Bambu Lab X1 Carbon

This article highlights why Bambu has been eating Prusa's lunch the past few years. Imagine spending over $1000 then needing to print parts to get it to work properly. I swapped my Ender5 for an X1C two years ago, and since then, I have only had to do whatever maintenance the X1C tells me. Using my X1C feels much closer to using my laser paper printer, whereas my Ender5 ended up being a hobby in itself.

> because 3d printing is not there yet Ya, it is, and it’s been there for quite a while now thanks to Bambu. The X1 just works. Coming up on a year of frequent use, I can count the number of failed prints on one hand. It’s incredible.

Having owned an X1C for just over a year, I have loved it - it was my 3rd printer - and it "just works" (99% of the time). However - this is just the push I need to install the 3rd-party firmware (X1Plus), I was considering doing it anyways as the machine is now out of warranty - but I will never update to this "security theater" firmware. (If they wanted "real" security, they would allow proper LAN mode and have the option to remove required cloud connectivity entirely) And - unless they change, my next printer will be a Prusa - or a Voron - or a Voron-clone (Soval?) - am done with "enshitification" of existing products that I paid a premium for, and already own.

My sample size of 1: I've been using my X1 for over 3 months and in that time printed about 60-70kg of various filaments: PLA, ASA, PETG. Printer worked out of the box, required no adjustment either at start or after. The only tinkering, if you even can call it that, I've done so far was adjusting nozzle temp by 5C for one specific brand of PETG and capping print speed for silk pla (if you print it too fast it's no longer "silky"). Everything else just prints on default profiles. If you are printing with enclosure doors closed printer noise is acceptable - I wouldn't sleep in the same room, but I can work (including taking video calls) with printer running 2.5-3m from me. Carbon filter seems to be working nicely too - my air quality monitor isn't picking much VOOCs or fine particulate. tl;dr; I've had fewer problems with X1 than with any other printer I owned, including laser and inkjet ones.

I operate a small fleet at my school: * 1x Prusa XL Gen 1 with 5 toolheads * 1x Prusa Mk4IS * 1x Bambu Labs X1C with multi-material * 2x Voron 0.2 * 1x Sovol Zero My experience: the typical higher-end printer runs out of the box and runs hundreds of hours (or more) between maintenance beyond wiping the plate down, occasionally greasing the rails, and blowing little plastic bits out of the enclosure. Every year I end up doing a few hour significant maintenance job on about one of the six printers. But then there's lemons. That Sovol Zero is terrible and has been down more than it's been up, because of something in the extruder assembly. It also came with a defective camera and needed it replaced. I need to decide whether to rebuild all that with many hours of labor or just get rid of it.

See, my thing is that I am a electronics and hardware tinkerer, and the printer(s) were taking up time I could have been actually tinkering with projects instead of my tools. My X1C still behaves the same as when I bought it, and Bambu continues to sell all the replacement parts needed.

I love my X1C. It's way ahead of any other 3D printer I've owned or built. I stuck it in a VLAN from day 1. Have had it in LAN-only mode for years. Works great. I haven't followed the company's PR statements, but seems a little strange that they would tell people not to get a Bambu Lab printer for any reason. I'm sorry your experience has been so terrible or that you thought you were buying an open-ecosystem printer. I never got that impression, so I never expected it.

I have about 15,000 hours on my Bambu x1c, and it's been fantastic. Their customer service has been great, too; the couple of times that I've had service issues, the tech genuinely worked with me to solve the problem. They were a lot nicer about it than the times I had to contact prusa about my older i3. FWIW.

Outside of Prusa - how would you compare Bambu's documentation against it's competitors? In my experience, having owned 2-other printers prior to an X1C - there is absolutely NO comparison - EVERYTHING was community, Reddit, forum or random YouTube guidance from non-manufacturers.

I’ve always got more consistent and accurate prints out of my x1c versus the prusa mk3 i tolerated. Even just the enclosure makes the bambu experience more much more consistent in my experience

This isn't defending Bambu, and it's not an ELI5 because, whether you meant it sarcastically or not, the easy answer to your question is "you do not need to connect to a cloud service to use a 3D printer". Bambu Labs however, has chosen to market their printers with an app that provides a "one-stop shop" for all things 3D-printer. You can browse their version of Thingiverse (or Printables or Cults 3D) and send jobs directly to your printer. You can also access your printer remotely (read outside your home network without tunnelling/port-forwarding/VPNs) to monitor prints, get notified when a print is done, get notified you've run out of filament, watch the printer work if it's equipped with a camera, etc. etc. Bambu has been attempting to remove features that enable easy local (not-internet-connected) use cases and force everyone to use the cloud, etc. Or at least make it as painful as possible to skip the cloud. Relevant context: X1C owner who did not update the firmware that forced bambu's "secure printing" workflow on users that previously used their local network "plugin". I stopped using Handy, blocked the printer's access to the internet, and ultimately, did not miss a thing. The printer continued to work fine with my slicer of choice (softfever's fork of Bambu Lab studio's fork of Prusa Slicer's fork of slic3r, now known as OrcaSlicer). Like most things these days, they make a decent printer, but are part of tech's steadfast march to control everything. The twist is th…

Author here: All logos were supplied by the customers, and a lot of them were custom logos. The real value, IMO, was the name written in text, which is what I'm censoring out in each of the photos. There's still enough demand using alternative logos, since the "job to be done" is providing a trading card dealer with a way to show off their name/logo in pictures of their wares. I wouldn't describe the situation as "the printer breaks down all the time". Stuff, like plates, or PFTE tube, or nozzles would wear out and break. It's not a regular occurrence, but it does happen, and it's enough of an issue when you are trying to hit a shipping window that you'll want to take steps to avoid it. From a story/narrative perspective, that's the stuff I tend to remember, not the other 99% of prints that turn out well. The Bambu X1C is reliable, you just can't run it 24/7 and not run into issues. The most unreliable component is probably the AMS, something about that, plus matte PLA, was causing clogs where you had to take apart the AMS and fish out the broken filament. That happened to me maybe 3 times. In those 50 orders, most of them were for 5-10 actual card stands, and throughput was enough of an issue that I bought a second printer. As for the clogs, that's really specific to the 0.2mm nozzle, not the 0.4mm nozzle I used after the jam. Unjamming a 0.2mm is much more difficult, since the hole is so much smaller. I did try cold pulls, and several other techniques, but I do think the ro…

I stop seeing those issues after starting using Bambulab X1 3d printer, it just works 99 percent of the time. My old ender 3 v2 had those issues due to bed changing its shape during printing(thin metal changing shape in micro level due to temp and mechanical stress with 4 knobs pulling down), not sticking well, not enough fast cooling or cooling effects bed temp profile, way off even with auto level probes. Also open 3d printer with bunch of air flow is a killer for those prints. OP should try Bambulab like enclosed more accurate 3d printer from a local 3d print shop or a hackerspace after locking the design and enclosure iterations.

It reminds me a lot of 3D Printing tbh. Watching all these cool DIY 3d printing kits evolve over years, I remember a few times I'd checked on costs to build a DIY one. They kept coming down, and down, and then around the same time as "Build a 3d printer for $200 (some assembly required)!" The Bambu X1C was announced/released, for a bit over a grand iirc? And its whole selling point was that it was fast and worked, out of the box. And so I bought one and made a bunch of random one-off-things that solved _my_ specific problem, the way I wanted it solved. Mostly in the form of very specific adapter plates that I could quickly iterate on and random house 'wouldn't it be nice if' things. That's kind of where AI-agent-coding is now too, though... software is more flexible.

I think PLA is a lot stronger than people give it credit for, especially if printed at 100% infill. I finally had a chance to use the PLA-CF that came with my Bambu X1C for a replacement part on my tripod, and it's great.

If you want something more open source go for a Prusa. I don't buy that a Prusa is more robust than a Bambu. I used to have a Prusa Mini and now have a Bambu X1C and it is a world of difference. I would never go back.

I agree entirely with your first two sentences (I like both). But I disagree pretty hard with the rest of it. An X1C spits out prints that are higher quality than my ender 3 would do, in a variety of materials the ender couldn't handle, even with a HUGE amount of time understanding the ender and how it works (incl upgrading or replacing just about every component). Further - I think some of the divide is between the folks printing models, and the folks printing functional parts. When I print nice models (ex: toys for my kids or gifts) then sure - I tweak still because appearances matter. But if I just want a functional print because I need an enclosure for an electronics project, or I want a hanger for my wall, or I need a new footpad for a desk... Mediocre is a-ok. And again... The X1C is not spitting out mostly mediocre parts. If anything - the "learning" you need to do mostly lives in the slicers/models at this point.

Same here. I got a Bambu X1C and have been very happy with it.