It prints well when it prints. I am plagued with jams and very odd things. The AMS struggles with any filament other than Bambu’s… I guess I need to print a respooler, I don’t like the filament they sell I am buying for the spools… the rim things are ok not awesome and my favourite filament is often on re used spools, they are never the same size. 24 and counting.
I now have again a clog somewhere in the extruder. The nozzles come off easily but to clear a jam you need to remove the heat element and fan, it negates the easy to remove it is a PITA. I now have the second jam not in the nozzle but some where in the extruder, that is less than fun removing.
That doesn’t sound like fun. I wonder why so many machines work well, and then there are some that just give trouble. That sort of machine to machine inconsistency isn’t limited to Bambu Labs. I really like the idea of no fuss printing as envisioned my Bambu Labs, but they certainly haven’t reached that point yet. I drool over what their machines (other than the lemons) can do, but so far, I haven’t really regretted holding onto my money and contenting myself with my Ender 3s.
I think having fussed with it I think there are some R&D decisions that are not great. To my mind it isn’t fully developed yet. The PTFE tube issue at the hot en. It just wasn’t figured out and Bambu suggests a printed community solution.
It was developed and brought to market and sold while Prusa was still developing the XL. It speaks to the model Prusa used, the print farm makes parts it puts a ton of time on the design and they find weakness. Sadly the market is no longer tolerating that model.
I don’t think it is a lemon really, I put a lot of use on it and don’t have Ikea effect. There is so many mods for it to correct dumb design choices. The PTFE tube is next too impossible to remove from the buffer. You need the tool, I would have been beyond frustrated if it was my only printer. Nobody used this printer a lot before it went to production. The first person whom needed to remove it would have found it instantly. The PTFE adapter at the print head to support and ease the angle is also important Bambu support suggest printing it. They know this is an issue and still have not corrected it.
It suffers poor R and D just like so many other printers and relays upon a strong community to fix the problems. The issue with this is it hampers the growth of the community.
If you buy one, and I think it is a great printer, The first print is an ams disconnect tool (Printables) 35000 downloads speaks to the need. A PTFE guide (Printables) There are a ton of these. Pick. This guide helped the pull back fails, Printables. It works and fit really well Don’t tell Bambu they get cranky you have it on there.
I have not done this yet but my frustration with non Bambu filament is getting so extreme that I think I will try this mod? More like redesign.
If it were possible someone needs to take this and just resolve the issues, redesign the buffer, filament path to the extruder, and a new AMS that is more reliable and universal.
I have definitely been hearing more and more complaints regarding BambuLabs quality control recently. I hope this is not a trend which will continue and/or get worse over time.
It’s frustrating it is so close just a few misses and because of the manufacturing choices they made it is not easy (or Cheap) to fix so they continue to reproduce the issues over and over. I guess while the community tolerates and accepts there is no reason to change. I hope the tech support improves too they are not good either.
It would be less a problem if the whole printer sucked. It would be just another issue but on a whole it is great, but for some daft moments. We shall see.
I am also curious how the operate policy will progress over models you can print and the filament. I thought it is a simple NFC… It is completely encrypted and locked down hard. It would not take much for them to just decide to prevent any other filament from being used. The Firmware is tightly encrypted too, it is interesting the second it got cracked they had a new one out that prevented the changes.
It seems a lot of effort for no apparent reason. yet.
I agree that the filament spool recognition system makes me a bit uneasy. Maybe I’m wrong on this, but it seems to me that the 3d printing community is open source to a degree that Bambu would basically kill their business prospects by suddenly saying “Bambu filament only in our printers”. I realize that there are FDM printers on the market already that are locked into their manufacturers brand filament, but I think those were up front before purchase about it. That necessarily limits their market primarily to larger businesses, which certainly seems to be profitable. Betraying customer trust would hardly seem to be the path to prosperity though.
@MicroFarmModels I hope so. It is odd that they have serious secure encryption on the filament spools and firmware. It is far beyond me to look at. I feel everything is moving away from open source. Time will tell. When it is paining it is very good.
I agree, that level of thoroughness is strange. Especially since a person could in theory foil it by respooling or even pulling the identitifying chip from the Bambu spool, and moving it from spool to spool.
I own a P1S and have had zero issues with the AMS regardless of the PLA manufacturer. One thing to consider is the tubing that exits from the AMS to the filament length sensor on the back of the machine. If the radius of the turns are tight it makes it harder to get the filament through. Just a thought.
About the clogged nozzle and jams. When running PLA through the P1S, which prints a speeds higher than regular printers, I found that increasing the nozzle temperature makes a huge difference.
Most people say that PLA prints typically in the range between 180°C to 220°C. I print PLA at a minimum of 220°C and sometimes 230°C depending on the print. The temperature needs to be higher to allow the filament time to melt at the flow rate the machine is trying to print at. Again, just a thought for what it’s worth.
I know the P1S can print well and fast but like any printer, even one that’s supposed to be plug and play, there sometimes needs to be tweaks made to the stock filament settings to make it work well. You can create your own settings for filament in Bambu Studio.
I hope you find your solution and let us know what it was if you do.
I ran volumetric flow calibration on it last week. Mine is sitting at 20mm cubed per second. The profile is @ 0.2 is 24mm cubed per second. So yes clearly the profiles are not great and need tuning. I have mine slowed down. I have it at 250mm/s speed so the extruder can keep up. I can see why you are attempting to increase the viscosity (I think that is the correct term) of the plastic with temps. I often print higher temp filaments so that was not what I wished to do.
My jams started at the top pf the extruder where the PTFE tube enters it just gets stuck. The fix of the mod helped to some degree. The AMS for me slipped on most of the cardboard spools lots of issues with this reported, I guess that is why Bambu don’t want people using it. Too bad almost every filament I buy is on one. The Sunlu , sorry Bambu filament, is ok I guess but it’s over priced. (I guess they need to pay for the chip and encryption) The cardboard rolls slipping creates a tangle as filament was not wound but just shoved into the box.
The new sides I designed seem to work for now, I had to add teeth to get them working. I am going to buy a 1.5 steel ball bearing as someone suggested on Youtube to correct the slipping spools. The ring works but isn’t perfect, hopefully the weight will help.
I think most of the issues of Filament jamming in the top of the extruder and buffer is the rough textures of the CF filament. PLA doesn’t have as many issues, I get heat creep on occasion. I found the extruder cleaner 3DPC sells works but my ‘no clogger’ is easier to use in the Bambu, it is longer.
The DK riser is an elegant solution it has helped the low temp filaments.
It is a great printer but has some issues and the support sucks. I am suspicious about how heavily encrypted their information is. I don’t think my information is protected as well by them.