Bambu Labs X1 Carbon Combo

3d Printer Reviews
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I wasn’t real interested in the Bambu Lab X1 when it was offered in a Kickstarter campaign and didn’t pay any attention to any of the reviews. Then one day I was helping my buddy’s son move and he was showing me his P1P with AMS and the prints it was producing in record time. This did peak my interest and I started watching reviews and such for the P1P as well as the X1 Carbon. I finally decided with the added features like hardened steel nozzle, aux part cooling fan, better camera, LIDAR and it was fully enclosed so I could try my hand at ABS. Ordered the X1 Combo which includes the AMS which allows you to print in multiple colors. 8 days later it showed up at my house delivered from the Bambu Lab warehouse in Calif.

The Bambu printers come completely assembled and it was packed very well. A lot of thought was put into how to ship the X1 as well as unpacking it. The printer comes wrapped in a heavy sealed plastic bag with handles so after opening the box you grab the handles and lift it out. Everything except the 3 partial sample rolls of filament on full size spools which is in the bottom of the box. Includes a nice quick start guide. Getting it up and running is pretty straight forward.

This thing prints amazing, I would have to say these are the best prints I have ever done. Started with the Benchy which is include on the onboard memory, also has an SD card slot but no SD card was included. I printed several poop buckets, yes the Bambu Lab printers poop filament out the back of the machine when they purge the nozzle. I printed several looking for the one I liked after 3 I was finally happy.

The only hiccups I have had were all user error and not the printer. Such as when I tried sealing the edges of a cardboard spool with CA glue and managed to glue the filament to the side of the reel. This naturally caused and error when I corrected it the print resumed. There were a couple more dumb things I did that have since slipped my mind.

The AMS unit is great, I would recommend it even if printing multiple colors isn’t you main goal. It makes switching filament a breeze. You can have 4 different colors you use or even different filament such as PLA & PETG, etc. Just tell the slicer, Bambu has their own slicer which is a really worked over fork of PrusaSlicer, which color/type you want and the AMS does the rest. If you use Bambu filament it has a RIFD tag so the AMS know what kind it is and what color and how much is on the roll. Pretty slick.

I’ve had one minor issue happen to me twice both time on bay 3, when the print was finished the AMS would try and remove the filament from the hot end and whould error saying there was a jam which there wasn’t, seems to be fairly common according to the forms. I used bay 3 just a little while ago and didn’t have the issue so maybe what ever it was has cleared itself up.

I have only ran it on the Standard speed, there are 2 above Standard and 1 below. Even at the Standard speed this thing flies. Files that would take me 9 hours to print on my Ender 3 S1 Pro are printing in 3 on the X1.

The X1 is not open source like Creality and other so you can’t run custom firmware or Klipper or anything like that. The way it prints I don’t care I don’t mind at all not having to tinker with it. The parts for it are pretty reasonable a complete hotend with fan, heater, thermocouple is only $39. A hardened nozzle with heat heat block is $15, I think, & Bambu PLA Basic is $27.99 a roll with spool & $24.99 without.

All in all I am very happy with my X1 Carbon.

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Great to hear!

I want one, but have decided to wait for version 2, mostly because of financial reasons. Printing in multiple colors for the project I have been working on for over a year would be awesome. Besides that, using water dissolvable supports would make my life as a disabled person so much easier!

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PVA purges might get expensive.

@Gramps Is it possible to “multi-color” print two types of filaments, such as PLA and PETG? I’ve seen videos where people use one type as a support for the other with zero z-gap, and the supports come away easily.

The X1C does look like an impressive machine, but the closed system and cloud/phoning home concerns me.

Cheers

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@Alan I would think it could be done, but PETG & PLA won’t stick together. Haven’t tried mixing PLA & PETG for support but that is on my To-Do list. I will say the couple of things I have printed with supports came off really easy. Nothing complicated though.

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You made the correct choice. I have both the X1 with the AMS and the P1P. I just finished the ARC enclosure kit which should allow me to print ABS and other higher heat plastic. The X1 has been great for ABS. I just got a Wham Bam build plate - pricey at $60 but works like a charm on the X1 for PLA and no glue stick.

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As one who purchased an X1 Carbon Combo as part of Bambu’s Kickstarter marketing campaign, it is nice to see other MWT members who have the Bambu Lab products and are willing to comment on them.

As @Gramps mentioned the printers are fast and produce good quality prints even at the optional higher speeds. Personally I prefer the “Sport” speed which is 124% of the standard speed. One thing he did not mention is that the printers will support up to 4 AMS units via an optional hub unit and can thus print in up to 16 colors. Although the amount of purged filament could become somewhat excessive.

@Alan One does NOT have to use Bambu’s cloud for printing. I put my sliced files on a micro SD card and print from that totally avoiding Bambu’s cloud. My only use of the Wi-Fi capability is downloading firmware updates.

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@woodwaker_dave as I understand it Bambu is testing a new smooth PEI build plate. I have no idea how long it will take for it to go to market. They were looking for testers last week on their forum. Maybe by summer there will be something.

@akc There is also LAN mode but you loose the Handy app even if on the same network. Hopefully they will fix that.

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I would use the SD card too. Not sending personal designs that took me months and months to create to a Cloud where I have no control over. As an ex-IT person, no way!

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Very interesting. I just tried my first 2 color print using the switch filament method and it was very difficult, I could not get the old color out of the extruder before the built in pause ended. Ugly print.

Both the P1P and the X1 Carbon have the same build volume, I just want to print multi colored print, is there a reason why I would be sorry for getting the PIP with the AMS attachment => $1050.

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@Nefarious To be honest, I have not yet tried multi-color printing on my X1 Carbon Combo. But if using The Bambu Studio slicer and an AMS, the default purge settings for filament changes should generally be adequate for purging the previous filament from the nozzle. I believe the purge amount can be set in Bambu Studio, but I have not yet played with those settings. If doing manual filament changes, which I think is NOT recommended for multi-color prints, I can see where there could be an issue.

Hopefully someone with more experience will provide better assistance.

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@Nefarious I think it would depend on what you want to print. My Nieghbor’s son has a P1P with the AMS and he is happy with it. The prints I saw that came off it were good too. I personally went with the X1C because it offered more printing options such as ABS, ASA, Nylon.

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IMG_3841.HEIC4032×3024 2.61 MB

This is the 1st print from my X1 Carbon

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@Gramps I appreciate your response. I am so new to this printing and it feels like drinking from a fire hose. The real issue is I just bought my first printer and have used it less than a month and I already want a printer twice as expensive, and am considering one that is 3 times as expensive.

What I am trying to do now could be done with the pause, if it didn’t have a timeout for how long the print does pause. I like the idea of printing in ABS, not sure it is worth the money, not really the money, its the dealing with SWMBO. I think I need to figure out how to get her to come up with the idea? Then I can split the ‘pain’ of the upgrade.

I already have a part I am making for a friends business so it seems I will be able to write off part of the printer.

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@Nefarious You can always buy a Bambu, I think it would be wise for you to get a knob LCD for your S1 Pro and upgrade the firmware to the Professional. This is a huge improvement to the printer. One of the pluses is that it will give you time to purge the correct amount of filament for a color change. Another benefit is that it has a bed leveling routine built into it. You still have to use the paper method but afterwards you run the Auto Trading and it will guide you in fine tuning it. Using the S1P will be a good learning experience and make the Bambu even better down the road when you get one.

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I had a couple of partial spools of PLA laying around. Not enough on any of them to use but were still laying around so I decided to try out the feature where if a spool runs out the AMS will switch to another spool that is compatible. I’m not sure it works if it’s a different color so to start I told the AMS they were all the same color. It switched through 3 spools without a hitch. I heard it did this and even saw it on Youtube but it’s better in person.

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IMG_3846.HEIC4032×3024 2.12 MB

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I looked at the LAN mode and was disappointed, and I will do anything to avoid using a microSD card.
I wish it would just work like my Klipper printers - open a web page and do and see everything. I’m running 4 printers now that are two floors below me, two with Klipper and two with Bambu Cloud.

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Might not be what you want but there are plenty of microSD to normal SD adaptors. I use them on my FLSUN printers. Amazon about 10$

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Thanks for the input. My preference is to load everything online I was in the sneaker net era and don’t want to return. My printers are two floors away and don’t know if I can get a card there and back.

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I saw a YouTube vid last evening: apparently, there is a new AMS model already after 1 year, one that does not need the hydra mod, meaning bigger rolls of filament fit in and it’s improved overall. And you now can use the WIFI without using their Cloud.

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I haven’t seen that video yet or seen anything about it on the Bambu forums. From what I understand many people have abanned the hydra and went back to the original setup, to many issues. I have some smaller rollers to use in the back which allows bigger spools but haven;'t tried them just print one to checkout. When I put my X1C in Lan only I can’t get the printer to connect to Studio or Handy app, probably something stupid I’m doing. I don’t typically print when I’m not home so I really don’t care if I can check on a print when away from my local wifi. Might have to check out th new AMS, I’d like to have another one.

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This was the vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzNFbSr0Wj4