Lenovo ThinkPad X1C

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

How can MacOS possibly sleep/wake any faster than Windows? My Lenovo X1C wakes up so quickly that the limiting factor is how fast I can enter my PIN on the keyboard. Well below 1 second, maybe 0.5 seconds. Going to sleep is the same, I'm not going to measure it but it feels like it's about 0.3 seconds.

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.

1000% this. I used to "lightly" follow 3D printing when it first started to become cool among hackers a decade or so ago, then I dropped off until 2023 much older and much less tolerant to BS in technology. I went onto Reddit to get their recommendations. To someone completely new who hasn't followed any real developments occurring in the industry, it was confusing but it seemed like the Sovol SV06 was a good "starting point". Well I didn't realize how far behind the industry still was. I thought surely at this point all printers much just be load file -> load filament -> click print. Just like regular printers no? Nope, doing dumb things like using some third party slicer tool, transferring a file to a microsd card manually and then babying the printer for its super slow error prone prints feels like its still a toy not a professional device. Imagine having to do that level of nonsense for your laser printer? Yeah maybe back in the days of "Office Space" but not today! I was in a time crunch so out of desperation I took a gamble and dropped a wad of cash on a Bambu X1C. It is what I consider a professional product for normies in my eyes. Most everything else are just toys. I was ready to say Bambu, Bambu and nothing but Bambu but then I read the user's last few sentences. Seems like he is not really looking for a end to end professional product and so hes got infinite options but for anyone else, its gotta be Bambu!

I have a Bambu X1C and a Prusa MK3.9S (mostly upgraded MK3S). The Bambu is incredible at PLA. It is so fast and consistently perfect. The 0.2mm nozzle makes unreal detail small parts. But I struggle to do other materials with it like TPU, PETG, ABS. The Prusa takes generally whatever material I throw at it and does a great job just using the PrusaSlicer built in profiles. It's also the minimum viable printer -- it's 80% as good as the Bambu but a fraction of the complexity. I am 100% confident I could keep it running indefinitely where the Bambu is mostly proprietary parts and software.

Two real paths: --- Option #1: Just buy the X1C. It's the best printer at your size range and price category (I own this, a Prusa Core One, and several creality machines). Frankly - spend the extra 100 dollars and get the Combo with the AMS 2. Even if you don't want to do multi-color prints, it saves more than enough time switching filaments quickly to make it worth it if you're printing with any regularity. This will let you use a 3d printer like it's a tool, and as someone who is printing CAD designed structural parts - it excels at just popping out decent parts, in all of the materials you want for structural parts. Lock it into LAN mode. Despite claims to the contrary it's quite repairable (ex - I just replaced the hotbed on mine because a lightning strike damaged the torque sensors [side note - it fucking finished the print on resume when my power came back up - even without working torque sensors on the z axis]). Parts are available, they aren't outrageously priced, and the instructions are plenty clear. Personally - I would strongly recommend this path. Understand what "good" looks like in the space before branching out into other requirements. --- Option #2: Build a Voron Kit. It's going to take you several days of full time assembly, It'll cost more for the same quality, it's going to have some maddening "dial it in" moments. But you get a machine that you fully understand. You'll need to be very comfortable with both hardware and software for the assembly.…

My 2-cents on this - as someone that runs a very small business that pretty heavily relies on a Bambu X1C - is that this isn't really going to push me to purchase the H2D any time soon, it is cool that it has laser-cutting ability and two nozzles to reduce waste, but I don't need that. What I really need is fast multi-color printing and I need to scale that up when needed. To me, the best offering they have right now is the A1-Mini with the AMS-Lite. And that is what I'll be ordering as the next purchase. The AMS-Lite is a completely different design from the AMS sold on the larger printers, and in my opinion, is a much better design. The AMS-Lite holds the filament reels from the center instead of the outer rim (which causes all sorts of issues with non-standard reels with the Original AMS) and it has a very simple filament path directly to the nozzle. This is going to save me a ton of time and wasted filament. At $389 for the combo of the AMS-Lite and the A1-Mini - I can scale this up as needed without a ton of concern for my bank account. It is cool that they are incorporating other features into their printers - but I hope they don't stagnate on their core 3d printing features, because it's what's set them apart from others by a long shot and their singularly focused products have become a staple for many small businesses i think.

Pretty much just go buy a Bambu X1C and be done with it. I've been through a bunch of 3d printers, all of which required constant tinkering and babysitting. The Bambu just works, you click print and it prints, and fast. There's some drama now around them closing up the ecosystem and locking out third party firmware, etc. but I honestly could care less so long as it stays good at being a printer.

I've heard a lot of people recommending the K1 as a similar substitute. https://www.creality.com/products/creality-k1-3d-printer I might check it out too, while I like my X1C...Bambu might be overstaying there welcome in my house.

Not yet, but other brands are stepping up their quality. I just bought a Creality K2 Plus, and it's almost on par with my X1C (and has some features I prefer, like the CFS, their version of the AMS)

Massive +1 - Bambu changed everything for me. I've been in the hobby for 10 years, built multiple Vorons from source & kit, and heavily modified multiple Prusa machines (Full Bear). Nothing compares to how easy Bambu made everything. My wife, who has seen me print for all that time without being able to figure it out, can now print items without hassle or oversight on the X1C. Another way I can tell that Bambu changed everything is through second-hand market prices. Before Bambu, I could sell most 3D printers for not much less than I purchased them or more, depending on the mods. I just struggled to sell a Voron 2.4 300 for $800 (near $1800 build price after extras). There is still a market for enthusiast printers, but the leap in user-friendliness is known. What they provided for the cost was a vast market leap.