Printer for home use

[jcapriotti]

Looking at getting a 3d printer for home use. What do you guys have at home (or work) that you'd recommend?

[SPerman]

I have replaced my home printer and both work printers with the Bambu X1 Carbon.

It has taken 98% of the drama out of 3d printing. For the most part, it just works.

[jcapriotti]

I have replaced my home printer and both work printers with the Bambu X1 Carbon.

It has taken 98% of the drama out of 3d printing. For the most part, it just works.

I saw your experience in the other post and was heavily leaning in that direction. Anything you don't like it about?

[SPerman]

There is very little that I don't like. There are minor UI issues, but my 50+ year old brain thinks most modern UI's are lacking. My biggest complaint is that only one account can be connected to the printer at the same time. So if you want to share the printer with someone else in the household, you either have to share a login, or always be switching accounts. It isn't difficult, but seems unnecessary in this day and age.

There are times the filament breaks off inside of one of the bowden tubes. That's probably happened 4 times across the 3 machines I have. The biggest repair I had to make was when the filament rubbed through the bowden tube inside the filament box. Once I got it apart, many of the tubes were close to worn through. Maybe I had a bad batch of tubes? Maybe it was printing CF filaments? The one at work gets used almost as much and hasn't had any issues with the tubes.

The early machines also had an issue where the cable to the print bed wasn't properly secured. This caused the cable to break and the machine wouldn't level the bed. I replaced the cable and it has been mostly trouble free, but if I try and print at high chamber temperatures, it can still have issues leveling the bed. The two later printers have not had this issue.

I keep a spare hot end in stock. If a print doesn't stick and you end up covering the hot end in filament, it can damage the thermistor or heater wires getting it off. It only takes a few minutes to swap out, and then your back to printing.

If you like printing big flat things, I recommend cutting down a piece of glass/mirror and glue some steel to the back of it. I printed these (picture below) to hold K-Cups for the break room, and you can see it fills up most of the bed. If you print that on a flexible build plate, the stresses can cause the perimeter to lift. It stays stuck to the build plate, but the build plate flexes up off of the bed. With the glass build plate, you eliminate the flexing problem. It might still lift around the perimeter, but that's a different issue.

I've printed hundreds of spools of PLA and ABS. I have a co-worker who can say the same about PETG. I have successfully printed PA (nylon), PC, and some carbon filled filaments. That was mostly experimentation, and those filaments can still be tricky on the X1C. I assume if you print with them regularly, you start to learn how to make it happy.

The first machine I bought didn't come with the AMS. (The filament mixer box.) I didn't think I needed it, but the 2nd printer I bought I went ahead and ordered it. After about 1 week I ordered the AMS for the first printer. Multicolor printing has it's place, but it isn't something I do much of. (The photo below is of a 1/4 scale mockup of one of our machines.) The downside to multicolor printing is it uses a lot of filament for every color / layer change. The same is true for me regarding support material. I've designed parts to print without needing support for so long that I don't bother. What I didn't account for, is how nice it is to have two spools of the same color in the machine. No more throwing away partial spools because you don't think there is enough filament left to be useful. No more running out of filament mid print. I am now a convert.

My recommendations. Feel free to ignore:
I think the machines now come with the textured PEI plate. I do 95% of my printing on these, and rarely have an adhesion issue.
By default the slicer wants to print PLA with a bed temp of 35C. I had adhesion issues on my very first test print, so I bumped the bed temp to 55C, which is what I used on all of my other printers, and didn't have any more adhesion problems.
If I do need to print on the glass build plate, I use hairpray (Aquanet Extra Super Hold) with PLA, and Elmers glue stick with ABS.
I've purchased the Bambu filaments and they work great. My go to for 99% of my needs is Hatchbox.


The company overall is trying to be an inclusive environment. They sell printers. They sell filament. They have their own version of Thingiverse. (Makerworld) I go to their forums from time to time and it seems like a bit of a disaster. Half the threads are about people stealing their designs, and the other half are how someone won a contest by only slightly modifying their design. (I think this is pretty common in that space, not unique to Bambu.) If I send a print to the printer in the next room, it goes to their server in China. (I think you can turn this off, but that also turns off most of the other advantages with being connected.) Who knows what I've told them they can do with that data when I agreed to the EULA.

That's all I can think of right now.

[jcapriotti]

@SPerman What is the advantage of the "connected" part sending data to their servers in China?

[SPerman]

You can't monitor prints from devices outside of the local network. There may be other limitations. I've accepted that privacy no longer exist, so I don't worry about it.

As it is, I frequently send prints from home to the work printer, or vise versa.

[Frederick_Law]

https://www.prusa3d.com/
https://www.snapmaker.com/en-US
https://www.makerbot.com/
https://ultimaker.com/3d-printers/

What are you looking for? Size, material, multi-material?

https://octoprint.org/
https://www.repetier.com/
Remote printer control.

https://vorondesign.com/voron2.4
Assemble required.

[SPerman]

I see a lot of people who are unhappy with BL using Qidi. I bought one of their units before buying the Bambulab, and it wouldn't print anything. I assume they have since addressed the problems I had.

[jcapriotti]

@Frederick_Law I don't have any major requirements....just for tinkering and maybe building small parts at home for use around my wife's craft room or my garage. Stuff like brackets and holders, etc.

I would think ABS is all I need for this.......of course, I say that then I find maybe CF is useful in some cases.

For the Bambu, not sure I need the X1C......was leaning toward the P1P ($500). And I could print an enclosure for it if needed as it appears there are some files already out there.

[SPerman]

I would think ABS is all I need for this.......of course, I say that then I find maybe CF is useful in some cases.

I am working from memory, which for me is a dangerous thing to do. I want to say that CF doesn't add much, if any, to the ultimate strength, just makes it more brittle.

Of course, this is based on multiple youtube videos with no instrumentation and questionable scientific methods. YMMV.

[Frederick_Law]

There are easier to print material than ABS.
PETG and PLA+
I like HTPLA but it need to bake to get strength and heat resistance.

[jcapriotti]

I like HTPLA but it need to bake to get strength and heat resistance.

So I put it in the oven for 325°F for 45 minutes next to my wife's cake?

[SPerman]

I know I sound like a Bambulab salesman, but with the X1C, printing ABS is not any more difficult than PLA. I never went to PETG due to the stringiness and zits.

[Cadmonkeychris]

Another vote for Bambu - I have a P1S from work (I work remotely) that I am allowed to print home stuff on as long as I stay on Bambu filaments. It's quick, easy to use, not too noisy and the parts come out at a reasonable quality (though I think the early firmware was better for this).

Bambu filaments are pretty good (PLA /PETG) and they offer refills for their smart reels. The AMS works well but I have had one or two failures which occurred after a firmware update. I have upgraded to a hardened nozzle and gear so can now print reinforced materials.

It is nice to have a printer that can print multiple materials reliably.

I also have a Prusa Mk 3 sat in an enclosure that hasn't seen much use since the Bambu arrived. Prints beautifully and quietly but needs an enclosure to work well with nylons and it is very slow compared to the P1S.

ABS and ASA get printed on an old Zortrax M200 with a fume extraction hood taped on to provide an almost sealed enclosure (which works very well). I keep this around as we are restricting ABS/ASA to a particular P1 at work.

The small Bambu gets rave reviews from the office but I don't think I could live with an enclosureless printer now.

[SPerman]

Bambu filaments are pretty good (PLA /PETG) and they offer refills for their smart reels.

The refills sound like a good idea. After throwing a couple of $25 balls of spaghetti in the trash, I decided it was not worth the hassle. On one of them, i didn't have the 2 halves of the spool fully seated. On the other, everything was done properly, but the filament kept binding up on the spool.