the masses.

The pre sliced benchy is a party trick. It can print incredibly fast - if you are lucky. But it will always be poor quality because it was sliced to flex the speed not quality.

Slice your own benchy. It will be at least 50% longer to print, maybe even double time. But it will be proper quality and show the real print speed - which is not bad.

And yes you still need to understand 3D printing. Get a different build plate than the default. Spend a little time tuning materials, temperatures and speed. It is well worth it and then it is actually a quite good printer.

[usagi]

Bambu labs is not all that it is cracked up to be. I continue to see people struggle with their materials on their printers. Their profiles are all wrong. I wasted £10 worth of material before realising that this must be the case as it just would not print the simplest model properly.

I don't know if it is the printer or the materials but I have a roll of petg that I have to print at 5mm^3/s or I just get a mess. petg is usually 12mm^/s. Their own matte PLA on their own settings chosen by them was very poor.

Bambu labs did one thing and one thing only. They made a mechanism that could move fast, an that is it, not print fast, move fast. Look at their specs, they never say print, always move. As for 3D printing they don't seem to know more than the average beginner themselves.

Complain on their forum and you get the post deleted, well I suppose at least it is not full Chinese style censorship....

sorry to hear you have problems.

as a contrary data point, mine moves and prints very fast, as does my friend's. the local makerspace is starting to replace their printers with the bambu p1s as well.

i print hatchbox petg at 18mm^3/s. i've started experimenting with difficult filaments and managed to get a benchy in POM - that was a lot of work but fun to try.

[Simon]

sorry to hear you have problems.

as a contrary data point, mine moves and prints very fast, as does my friend's. the local makerspace is starting to replace their printers with the bambu p1s as well.

i print hatchbox petg at 18mm^3/s. i've started experimenting with difficult filaments and managed to get a benchy in POM - that was a lot of work but fun to try.

Oh I can print PLA fast no problem. The PETG was my own and may just be rubbish. But their own matte PLA with their own settings was a mess.

What I am saying about printing and moving fast is generic. other fast printers above 100mm/s all say up to their fantastical speeds. This is because actually if you do the math on the flow rate you discover that high speed movement is quickly capped by the flow rate of the material. For example on the bambu printer it is not uncommon that reducing the layer thickness does not increase the print time by much, the reason is that you were never going to print at that speed with that layer thickness as you hit the materials flow rate, they just don't tell you that the machine is not going to hit the speeds you set.

As to the built in benchy it is more than a party trick. it was shown by the various shills on YouTube as proof of how good it was. You say it will always be poor quality, well they seemed to like it. But then paid advertising will just be lies.

[baldurn]

I use lower layer height to get better quality without increasing print time. So it is not useless.

[Simon]

I use lower layer height to get better quality without increasing print time. So it is not useless.

that is exactly my point, no the speed is not useless. But do not read, 500mm/s movement as my 0.2mm layer prints will now print 10x faster than my crappy ender 3 did. NO! what the speed gives you is the ability to print at a better quality at the same speed. because you can't exceed the flow rate of the material. Bambu lab's seem to be attempting just that. I have had massive problems with their PLA matte, on their printer with their profile. I see complaints on their forum of the exact same problem with their PETG materials.

[CatalinaWOW]

I understand the appeal of speed, but can't see it as a primary selection feature for a hobby person.  I use my printer to make parts, and have made literally 100s over the three or four years I have owned one.  Some of the prints have taken a full day to print, but that is still days faster than I could build them using other construction techniques.  And I have lots of projects to keep me occupied while the printer sits there laying down a tiny thread of plastic.  To me, complaining about the speed of a hobby 3D printer is kind of like complaining that the cheap PCB houses take days to deliver their boards.

If you are a production house that answer is different.

[baldurn]

If I print the same object on my Prusa and my Bambu, the Bambulab will finish in approximately half the time. For me that is typically an extra iteration per day.

I also print everything in ASA which my Prusa is horrible at. I love the automatic filament change. I rarely use it for multicolor prints, but it is genius as a storage system. The app and ability to monitor the print remotely is also very useful.

These are the reason I recommend this printer. Obviously not perfect and you still need to use your brain. But currently something of the best for the price. Although I suppose you could build an open source Voron printer if you want to beat it.

[Simon]

The filament change over unit is nice, but as you say, best for storage. For multi filament prints it is hopeless unless the colour changes are strictly across the whole layer. otherwise you waste more material than you print! Naturally the YouTube shills never show you this. They mention it and then assure that it is OK, because you can change the settings to make it less. I thought this odd, because if it could be less then why not have it as less as default. Of course, another lie from Bambu labs that the shills were paid to pedal. It takes an amount of material to force the old stuff out, if you don't waste enough you will just waste the entire print as the filaments will be mixed.

The speed is nice as you can print higher quality at the same speed. The PLA CF materials are very nice and the layer don't show as much, but they do show at 0.2mm, but if you can run at 0.08mm and still print in the same time it is perfect as now the layers disappear. The wall dithering is also very nice, this greatly increases print time but again if the print speed is that fast then again you can allow the printer to do more work as it works faster so again a better result in the same time.

That is what the speed is really about. Of course it is not how Bambu labs sell the printer but then they have already made clear that they are liars and they don't care. Once they have your money they have won. Oh the support was the other lie. While a 3D printer youtuber is making a video telling you how awsome the support is people on the bambu forum are complaining of no support. It took them 5 weeks to refund me with no even an apology or some gesture of good will considering that they had just slashed their prices, but then it's that chinese mentality all over again, got your money, now go fuck yourself, we can pay another youtube shill who will claim that this is just a spontaneous video and that he is not being paid for it. Yea right, it's funny how youtube is rammed with praise for BL while their forum is full of people complaining about just basic customer service.

[usagi]

I understand the appeal of speed, but can't see it as a primary selection feature for a hobby person.  I use my printer to make parts, and have made literally 100s over the three or four years I have owned one.  Some of the prints have taken a full day to print, but that is still days faster than I could build them using other construction techniques.  And I have lots of projects to keep me occupied while the printer sits there laying down a tiny thread of plastic.  To me, complaining about the speed of a hobby 3D printer is kind of like complaining that the cheap PCB houses take days to deliver their boards.

If you are a production house that answer is different.

it's not a primary selection feature but it is a huge deciding factor. if a print is going to take 16 hours i'll likely not bother. but on my x1c it takes 8, i'll do it. and i can iterate a lot faster as a hobbyist if a print takes 30 minutes instead of 2 hours. i print way more on my x1c than i ever did on my previous printers, because now it's so easy to do so.

[mikeselectricstuff]

The filament change over unit is nice, but as you say, best for storage. For multi filament prints it is hopeless unless the colour changes are strictly across the whole layer. otherwise you waste more material than you print! Naturally the YouTube shills never show you this. They mention it and then assure that it is OK, because you can change the settings to make it less. I thought this odd, because if it could be less then why not have it as less as default. Of course, another lie from Bambu labs that the shills were paid to pedal. It takes an amount of material to force the old stuff out, if you don't waste enough you will just waste the entire print as the filaments will be mixed.

Hopeless seems harsh, it's slow and uses a lot of filament, but it can do it, unlike most other printers. Not the right tool if you do a lot of multicolour obviously, but certainly useable
 AIUI it can reduce wastage by flushing into infill or support.

[usagi]

The filament change over unit is nice, but as you say, best for storage. For multi filament prints it is hopeless unless the colour changes are strictly across the whole layer. otherwise you waste more material than you print! Naturally the YouTube shills never show you this. They mention it and then assure that it is OK, because you can change the settings to make it less. I thought this odd, because if it could be less then why not have it as less as default. Of course, another lie from Bambu labs that the shills were paid to pedal. It takes an amount of material to force the old stuff out, if you don't waste enough you will just waste the entire print as the filaments will be mixed.

Hopeless seems harsh, it's slow and uses a lot of filament, but it can do it, unlike most other printers. Not the right tool if you do a lot of multicolour obviously, but certainly useable
 AIUI it can reduce wastage by flushing into infill or support.

I use the multi material AMS to do removable supports, eg solid PLA support interface for PETG. it doesn't waste very much material in that scenario and it works excellent.

the AMS is a big convenience too, I leave 4 different materials loaded at all times and I never have to bother changing out filaments - it does it all for me. this was annoying on my previous printers and frequently would cause me not to even bother printing because I didn't want the hassle. now I just hit print from my computer and never even have to get up from my chair when I switch from PETG to ASA to PC to PA+CF.

[mikeselectricstuff]

now I just hit print from my computer and never even have to get up from my chair when I switch from PETG to ASA to PC to PA+CF.

Do you find the AMS keeps the PACF dry enough?

[usagi]

now I just hit print from my computer and never even have to get up from my chair when I switch from PETG to ASA to PC to PA+CF.

Do you find the AMS keeps the PACF dry enough?

yes, AMS with dessicant seems enough to keep them dry for months.

i printed some ams dessicant holders off of printables.com to hold dessicant. it keeps my humidity meter reading off-scale low.

https://www.printables.com/model/272340-bambu-lab-ams-dryer-pod-w-snap-fit-lids

[boggis the cat]

The filament change over unit is nice, but as you say, best for storage. For multi filament prints it is hopeless unless the colour changes are strictly across the whole layer. otherwise you waste more material than you print! Naturally the YouTube shills never show you this.

Every review I saw specifically pointed out the amount of wastage.

They mention it and then assure that it is OK, because you can change the settings to make it less.

Then you immediately contradicted yourself.  These "shills" clearly aren't shilling very effectively.

I thought this odd, because if it could be less then why not have it as less as default. Of course, another lie from Bambu labs that the shills were paid to pedal. It takes an amount of material to force the old stuff out, if you don't waste enough you will just waste the entire print as the filaments will be mixed.

Why are you ranting about imaginary "shills"?  What they state is correct - you can tune the filament changes to reduce waste, if you want to trade the time you'll spend for the material waste.  The main selling point is ease of use, though, not most cost-efficient prints.

The speed is nice as you can print higher quality at the same speed.

Speed is severely impacted with filament swaps.  Their new A1 model seems to address the print time issue with filament swaps, but is still single head so wouldn't improve material waste.

I'm surprised you didn't complain about this inevitable X1 / P1 series design compromise.

The PLA CF materials are very nice and the layer don't show as much, but they do show at 0.2mm, but if you can run at 0.08mm and still print in the same time it is perfect as now the layers disappear. The wall dithering is also very nice, this greatly increases print time but again if the print speed is that fast then again you can allow the printer to do more work as it works faster so again a better result in the same time.

Unclear what you're trying to say.  Do you not understand the concept of time?

That is what the speed is really about.

Confusion?

Of course it is not how Bambu labs sell the printer but then they have already made clear that they are liars and they don't care. Once they have your money they have won. Oh the support was the other lie. While a 3D printer youtuber is making a video telling you how awsome the support is people on the bambu forum are complaining of no support. It took them 5 weeks to refund me with no even an apology or some gesture of good will considering that they had just slashed their prices, but then it's that chinese mentality all over again, got your money, now go fuck yourself, we can pay another youtube shill who will claim that this is just a spontaneous video and that he is not being paid for it. Yea right, it's funny how youtube is rammed with praise for BL while their forum is full of people complaining about just basic customer service.

So the evil Chinese stole your money, but then gave it back when you couldn't figure out how to use the easiest to use printer on the market?

Looks to me like you are a bit clueless, with some racism on the side.  Your first attempt at printing on this machine was using the provided support material, right?  It is clearly marked as such.  What did you think it was?

I suppose you could argue that Bambu Lab should protect you from your stupidity, but stupid people are very good at finding ways to work around protective features so it's an endless task.  Perhaps they assumed reading comprehension and a manual would be sufficient.

No printer is flawless, and my recently acquired P1S has been good aside from the AMS, which has retraction failure issues.  My thinking is it is down to motors being too weak (cost-cutting measure, most likely - what do the engineers who designed it know?) and also scrimping on the bowden tubing lengths.  Every bend creates drag which the AMS motors have to overcome, and they're pretty marginal.  I am surprised that they haven't beefed up those motors by now - possibly there is an issue with current draw through the wiring, which may also have been 'improved' by some management type.     3D printers aren't quite 'consumer friendly' yet, so I will have to work on the AMS.

I was getting reasonably close to zero waste prints on my Sovol SV04 IDEX machine, but that was sucking up a lot of time and not generating any useful prints - endless calibration cubes and benchy's are not my ideal production schedule.  If you want zero waste, and dual colour / material is acceptable, then get an IDEX and tune it in.

Or if you really only want speed you could spend the same money on a Voron 2.4 or RatRig, and build it yourself.  A lot more flexibility than the proprietary Bambu Lab machines.  But if it doesn't work you know who to blame.

Oh, wait.  It would be those devious Chinese again, right?

[aeberbach]

I considered a Bambu, but the cloud thing killed it for me. They could also respect open source a little more. Waiting on my Prusa MK4 kit...

[mikeselectricstuff]

I considered a Bambu, but the cloud thing killed it for me. They could also respect open source a little more. Waiting on my Prusa MK4 kit...

You don't have to use the cloud - local network and SD card are supported

[aeberbach]

What is it that doesn't work without "cloud" then?

[mikeselectricstuff]

What is it that doesn't work without "cloud" then?

Automatic firmware updates
Remote camera view / operation from outside your local network