Hi, in this video I'm going over some things that bug me about my Bambu Printers, hope you enjoy. Links: Bed Knobs by franklin: www.printables... PTFE Guide by raeuberhose: www.printables...
Correction regarding the PETG segment: I wanted to note that I didn’t mean these machines can print PETG or other slow filaments with good quality, it is definitely possible and it came off a bit wrong in my video. This was simply the experience that I had with the standard profiles.
Same for me unfortunately with PETG. lots of VFA when printing slow. The standard PETG profiles are too fast for Prusament, because then the layers do not stick together :/
a lot of these things are stuff that people havent talked about so i really appreciate you telling us everything about your experience. Great job dude :)
I appreciate your honest review. I’ve seen nothing but good things about this printer and even though I’m still considering it, it’s really helpful to know the downsides
Come on, man.... How am I supposed to binge videos of a creator I just discovered and very much enjoy if there are no videos to binge? Jokes aside, keep up the great work! Your videos definitely have a charm about them with clean edits and enjoyable transitions. They don't come off as low effort or tacky, but more so semi-serious with some comedic elements using the basic typefaces and lowercase letters. I really enjoy them! And thanks for the insight on the P1S. I have on on the way from Bambu Lab and ill have to keep these in mind when I use it.
Thanks for the long term review! Honest and no sugarcoating. Much appreciated. I've been amazed by my bambu printers; I have an A1, and A1 mini and another A1 and mini on the way. AFAIK, bambu started shipping the gold textured PEI plates with all their printers, and I agree, they're amazing.
*sigh* so I keep seeing people say that their sparsely filled rolls have issues (usually cardboard ones that are smaller) but there are 3d printable adapter rings that solve this. To say nothing about respooling or what I do: respool onto 1/2 and 1/3 bisected reels that fit onto the bbl reusable spools so you can pull them off and on as you like so you can even get sample coils to work in the AMS.
Hi. Very helpful video, thanks. I’ve printed off three of the ‘bed knobs’ you mentioned, and will be ready, if I have the need to level. I expect you will already be aware. However, not that I’ve used it yet, I downloaded and printed a ‘cleaner’ tool. It clips onto the threads and has a small space to insert a pad. If a small amount of grease is applied to this, and the bed raised and lowered. The thread is cleaned, it can also be used to lubricate the threads. It appears to me that this would make cleaning/lubricating especially the rear thread, very easy 😊. Cheers Noel
@@roughiness I have a P1s and never bothered with the AMS as it's been a bit of a weak point for the P and X series, rather Ironic since it's also a huge selling point. I'll be curious to see if Bambu's next iteration of the AMS will be backwards compatible with first generation printers. From what I hear the AMS lite is quite a bit more reliable/repeatable so I assume they'll carry over what they've learned.
@@Founders4 Yep - I think if Bambu Lab would use the same mechanism and printhead from the AMS lite in the P1s, it would not only speed up the color printing process (filament would not have to be pulled up for a very long trajectory, because of using multiple tubes), but also nozzle replacement would be a lot more easy (just a click-in system). I think they learned a lot from the A1/A1 mini experience, and it would not surprise me if they incorporate that knowledge in a possible improved new model.
My biggest frustration with the AMS is how many steps are required to clear the most common jam. Any time I have filament break off in the AMS (mostly due to bad filament), you need to practically take the whole thing apart to access the ptfe tubes feeding into the hub. Had they added an access hatch on the bottom, you could just flip it over, pull a panel, and get access to the tubes to clear a jam. Instead I'm stressing two tiny wire connectors every time I need to disassemble it to clear a jam.
That’s strange, I’ve ran like 20 spools in the ams and have never had a single piece of filament break that way. Sometimes it has been slightly too wide for the ams so it got stuck, but unclipping the back rubber thing allowed me to get enough tension to pull it out.
@@VeryCuul when filament gets brittle and sits for a while, the tension from the spool can cause it to snap at the entry. If it wasn't the material currently loaded, you'll be left with a stump inside the AMS that's too short to feed or pull through. So it immediately gets stuck when the AMS attempts to load from that slot. The failure itself is caused by bad filament, not the AMS. Regardless, the AMS certainly could make it easier to access all filament pathways.
I just discontect the tube that comes out of the ams at that spring contraption and I feed some random filament up through the tube as its trying to eject it and it'll push it out of the top. I usually see a couple brittle broken pieces come out. My ams had been sitting for months with filament and it was all broken inside. I didn't have to take anything apart other than the little ptfe tubes.
@@PrintTech-3D yeah avoid old filament ,had the same problem with it breaking , on 14 different places , had to take out every tube and use another filament to push the parts out. Worked great in the beginning ,part was perfectly printed but when it retracted the filament it broke in tiny pieces over all the system. And contrary to what people say its easy to take out.
I reached out to bambu about the bed going down first issue because all my prints are very tall. Bambulab tech support informed me the software uses much less amperage during these initial movements and the incredible sound it produces is not one to worry about 😅. I don’t feel it is so necessary to go as far down on Z initially but they do it to avoid tool head collisions with the bed. I run 5 bambu lab core XY machines 23/7. So far 8k in hours and they are all still killing it. I have had to upgrade to the hardened extruder gear on all of them but other than that they are absolutely the best work horses I have ever had.
Oh btw the x1c hasbt been shipped with the coolplate for over 6 month it comes with textured pei now, i find this sad because coolplate was amazing (obviously only for pla) only thing you need to keep it clean so use isopropanol on it and some spray glue if you have a very thin contact point with the bed or use a brim. But it uses way less energy and also less uneven cooling or nozzle clocks with pla due to less heat buildup. They should ship it with the p1p because its not made for fancy materials (in base form) but with the x1c i would use a smooth pei on one side otherside coolplate.
I didn’t think of it like that when you said the nozzles are supposed to break. Just like a car, it’s designed to absorb the impact. Very good point there.
Regarding the Z homing crashing in to the bottom of the printer - if it happens, check around the rear Z leadscrew for stray poop that has fallen down the back.
I can agree with most of this. Love all 4 of my BL printers, but I do hope a lot of these kinks will be ironed out on their next gen printers.... the first model of which will be released next month i believe 😁 Super excited and already got half my cash saved for it.
I find with the lightweight spools, kapton tape on the spool edges, and leaving the lid lifted with the lil lock down feet. i also tend to add extra slack on the filement by spinning the spool a bit. Annoying, but it helps me finish spools
I’m really looking forward to their next flagship, I hope they listen to their community and all the simple issues that people have had and make a great printer
I had that 3d printed part on my p1s. Two days after i bought it. I had filament stuck in the extruder and ended taking it apart to clean. I created a support ticket where employees noticed that 3d printed part in one of the pictures i sent. The mentioned that its not recommended as it can cause layer shifting issues. Not sure if thats true. Kinda new here. Just thought id throw it out there
Could you do a video on tramming the bed? I'm unfamiliar how to do this w/o some sort of visual leveling report which the BL firmware doesn't provide, and I don't want to install the 3rd party firmware just to get a visual representation of my bed's level-ness. Thanks for the video BTW. I haven't had most of the issues you reported, but it's good to know if I run into them.
Another thing. Maintenance. These thing are really not built to be taken apart. I have just had to replace my belt on the p1s. and man.. NEVER AGAIN. The side panels and everything have to be stripped from the machine. There are so many hidden screws I refuse to put back in. idler pulleys squeak. Petg prints can be iffy although there are custom profiles for that. And the printers can be quite loud. But again there are mufflers and sound deadening you can help reduce this.
You showed a cardboard spool that isn't allowed in the ams without a adapter, I never had any issue with light spools in the ams (using 4 X1C at work and a P1s at home). Also since the release of the X1C the Generic petg settings have been amazing as long as you have properly dryed filament, I would say even better then Bambu pla except overhangs ofc. I used about 60kg of petg in the first month building a 6 axis cobot (robot arm) only changed the infill and amount of top/bottom layers and walls. The parts where exceptional quality and looked amazing with perfect tolerances even compacted to 5k+ fdm printers.
I'm not saying they're perfect, but in terms of the price to performance ratio they're unmatched by a long shot. I mean even super expensive printers in the past had the same cheap aluminum profiles shitty firmware, basically no printer had built in spaghetti detect without doing it yourself and horrible Default profiles even for most common easy to print materials. Bambu made the closet we have ever been to a 2d paper printer in terms of usability and experience I would say
The camera going purple is a failure that usually happens when they don't handle the heat over time. The higher chamber temperatures you have, the sooner they go purple.
Is it a heat issue? I know on cars window tint goes purple when you use Windex anywhere in the car. It's the ammonia. I'd be curious if using Windex on the clear panels is causing the camera lens to go purple
When the word Perfect is in the title you know that you are working with a great printer. I too have bambu printers, Prusa and any cubic. The non Bambu printers I do not think you can use the word perfect anywhere near them. Prusa is , or was dependable but my babus are MORE dependable and better quality printers. I have no qualms with my D2 Resin DLP any cubic though, extreme detail and just awesome!!! Nice video.. keep em comin
How are you measuring wear on the CF rods? residue on the rods is usually from filament not from the rods themselves, when you clean them you're cleaning them off due to filament that creates dust more often than not. the CF rods can be bought for $85 U.S. vs Qidi and other competitors which are permanent and make the printer disposable; worth a notation that they sell them in case you somehow did wear them out or damage them.
As I said in the video, I noticed that when a printer is new, there is much more residue on the rods than compared to one with over 1k hours for example. For example I cleaned my X1 recently after around a month of printing without cleaning, and the rods were mostly spotless. On the other hand all of my P1‘s and my X1 back when I bought them all had a ton of residue when I cleaned them the first couple of times. You can also see wear patterns on the rods. That doesn’t mean they’ll break or anything, but when two surfaces contact each other and move around there will be friction, and with that comes wear.
Very nice video. If I had a wish I would ask you to add links to the tools (like the bed trimming nobs) that helped you in the your comment / description of the video. Wish you fun dismantling your AMS to get it up and running again - I did it now a serval times for maintenance or repair reasons. Especially you should check the PTFE tubes inside when you run your AMS for such a long time. I was very surprised how thin they got.
I added them in the description now. Completely forgot about that when I uploaded the vid. Thanks for letting me know :) Interestingly enough my AMS sort of fixed itself. The slots work again, but they still fail to pull back at the end of each print.
NIce review witch gives me a good idea what to expect when being one. I will start with the A1 probably. See if its good for the purposes I want it and then when being ready to go manufacturing stuff, I can get a Carbon. AMS - not really necessary because for modelbuilding everything will be painted anyway. Keep up the reviews !
highly suggest to not use FDM for scale models. you will never achieve a surface finish that hides the layer lines, no matter the printer or layer height. If you want truly good looking models, you need SLA: resin printing.
@@marschma Thanks for the advise but Resis in no option for me. I don't want those toxic product in my house... If I want 1/45 persons, I can buy those or have them printed in resin by a friend. I only want to make add-ons for the lasercut Kit's I create. eg : a chimney, a airco unit. Those can be sanded...😄
I think the P1 will suit you just fine, unless you really want the touchscreen and LiDAR. It’s definitely really awesome though, can‘t go wrong with either one. And thanks for the kind words, I‘ll definitely keep making more content, it’s super fun :)
It’s wild how underrated you are. I was genuinely shocked when I saw that you had less than 1,000 subscribers. Glad to catch you channel while it’s still new! If it’s already this engaging at only its 3rd video, I can’t wait to see what you do next 😁
I have no experience with the K1, but the things I have heard about their app are already enough of a reason to never touch one of them. The Bambu printers are awesome, this video was mainly focusing on some things that annoy me about them, but they are in my opinion the best machines out there, at least for my use case. I‘d say either Bambu or Prusa, creality is pretty mid imo.
Good info, thanks! But shouldn't you mention that if they're online these printers send everything you print back to the company as encrypted "log files", including gcode and pictures from all the cameras and slicer? This might be critical info for you or clients you're printing for!
I have over 1600 hours on my X1C and I just use Windex maybe once every other month? what PLA are you using that leaves this much residue on the glass?????? it's probably why you think the rods are 'wearing' it's probably residue from the PLA you're using
i has serious bed adhesion with my X1 and the cool plate. Glue made things worse. I got this issue now resolved. Every about 5 prints I was with soap. But with every print I was with glass cleaner and it works perfectly every time. But that glue stick. What a nightmare it was. I don’t understand why this was ever a good idea or. If it works but it doesn’t at all with me.
@@roughiness I am planning to. Sharing my experience with that crappy cool plate. I’m on limited budget, until I build up my store and channel, all extra cash is going into PLA and related craft supplies for my channel to promote my terrain.
@@Slurgical_3D_Terrain_Channel There are some really affordable PEIs on AliExpress, I got one when I bought the X1 and it’s been working perfectly for over a year. Was around 11 bucks with shipping.
I respectfully disagree on a lot of your points. I have over 2000 hours on mine and have 5 AMS units. I agree that the printers are far from perfect and that they get dirty fairly quickly. I haven't had any of the issues you've described. I also use my 5th AMS for multi-colored TPU printing. Maybe I got lucky ... Have a great day! Also as soon as I could I bought a Revo hotend. Then immediately bought a Panda Revo as soon as they were available.
This video is still more about my observations with my machines and AMS, I‘m sure some people out there have much better experiences and it‘s awesome that your five AMS’s work well! I know that you can print slower filaments well with these machines once calibrated enough like another comment mentioned, I could have worded that a bit better. Would you mind telling me what profile / settings you use for TPU?
@@roughiness The AMA is modified to run TPU. I can find the link to the creator that figured it out if you like. I am using the OAB TPU process profile I found on Printables. I am using the stock Bambu settings for TPU, the only thing I changed was disabling retraction. I had to set up a dummy profile to run the TPU in the AMS. Even in Orca Slicer.
@@roughiness I do realize where you are coming from. It just didn't come off the way you intended. At least not to my ears. Either way, I just wanted to share my experience in return. 🙂
Thank you for a thorough reply. I just ordered my p1s AMS printer, hopefully it will arrive this week. Did you use the same profile with the panda revo hotend? Do you use the obxidian hotend or the high flow one? I read somewhere that the 0,6 and 0,8mm nozzle hotend profiles aren't properly tuned out of the box...
Great job on your video! I'm hard of hearing and found that your are very easy to understand. Keep up the good work and congrats on nearly 10k views, I'm thrilled when I get into the hundreds of views - LOL.
I have four with 2k hours each. I'm an expert at repairing them and now I'm gonna buy another 4 with the sale. In all, I've maybe done 10-12 hours in repairs with 6 months of printing all day and night. I will never purchase another printer that isn't a bambu. Company is for production, if you want to tinker then pick up a k1. 😂 I reroll everything onto bambu spools, or pop the sides off and put it on. That solves majority of all the ams issues I had on the first two months of farming.
Thanks! It seemed to me like there are a lot of problems people don’t really talk about with these machines. There are definitely more things that I noticed but didn’t mention in the video, the editing already took me too long, so that would have been a bit of nightmare to add even more footage.
You listen to 100 gecs and bladee? You’re a real one. Their songs slap so much even though some sound kinda bad at first 😂 I’m gonna put more drain gang stuff in my vids
Surprised the AMS is pretty much all plastic.. Probably the reason the A1 and A1 minis have crash detection is cause they're more recent, and Bambu probably realized that would be something good to have after the first set, esp for printers that less experienced individuals would most likely be getting. Would be nice if it could be retrofitted to their Core XY printers, but at this point it's probably not really worth it to them since they're probably already working on the next iteration ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I mean they implemented noise cancelling just with a software update, and the printer already homes itself with pressure when it touches the corners, so they sort of have one already, so I don‘t really understand why it wouldn’t be possible. Maybe there is some sort of reason for that.
Oh I didn’t know that, thanks for letting me know. I thought it homes itself by touching a wall and then it detects the current for the motor going up.
Your opinion on PETG is based on your on how many hours of printing with it? You just say what others have not succeeded with on forums is my guess :) U got it wrong with speed. i can do 1-40mms prints with petg (as this is the main filament i use) that are super. both pretty and strong. 0 fan for those. 0 ringing 0 vfa. i do bolt my machines to a concrete floor and then weigh the chassis with about 15 kg of ballast for motion rigidity. the worst thing u can do is the soft "anti vibration" feet. rigidity and lower speed with a successful motor noise and inputshaping cali these things can do up to about 220mms with 8k accel before they cannot comp anymore. all rigs have their "frequency zones" where they give off vfa, its part of the game. the trick is to find the speeds it does not produce vfa. also to go over the head and tighten ALL u can get at, mine came with four loose screws on the hotend..also changing the fans on the hotend to proper fans from, lets say noctua. along with a lock-piece for the headcover will take away most of the x axis artifacts. Regarding the screws on the bed. you are just an inside person with weak grip imo. i dont find them hard to turn at all. 🤭 ringing on these machines is down to incorrect filament tuning, starting with k-factor. then flow, then temp. with these machines its about flowrate and temp.. not speed. do a maxflowrate test for the temprange you want to print in. that shows u what flow ur hotend can handle with that temp and that filament. then slice and change to flow view. verify that speeds are inline with your just performed flowtest. Gucci.. u need to fiddle with the temps for the cool plate buddy.. i run mine for pla on 55, 0 glue 100% stick. 70% squish. u gotta fiddle to get it to stick to it. i noticed that on bl forums there is an echochamber effect. ppl there will ask you , but why not use stock instead of trying to help you. and others will comment that they have no problems. so i stay away from it. learn from my mistakes mate.. good machines poor community of "masters" currently using this method and i usually make 4 filament profiles for each one. Low flow 1-5, Medium low flow 5-10, Medium flow 10-18 and Full flow 18-33. ( i use a highflow thirdparty hotend to get 33) the temps are also stepped the same way to accommodate the time spent in the meltzone. so low is 245-255, med low 250-255, med 255-260, full 265-275. your milage may vary. welcome to the fff family buddy. u got the right mindset to do this craft, go at it and watch the machine work to learn its secrets is my best advice.
@@BeautyBeastRC I dont even bother mate. i got 0 strings on rolls that have been exposed to a basement for weeks. i found a software set limit of 30mms for the extruder in the printer settings cog. change the max extruder motion limit to 40mms. the printer will not retract faster than 30mms no matter what you set in filament override as this limit is applied to the gcode. 30mms is not enough for petg as it plasticizes at a different viscosity than most other filament. u can set whatever you want as override and it wil ignore it and set 30mms anyway. with 40mms i can do retractions over short distances (0-5 cm) with as little as 0.2mm retraction. for longer travel moves i found that i got the same no strings result from 0.6-2mm as i got from 2-4. (corner to corner motion) think this is bug i the "code" from bl, or their extruder is not as good as they want to tell us. i have run this 40mms limit for a few weeks with no problems, no strings, no blobs. all this found by watching the printer work.
@@BeautyBeastRC I dont even bother mate. i got 0 strings on rolls that have been exposed to a basement for weeks. what i do is find the extrusion limit for a given temp yeah, then i slice the model with the highest flow profile and look at the flow view, then compare that with the layertime view. i try to lower the mms cubed on the filament profile until i get a uniform extrusion flow with an as even as i can get layertime and its off to the races ;) flow+temp+printspeed and retraction speed/distance = success. personal tip(most of the stock profiles provided are WAY to fast for the volume extruded) they provide a startingpoint that is optimistic at best imo. i found a software set limit of 30mms for the extruder in the printer settings cog. change the max extruder motion limit to 40mms. the printer will not retract faster than 30mms no matter what you set in filament override as this limit is applied to the gcode per default. 30mms is not enough for petg as it plasticizes at a different viscosity than most other filament. u can set whatever you want as override and it wil ignore it and set 30mms anyway. with 40mms i can do retractions over short distances (0-5 cm) with as little as 0.2mm retraction. for longer travel moves i found that i got the same no strings result from 0.6-2mm as i got from 2-4. (corner to corner motion) think this is bug in the "code" from bl, or their extruder is not as good as they want to tell us. i have run this 40mms limit for a few weeks with no problems, no strings, no blobs. all this found by watching the printer work.
I experimented with PETG in the past and the pictures that I found looked exactly like what I got with my PETG prints, so I just used those for the video. I usually don‘t surf around the Bambu Forum at all, I try to avoid Reddit in general. (Just don‘t like the platform) My machines are all manually calibrated (Flow Rate / Pressure Advance ) In General my experience with PETG is just with the standard profiles. I admit that I am not a master and this video is more about things that I noticed / experienced, and wanted to talk about because it might help someone. I‘m certain that you can get really good prints with PETG and other slow filaments, maybe I could have worded that a bit better. I dislike the cool plate mainly because of its ugly first layer, the glue is what makes it even worse imo. It still works of course and isn‘t inherently „bad“. Just not my thing. And the knobs believe me they are extremely tight on my X1, the ones on my P1 are much easier. Or maybe I just suck who knows 🙃
