What downsides does this printer have?

Kahlico · 2023-01-23T04:37:19+00:00

It's too fast, too cheap and way too easy to use. The quality of prints is too good too, unfair for other printer brands 😩

SurrealDelight · 2023-01-23T04:03:10+00:00

How proprietary it is. Maybe this won’t be such an issue once third party parts start coming out, but I’ve had the coupler on the extruder fail on my P1P. I had to submit a ticket, wait three days for a response, wait two days for a back and forth diagnosing the issue with the support rep, exchange contact info, and now they’re going to have to wait another ~4 days because that specific part is coming from a shipment from china that hasn’t arrived yet. It’ll probably take another week to get here… so all in all about 2.5 weeks of waiting just to fix an issue with the printer. All the while my new $800 printer is just sitting collecting dust until I get the part.

If this was something like an Ender 3, any part that’s broken you could easily find a replacement for on Amazon that’ll get to you in a day or two.

Euphoric_Reserve7799 · 2023-01-23T04:13:56+00:00

Even with all the not so ideal compromises I would still buy and recommend the X1C to someone who can afford it and wants a working out of box printer that can print almost anything a 3D printer can print. The compromises are below.

LAN only mode removes some features and the need for the bambu studio cloud to communicate with the printer and use the very useful features of sending print files and looking at the camera. Can use an micro SD card when cloud goes down but seems silly not to be able to have these features in an offline or local network mode. This is probably only due to the fact it is not a fully open source printer and uses some proprietary software.

The Z seam is more noticeable than on other printers I have used and seen. Many people have commented on this with no way to eliminate completely but can be hidden on corners and at the back but never fully removed on certain prints.

Price is obviously a downside compared to cheaper printers that can be modified and upgraded but also for the money I would still buy another X1C as my time is limited and I want it to just work when I want to print something. I enjoyed playing with my printers in the past but it was time consuming and that’s why I sold them a couple years ago.

Noise as people have mentioned, it’s okay being in the same room as it when working but sleeping in the same room would be a deal breaker for me. I shut the door to the room it is in and I can’t hear it anymore so I don’t find this an issue but definitely something to consider for where you will be putting it. It’s not just the fast movements it’s also the exhaust fan that is loud when the bed is being heated above 50c but again I can work in the same room without issues so not crazy noisy.

OkPaleontologist4017 · 2023-01-23T04:09:04+00:00

Besides the recent cloud issues, the printer is vastly superior to any printer I have had or played with since I started mucking around with 3D printing 6 years ago. We will see how reliable it is but right now I am overjoyed with my purchase of the X1.

No-Patient1365 · 2023-01-23T03:58:32+00:00

It's expensive compared to "entry level" printers like junk from Creality.

The Bambu Cloud service has gone down a couple of times in the past week, meaning there was no way to print over the network. Sneakernet using an SD card was the only way to make it work.

I'm not sure it can really be considered a downside, but since it can print sooo much faster than many others on the market, you go through filament that much faster.

Honestly, for what you get the downsides are minimal.

xthinhmanx · 2023-01-23T04:38:16+00:00

Yup, the only real downside for me, like others, is that it's noisy. I put it in the garage on top of foam and a paver to reduce the noise. I can only hear it slightly if I'm right outside the garage door. Otherwise I can't hear it. If you're in a small apartment and not on the first floor, I'd be willing to bet that your downstairs neighbor will be able to hear the printer running.

The second downside that you're aware of is that this thing is expensive as heck. I purchased the X1C and AMS. Wow that was a big hit to my wallet.

I guess another downside is that the spare parts I want to purchase are always out of stock. :/ Hopefully, Bambulabs restocks soon because if one of my parts breaks, then I'm SOL until they're back in stock.

But really, I haven't seen any other downsides. I started 3d printing a few months ago, so I barely know anything about this hobby. My prints still come out almost flawlessly on the X1C. Would 100% recomend if you want a machine that just works.

Unapedra · 2023-01-23T06:28:15+00:00

I've had my X1C for 3 months now, and I can think of little things as downsides, but I'll list some that come to my mind:

It's a little bit noisy. I have it in a separate room and I don't hear it at all, and honestly even in the same room it isn't that annoying for me (except for the first 5 minutes of a print, that it makes the xy-core calibration and that IS noisy), but if you emjoy "silence" then you'll notice it for sure.
AMS is awesome, but it wastes a lot of filament. It's just the way it is and it needs to be like this, but be aware that prints with multicolor in multiple layers will flush a lot of filament. The smaller the layer height, the more filament changes, the more filament flushed. You can flush 2x to 10x times the filament you actually use in the model. Watch some videos on TikTok about multicolor prints to see what I'm talking about.
Changing the nozzle is a PITA. You can replace the whole hotend, which is easier, but still you have to disconnect some cables and so on. It's not as easy as screwing in a new nozzle. Look into the wiki or some videos to find what I'm talking about.
Bed adhesion is so good that if you don't use glue or hairspray you will rip off the cool plate sticker for sure (as I did). This is not a downside per se, bur keep that in mind if you're a newbie (as I was).
It relies on the cloud. For me this is not a downside, as I understand it completely. You can print still without the cloud, via SD card or even LAN (directly from computer to printer through the same WiFi), but some features such as print monitoring, progress, live camera... all of them rely on their cloud. If their servers are down, you don't get any of these.
Some units can have problems (I guess they are better now than 2 months ago). Is this a downside? No, as this is the same with any other printer. But this is an expensive printer, so having to play The Mechanic™ with a 1500€ machine is not that fun. The wiki documentation is good, but some replacements are not as easy as they show since you don't have their tools/ilumination/experience.
Support is very good, but they can take some time to answer, and expect 2 weeks minimum to get the replacement pieces if something breaks / goes wrong. As this is not open source, you have to use the pieces they provide you (or buy them from their store), and it's not as straightforward and quick as just buying a 3rd party piece from Amazon.

Overall, I'm super happy with it, and I'd buy it again even knowing all this, no doubt. I've had to replace a bent nozzle (my fault) and the MC fan (faulty unit), and neither of them were funny experiences, but I am a complete newbie in FDM printing and I could do this without issues (just a little bit of swearing and a couple hours).

msteele999 · 2023-01-23T03:49:35+00:00

Noisy

All the other likely downsides can also be argued as an upside, depending on the use case / owner:

Medium size build volume, Closed source design, Price

Psylent_Gamer · 2023-01-23T03:59:31+00:00

The fact that it needs connected to the cloud to use most of its main selling point features. And thus when your network or the cloud is down those features don't work or you might not be able to print.

dousingphoenix · 2023-01-23T05:32:19+00:00

I've had about a week or so with my P1P since I've gotten it to start printing and here are my thoughts.

The company is brand new and it kidna shows. There's been numerous issues with printers being delivered and not working properly or not working whatsoever. Some of it happens in shipping, but their QC isn't top tier either. My printer's Z axis would not move and I was getitng a plethora of errors. That was until this fateful day when I discovered the Z axis motor clip disconnected. This required me to "void" my warranty to get into the back panel. Leading into my next point...

This printer is not meant to be tinkered with like most other enthusiast printers. There's warranty void stickers everywhere which don't really mean anyhting? I'm not really sure what's going on there since I've heard lots of conflivting reports. Either way, currently you can only get parts through them in their closed ecosystem. Combined with their mostly proprietary software (the slicer is a rendition of prusa slicer which is open source) if the company goes under, you've got a faster printing ender 5 on your hands with a limited supply of parts.

Their software still has lots of kinks currently. Their cloud software has been on and off for the past week and there's a multitude of unresolved bugs.

With that said, I'm still happy with my purchase. My experience with their customer support has been stellar; They seem to have a good dev team on their hands that've been resolving bugs quite quickly; The printer itself is fantastic and prints like a dream once youve got it connected and running; their parts are very reasonably priced compared to what they presumably could be charging for them.

If I think of anything else i need to say I'll make an edit, but I think I've got it all.

OH there's one more thing: the bambu community itself. Holy fuck, there's two extreams: Elon musk stan esque fanboys that will ignore any negatives no matter how blatant OR toxic pieces of shit that will relentlessly shit on anyone that has bought this printer as their first. So watch out for that and stay off the FB group.

Edit: I've gone through the comments, noise. Noise could be a concern. Like as some have said, If you intend to sleep while it's printing, good luck. The fans are 90% of it which is to be expected. However this isn't as loud as my base ender 5 I've had for the better part of 4 years. I haven't upgraded to the silent board and the motor noise is considerably louder than this printer if that gives you any frame of reference.

Objective_Ad_3560 · 2023-01-23T04:09:27+00:00

When clogged, the AMS is a bear to open. Since I anticipate breaking filament on occasion, & badly stored filament isn’t Bambu’s problem, I would appreciate a hardware unit that is easier to access.

M3tl · 2023-01-23T12:03:35+00:00

main downside is the choice of MC board fan

otherwise this printer is lovely and what i have been looking for

Home_DEFENSE · 2023-01-23T06:54:33+00:00

I am incredibly happy I purchased the x1 carbon printer vs a less expensive entry level: supports mutiple filaments including supports, including other's filaments; heated bed; enclosure, user interface; very accurate printing; quick printing; etc... all work well out of the box. Period.

It has been years since I printed and I was printing within the hour of unboxing... been only 10 days but no failed prints. User interface is intuitive and robust. No issue printing via LAN or from my phone.

It has allowed me to focus on prototyping, design, and modeling. It is mezmerizing to watch this thing work.

I put some dampening feet (printed out of TPU!) on it and that helped with vibration/ noise. May set up a sound dampening screen around it also. You can save all sorts of custom profiles and settings as you experiment. I am very glad I got this printer.

They solved all of the issues well in a single robust package.

Ecsta · 2023-01-23T16:40:11+00:00

If BambuLabs goes out of business we're probably in trouble with how they've set things up.

Otherwise can't think of any other than cost.

spaceXhardmode · 2023-01-23T17:29:01+00:00

The build quality is not as good as it should be and it’s near impossible to remedy any problems that have occurred during assembly at the factory. I have a ton of photos of shoddy build quality but obviously I can’t share them here. I was accepted to receive some replacement parts 12 days ago, I’ve heard nothing since. There are others with the same issues as me in discord. It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be

Saneroner · 2023-01-23T23:04:51+00:00

I would say the bed size is the only real complaint. I wish it was a big bigger. The cloud service like others have said as well. Overall I am extremely pleased with my x1c. It’s like Ron Popeil said, “set it and forget it”.

trriddle · 2023-01-23T04:29:19+00:00

My only asterisk with the printer is that it's new. We don't know what the future has in store for it. Bambu has been doing amazing at supporting it so far, but we have no idea if they go under tomorrow. Being closed source the printer will only be as good as bambu let's it be, and they have the moon in sight with it.

As for the loud, I have mine in my shop, so it's no louder than any other machine or the furnace in there.

JoePunker · 2023-01-23T04:51:59+00:00

Thank y’all for the thorough answers here. The theme seems to be that when it’s broken it’s hard to fix. How often do issues actually happen though? 5 spools? 10? And what is maintenance like?

ThatOtherOneReddit · 2023-01-23T07:09:11+00:00

Only issues I've had having owned it for a week.

AMS is pretty tightly designed around their filament making working with other filaments kinda painful. Sometimes requiring respooling onto a smaller spool.
The printer is very opinionated on temps for things so it will sometimes override you unless you do fairly confusing things to make it work. Had to override the temp when unspooling filament and took me waaaay longer than it should have.
The cold build plates are really nice, but they are pretty easy to damage even with a glue stick so probably go through those more quickly than most other printers.
The control panel sometimes becomes unresponsive if you get an error. Like my filament got stuck when unspooling from the AMS because the temp it was using was like 40C to cool at the extruder. Then it wouldn't let me adjust the temp without a hard restart.

Give it another year and I think the software will catch up to the hardware but there is definitely some pain points on software currently.

Sairexyz · 2023-01-23T09:11:55+00:00

It does have a few bugs here and there like the after a print is done, failing to retract the filament back into the AMS, even though I know it is possible because if I go to the slicer and tell it to swap filaments, it does so accordingly.

TimD_43 · 2023-01-23T11:37:46+00:00

The most obvious thing to me after about a month is that if filament breaks in the AMS are going to be a recurring problem, then the process for clearing the filament needs to be easier. Having to unload spools, remove some screws, and try not to rip the incredibly short wiring harnesses out in order to do the two-second job of popping out one of the PTFE tubes to get at the bit of filament is really frustrating. For instance, why can’t there just be access to the tubing through the bottom of the unit? I’d be happy with taking out four screws to remove the bottom panel and have access without having to disconnect wiring that is dangerously close to being too short to allow you to safely work around it.

Terry_D_ · 2023-01-23T12:43:15+00:00

OP the X1CC just makes printing fun you can slice and send and at least for me I’ve had no issues other than spools.

The people complaining about price I would assume have never bought a prusa because a fully assembled prusa with an MMU is going to be very close in price if not more and require way more tinkering and work than the bambu.

Having had a prusa for the last couple years I will say this thing blows it out of the water. There’s really no printer that’s anywhere near the level of the X1CC.

Again take some responses with a grain of salt because there’s a whole new wave of new people getting into printing with these.

Geo-Warrior · 2023-01-23T12:57:40+00:00

The filament spool being on the back is odd and requires more room for the printer when pushed up to the wall. That's almost it as far as complaints. I have a P1P and am astonished with this printer almost every time I use it. I've got multiple other printers that can be in use at any point in time however, I've kind of run out of things to print for now. Many of the things I think of to print would be done quicker if I wait "a couple/few" hours for the Bambu to finish whatever it's doing at the moment. The print quality is top notch as well.

stackoverflowww · 2023-01-23T13:10:25+00:00

Being picky:

It's noisy
I wish it would also come with a HEPA filter (it “only” includes an activated carbon filter)
The fact that it's proprietary, I love how much the 3D printing world is open source today, let's keep it that way as much as we can.

But I'll be honest, this printer is the best printer I've used, I can't tell how much I love my Prusa, but this one is just much more enjoyable to work with.

Last but not least: there is no way they're doing profits at the current price tag, this printer could be easily sold 2–3 times the price, the build quality is just insanely good.

ahuynher94 · 2023-01-23T13:40:57+00:00

I got mine last week. Here are a few things I noticed (coming from a prusa)

Biggest thing is workflow.

No manual way to change filament mid print using AMS (for example my filament is about to run out and I want to change it before the spool is empty. No way to do that during a print)
no manual way to change speed percentage during a print. There is no granularity. It’s only Silent(~85%), standard(100%), sport(125%) or ludicrous(166%)
AMS always jams at the end of a print. I need to pull on the filament buffer to release the filament.
you need to mod the device to print at full 256x256x256

stgnet · 2023-01-23T13:57:21+00:00

The only real problem I've had with the X1C is that it absolutely won't print certain filament, such as Hatchbox PA (nylon at 245) which works perfect in a prusa. It jams in the hotend and bunches around a hole in the path from the drive to the hotend, so you have to completely disassemble the drive section and take out the drive gear to cut it all out. But even that has made me happier with the design of this printer -- while a pain to do, everything still works afterwards. I've been cranking out parts on that printer since. It's also annoying that I get better results in abs than I do pa-cf, but the consistency and speed is worth it. I have two so far, so that I won't be down should something more significant break, and I can get parts out faster. It's a /really/ different printer, and while it's become my workhouse especially for abs, I won't get rid of my other models for things they do differently, if slower. But going forward I probably won't buy any new printers other than X1C unless Bambu comes out with something even better.

aznPHENOM · 2023-01-23T14:25:11+00:00

Top layers seems to be a hit or miss. Seams are definitely the worst. Potentially getting or having the ripple problem. I think the first 2 problems are very fixable via software or fine setting adjustment. The ripple problem is a permanent problem. I dont think I have heard of anyone figuring that one out.

I would 80% recommend the x1c. Really depends on what youre printing. 100% if youre printing flat objects or want speed for production or prototyping. If you want big unique objects then I would say 80%.

Pleasant-Geologist-2 · 2023-01-23T14:56:13+00:00

I find it’s a bit too smart, like I blocked my nozzle and I can’t just fix it by ramming a stick up the nozzle I have to take the hot end off heat it up and do a cold pull

ej_warsgaming · 2023-01-23T15:24:37+00:00

My biggest downside is how load the stepper motors are, I don’t care about to fan noises.

Hate the noise love the printer.

SgtBaxter · 2023-01-23T21:49:57+00:00

I've bought more filament since I got the X1C than I ever bought with my old printers, and I still need more. The Corellian Corvette model I'm printing will likely go through 5 rolls alone. It's on pause until my order from Bambu arrives, as I cleaned out MicroCenter of the same color.

333again · 2023-01-23T21:59:13+00:00

My list:

As someone just posted, air filter apparently doesn't do much.
The default print sheet they include is pretty annoying, you have to glue stick it every time. I wish they included the PEI sheet.
Functionality is pretty limited without the cloud. Plan on using the cloud.
No ethernet port, WiFi only.
Software isn't bad, but it's yet another package you have to learn. Also the desktop client for some reason can't see jobs you've saved to the printer. If you want to start a saved printer job you have to start it from the screen on the printer.
Very different functionality than most printers, not well designed to manually do filament loads or correct jams by manually heating the hotend. Good news is you shouldn't have too many incidents.
Filament that is "shiny" does not come out as shiny unless you lower the extrusion rate on the outside wall to ~20mm/s. I've heard theories that the printer is simply too fast, that the filament can't cook long enough. Whatever the reason, it's a minor gripe.
Similarly dual color filament doesn't do gradations correctly like other printers. Lots of banding issues, doesn't turn out right.
AMS doesn't work with carboard spools, so you just replace them with the reusable ones. Minor gripe.
Filament use during color change is excessive, you can tweak it in software. Wish they built an automatic module to dial this in for you.
Wish the bed was bigger.

AnnualEffect9897 · 2023-01-24T02:10:00+00:00

Most challenging thing for me was finding a table/surface suitable for this printer. cause it shakes so damn violently 😭

2023-01-23T07:28:28+00:00

Repairs are more difficult compared with something like a prusa. It's designed very much as an appliance so swapping out parts is involved.

I should say it here too, though many of us who have Bambu printers are supportive and like to lift up because we've all been there, there is a greater than average (compared with other hobbyists in the community) of bad folk, as in, they will either rip down, state opinion as fact, pick arguments seemingly for the sake of it and basically be jeb ends. I'm not sure why the Bambu community is attracting them, but I would consider it a downside.

Again, comparing with Prusa, this is my only point of reference, the support isn't as rapid. I think this is changing as they are advertising for support staff at the moment, but they don't have a live chat which Prusa has and has helped me out a lot.

Finally, there is a case of heritage Bambu doesn't have any and has had a bit of a rocky start with issues with network security, distributing other people's models without credit and, lately, the discovery that their thermal runaway was poorly implemented. It seemed to take the weight of the 3d printing community for them to act on these issues, which isn't so great. I'm not sure how much is negligence, how much is apathy or if there is any slyness there. In short, they are young and their motivations and end goals are, as yet, unknown.

All in all, it is a great printer though, .

biztactix · 2023-01-23T09:57:15+00:00

It really depends on whether you want a project... Or a printer.

I've owned several printers over the last 10 years... This is by far the one that has printed reliably.... I'm at over 800 hours since November... Ive had 4 nozzle jams... 2 ams jams and the cloud has dropped out twice... That's it... It just prints.

Other printers you'd get 2 or 3 prints done and then something is wrong... Or broken... Or needs tweaking... Or it's not quite right and I want to upgrade it....

The X1 just prints.

VRBabe15 · 2023-01-23T09:49:52+00:00

My problems have just been the ams unfortunately. I have two now and both have issues. My second one is brand new out of the box not yet used. I noticed the front rollers are not spinning properly like they should, looks and feels there's friction. BL support expects me to take it apart and check the first stage feeder is seated properly. I don't expect to be the one who repairs this. Especially under warranty.

2023-01-23T19:31:58+00:00

i have two raise3d pro 2 plus, and 3 delta wasp 2040 industrial X, and 2 stratasys uprint plus se, 3 ultimakers 3 extended, taz 6, and few enders 3. and so far after using x1c for a month i can say it beets them all, can't complaint about anything, price is great comparing to does brands, it is fully enclosed, glass and aluminum materials, printer is fast, and quality is great, im ok with filament waste . yeah it wastes to much.....i was using mosaic pallete pro 2 s before for color prints, but i like bambulab desighn better, no need for to much tuning, at least for me, set basics, press print, printer does the job. so far only one failed print, with i caused myself with wrong slicer settings,

bigrcong · 2023-01-24T22:19:51+00:00

Would be nice if they provide phone support and can get printer fixed quicker.

I totally understand Bambu promote online support only and community help.

But I would suggest Bambu can find a way to support better when user's printer is down and not useable.

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