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I just canceled my X1-Carbon order. Just spend some time on the Bambu Labs subreddit and you will see a lot of frustrated owners. It is insanely loud, and it se

I just canceled my X1-Carbon order. Just spend some time on the Bambu Labs subreddit and you will see a lot of frustrated owners. It is insanely loud, and it seems unreliable and buggy. I have owned a lot of printers over the years, and the only printers I, or any of my colleagues come back to are Prusa printers. They are incredibly reliable. The few times we have had issues with a part, we have been able to print a replacement. I am constantly excited by fancy new printers that all promise to be the next big thing, and stupidly keep buying them. I will take Prusa's amazing customer support, a product I know I will be able to upgrade when they release the next iteration, and the company that has the best free software as well (the Bambu is just a forked version of Prusa's slicer).

aspett 4y ago
Here's the thing, though: It's almost definitely a case of silent majority. The printer is pretty phenomenal and I've had excellent support from Bambu so far in New Zealand, no less.
Filligree 4y ago
I have a Mk3S and a Bambu X1C. The Bambu is much, much better. The Mk4 covers most of the distance, but at a price point matching the X1C, and it's only most. Speeding it up is nice, but... pressure advance depends on detailed characteristics of the filament, such as viscosity, which varies from brand to brand and color to color. The X1 has a lidar, which from experience actually does work as advertised. The Mk4 has... what? Prusament, maybe? I would not be surprised to find you can only get the advertised speed if you use Prusa's precalibrated filament. Or you can print the calibration lines and do it manually. That does work; it's a ten second eyeballing procedure, simple enough for the X1 to do full auto. But you're really supposed to do that for every startup -- characteristics change as the reel ages, which doesn't even happen evenly across the entire reel -- and nobody does that.
- sottol 4y ago
  As far as I've seend the X1s lidar is mostly useless, it's doing fine-calibration at most based on the current filament profile and seems to be inconsistent. That's not to say that the X1 itself is - just that lidar is imho a gimick.
  - Filligree 4y ago
    I've done a great deal of printing, both with the lidar enabled and disabled. For PLA it doesn't make a big difference. But when you're printing polycarbonate or PETG, the quality difference is dramatic. Perhaps you have a defective unit?
    - magixx 4y ago
      I also assumed the lidar is a complete placebo having owned the P1P and seeing how well it prints with PLA plus looking at available lidar sensors and their accuracy but maybe it does work? Would love to get a teardown on what components it uses but couldn't find anything online some months ago.
      - Filligree 4y ago
        You don't need it if you print slowly, and you don't need it for reliable old PLA. If I squint, I think I can see a difference, but it's marginal. Thing is, the X1C isn't really for printing PLA. If you only want to do that, you'd get a V400 or a Voron. When I print PC Blend, though, it's... the difference is glaring. This isn't something that needs a lot of testing; with the lidar off, the corners look like semicircles. Also monotonic top/bottom layers don't fill the full surface, because they have corners on both ends. About like you'd expect, and the difference isn't visible from the outside; external perimeters are always printed slowly anyway.
        sottol 4y ago
        Vorons are pretty terrible at PLA, not enough cooling and enclosure. They're great Abs printers though and PC blend.
        Filligree 4y ago
        Good to know. The one Voron I've seen in real life didn't have an enclosure; I take it that isn't standard? The X1 also prints ABS perfectly. I should remember to make a Nevermore filter one of these days, so I can take advantage...
- deelowe 4y ago
  Why are you comparing lidar and pressure advance? They arent related. Also, I thought the Bambu printers had pa in their firmware as well?
  - jdietrich 4y ago
    Both the X1 Carbon and the Prusa Mk4 support pressure advance, but the X1 Carbon can automatically calibrate pressure advance using the LIDAR sensor. It prints a bunch of lines at various rates of speed and acceleration, then measures the actual printed line width to calculate a PA value. With the Prusa, you need to manually calibrate PA for each filament.
jsjohnst 4y ago
> Just spend some time on the Bambu Labs subreddit and you will see a lot of frustrated owners. I have had mine (w/ four total AMS units) for two months now and have over 500hrs of printing so far w/ minimal failed prints. I often print in sport and/or ludicrous too. I own eight other 3D printers of various major brands (including Prusa) and it’s by far and away the best I’ve ever owned. Easily comparable to printers 2-3x more expensive imho. > It is insanely loud, and it seems unreliable and buggy. Even with the door open to the room mine is in, I never hear it. Sure, if you’re within 5ft of it, it is a bit loud, but not terribly so, especially if you reduce fan speeds (they have conservative defaults). If you are someone who wants to sleep next to your printer farm, maybe not a good fit, but for any normal person the noise isn’t a concern imho. > I just canceled my X1-Carbon order. Your loss! I’m doing the reverse, thinking about buying another one.
- asveikau 4y ago
  > Your loss! This reminds me of an attitude I see in some of these hobby communities. The idea that someone who is happy with a different product is somehow wrong or losing. People are highly invested and identified with their choices. Why not just be ok with choices other people make, even if we disagree with them?
  - golem14 4y ago
    Always been that way. Ask any Atari ST user about Amiga and vice versa.
    - dia80 4y ago
      What's that little box for? A foot warmer?
      - bb88 4y ago
        You mean the Atari ST right?
    - squarefoot 4y ago
openmapsguy 4y ago
You’ll find people frustrated with Prusa too. There was a whole discord dedicated to trying to fix all issues. People act like having the power supply die, bed probe not being reliable, not having x axis tensioner are all normal. Just print out a bunch of parts from some randoms to fix. Also Prusas software are forks too so weird thing to call out bambu for.
- blisterpeanuts 4y ago
  Maybe I’m lucky, as are the hundreds other Prusa MK3S owners I see on the various forums, but the problems you mention seem to be rare.
- postalrat 4y ago
  What power supply would you suggest Prusa use instead of what they are using? Is Bambu using something better? Bambu slicer is a fork of Prusa's slicer. Prusa's slicer is a fork of Slic3r. Although perfectly fine it is notable that both Prusa and Bambu make 3d printers while the Slic3r project was just making a slicer.
  - jdietrich 4y ago
    AFAIK the newer Delta power supplies (black case) are fine. The older mystery meat power supplies (silver case) don't have a good reputation, but they're easy enough to replace with a Meanwell or the newer Delta unit.
- himinlomax 4y ago
  > Also Prusas software are forks too so weird thing to call out bambu for. They've been developing and supporting those forks in house for years, giving back to the community. I don't know about Bambu, but typically other Chinese companies don't really do that.
dekhn 4y ago
I have two MK3S and I have to say I love them. They're simple, they work well, and I can repair basically any part on it using their documentation. The new model adds mostly refinements for people who want to do production printing.
slg 4y ago
> Just spend some time on the Bambu Labs subreddit and you will see a lot of frustrated owners. In my experience this is true of basically all very niche brand subreddits. People go to those subreddits to complain and/or get help. It isn't a representative sample. The people who are completely happy with their Bambu Labs machines have little incentive to spend time on a 14k user subreddit when they can go instead participant in a 1.7m user subreddit like /r/3DPrinting.
daniel_reetz 4y ago
I own and operate two Bambu X1C with AMS for my prototyping business. They're excellent printers. Since I received them, I have practically stopped using all other printers. They are gamechangers, printing twice or three times as fast, in dramatically higher quality, in engineering materials. Second hand experience from the forum is not giving you the full picture.
c2h5oh 4y ago
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.
FL410 4y ago
I have both an MK3S and an X1C and the MK3S has basically been unplugged since the X1C came. I love the Prusa and I would not hesitate to recommend it, but the X1C is a generational improvement in 3d printing. I really have no idea what you’re talking about with regard to it being loud, and I’ve had pretty much zero failed prints (at least not attributable to the printer).
jrockway 4y ago
Yeah. I looked at the X1 Carbon longingly and knew that with so many software features developed in such a short time, it was going to be a bug fest. That's just how software engineering is. The Prusa i3 family may feel a little outdated, but what it lacks in cool marketing features it makes up for in amazing reliability. The thing works every single time I try to print something. The CPU not being able to address 4GB of RAM doesn't really limit what you can print, though the community sure loves to talk about it. I am very tempted to buy the upgrade kit, but honestly, I'm not sure it's worth it. My filament doesn't jam, I don't use filaments the infrared detector can't see, I'm not in a hurry (so don't need input shaping), and my Z is dialed in. The MK3 is a great printer even in a world where the MK4 exists! I'm waiting for the Prusa XL to start shipping so I can print larger models.
jwr 4y ago
That was a mistake. I own both an i3 MK3 and an X1C. The Prusa printer has been sitting unused for months now. Bambu Lab really got many things right.
r0l1 4y ago
I can only suggest to go with the Snapmaker. Only made good experience with it and it can also do laser engravings and CNC milling (simple stuff).
JofArnold 4y ago
I also cancelled my X1C and am now part-way through a VzBot kit :) Didn't want something I couldn't repair/upgrade, even though the VzBot is for me quite a complicated build!

aspett 4y ago

Here's the thing, though: It's almost definitely a case of silent majority. The printer is pretty phenomenal and I've had excellent support from Bambu so far in New Zealand, no less.

Filligree 4y ago

I have a Mk3S and a Bambu X1C. The Bambu is much, much better. The Mk4 covers most of the distance, but at a price point matching the X1C, and it's only most. Speeding it up is nice, but... pressure advance depends on detailed characteristics of the filament, such as viscosity, which varies from brand to brand and color to color. The X1 has a lidar, which from experience actually does work as advertised. The Mk4 has... what? Prusament, maybe? I would not be surprised to find you can only get the advertised speed if you use Prusa's precalibrated filament. Or you can print the calibration lines and do it manually. That does work; it's a ten second eyeballing procedure, simple enough for the X1 to do full auto. But you're really supposed to do that for every startup -- characteristics change as the reel ages, which doesn't even happen evenly across the entire reel -- and nobody does that.

sottol 4y ago
As far as I've seend the X1s lidar is mostly useless, it's doing fine-calibration at most based on the current filament profile and seems to be inconsistent. That's not to say that the X1 itself is - just that lidar is imho a gimick.
- Filligree 4y ago
  I've done a great deal of printing, both with the lidar enabled and disabled. For PLA it doesn't make a big difference. But when you're printing polycarbonate or PETG, the quality difference is dramatic. Perhaps you have a defective unit?
  - magixx 4y ago
    I also assumed the lidar is a complete placebo having owned the P1P and seeing how well it prints with PLA plus looking at available lidar sensors and their accuracy but maybe it does work? Would love to get a teardown on what components it uses but couldn't find anything online some months ago.
    - Filligree 4y ago
      You don't need it if you print slowly, and you don't need it for reliable old PLA. If I squint, I think I can see a difference, but it's marginal. Thing is, the X1C isn't really for printing PLA. If you only want to do that, you'd get a V400 or a Voron. When I print PC Blend, though, it's... the difference is glaring. This isn't something that needs a lot of testing; with the lidar off, the corners look like semicircles. Also monotonic top/bottom layers don't fill the full surface, because they have corners on both ends. About like you'd expect, and the difference isn't visible from the outside; external perimeters are always printed slowly anyway.
      - sottol 4y ago
        Vorons are pretty terrible at PLA, not enough cooling and enclosure. They're great Abs printers though and PC blend.
        Filligree 4y ago
        Good to know. The one Voron I've seen in real life didn't have an enclosure; I take it that isn't standard? The X1 also prints ABS perfectly. I should remember to make a Nevermore filter one of these days, so I can take advantage...
deelowe 4y ago
Why are you comparing lidar and pressure advance? They arent related. Also, I thought the Bambu printers had pa in their firmware as well?
- jdietrich 4y ago
  Both the X1 Carbon and the Prusa Mk4 support pressure advance, but the X1 Carbon can automatically calibrate pressure advance using the LIDAR sensor. It prints a bunch of lines at various rates of speed and acceleration, then measures the actual printed line width to calculate a PA value. With the Prusa, you need to manually calibrate PA for each filament.

jsjohnst 4y ago

> Just spend some time on the Bambu Labs subreddit and you will see a lot of frustrated owners. I have had mine (w/ four total AMS units) for two months now and have over 500hrs of printing so far w/ minimal failed prints. I often print in sport and/or ludicrous too. I own eight other 3D printers of various major brands (including Prusa) and it’s by far and away the best I’ve ever owned. Easily comparable to printers 2-3x more expensive imho. > It is insanely loud, and it seems unreliable and buggy. Even with the door open to the room mine is in, I never hear it. Sure, if you’re within 5ft of it, it is a bit loud, but not terribly so, especially if you reduce fan speeds (they have conservative defaults). If you are someone who wants to sleep next to your printer farm, maybe not a good fit, but for any normal person the noise isn’t a concern imho. > I just canceled my X1-Carbon order. Your loss! I’m doing the reverse, thinking about buying another one.

asveikau 4y ago
> Your loss! This reminds me of an attitude I see in some of these hobby communities. The idea that someone who is happy with a different product is somehow wrong or losing. People are highly invested and identified with their choices. Why not just be ok with choices other people make, even if we disagree with them?
- golem14 4y ago
  Always been that way. Ask any Atari ST user about Amiga and vice versa.
  - dia80 4y ago
    What's that little box for? A foot warmer?
    - bb88 4y ago
      You mean the Atari ST right?
  - squarefoot 4y ago

openmapsguy 4y ago

You’ll find people frustrated with Prusa too. There was a whole discord dedicated to trying to fix all issues. People act like having the power supply die, bed probe not being reliable, not having x axis tensioner are all normal. Just print out a bunch of parts from some randoms to fix. Also Prusas software are forks too so weird thing to call out bambu for.

blisterpeanuts 4y ago
Maybe I’m lucky, as are the hundreds other Prusa MK3S owners I see on the various forums, but the problems you mention seem to be rare.
postalrat 4y ago
What power supply would you suggest Prusa use instead of what they are using? Is Bambu using something better? Bambu slicer is a fork of Prusa's slicer. Prusa's slicer is a fork of Slic3r. Although perfectly fine it is notable that both Prusa and Bambu make 3d printers while the Slic3r project was just making a slicer.
- jdietrich 4y ago
  AFAIK the newer Delta power supplies (black case) are fine. The older mystery meat power supplies (silver case) don't have a good reputation, but they're easy enough to replace with a Meanwell or the newer Delta unit.
himinlomax 4y ago
> Also Prusas software are forks too so weird thing to call out bambu for. They've been developing and supporting those forks in house for years, giving back to the community. I don't know about Bambu, but typically other Chinese companies don't really do that.

dekhn 4y ago

I have two MK3S and I have to say I love them. They're simple, they work well, and I can repair basically any part on it using their documentation. The new model adds mostly refinements for people who want to do production printing.

slg 4y ago

> Just spend some time on the Bambu Labs subreddit and you will see a lot of frustrated owners. In my experience this is true of basically all very niche brand subreddits. People go to those subreddits to complain and/or get help. It isn't a representative sample. The people who are completely happy with their Bambu Labs machines have little incentive to spend time on a 14k user subreddit when they can go instead participant in a 1.7m user subreddit like /r/3DPrinting.

daniel_reetz 4y ago

I own and operate two Bambu X1C with AMS for my prototyping business. They're excellent printers. Since I received them, I have practically stopped using all other printers. They are gamechangers, printing twice or three times as fast, in dramatically higher quality, in engineering materials. Second hand experience from the forum is not giving you the full picture.

c2h5oh 4y ago

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.

FL410 4y ago

I have both an MK3S and an X1C and the MK3S has basically been unplugged since the X1C came. I love the Prusa and I would not hesitate to recommend it, but the X1C is a generational improvement in 3d printing. I really have no idea what you’re talking about with regard to it being loud, and I’ve had pretty much zero failed prints (at least not attributable to the printer).

jrockway 4y ago

Yeah. I looked at the X1 Carbon longingly and knew that with so many software features developed in such a short time, it was going to be a bug fest. That's just how software engineering is. The Prusa i3 family may feel a little outdated, but what it lacks in cool marketing features it makes up for in amazing reliability. The thing works every single time I try to print something. The CPU not being able to address 4GB of RAM doesn't really limit what you can print, though the community sure loves to talk about it. I am very tempted to buy the upgrade kit, but honestly, I'm not sure it's worth it. My filament doesn't jam, I don't use filaments the infrared detector can't see, I'm not in a hurry (so don't need input shaping), and my Z is dialed in. The MK3 is a great printer even in a world where the MK4 exists! I'm waiting for the Prusa XL to start shipping so I can print larger models.

jwr 4y ago

That was a mistake. I own both an i3 MK3 and an X1C. The Prusa printer has been sitting unused for months now. Bambu Lab really got many things right.

r0l1 4y ago

I can only suggest to go with the Snapmaker. Only made good experience with it and it can also do laser engravings and CNC milling (simple stuff).

JofArnold 4y ago

I also cancelled my X1C and am now part-way through a VzBot kit :) Didn't want something I couldn't repair/upgrade, even though the VzBot is for me quite a complicated build!