It is really nice to see that Bambu Lab is offering their spare parts at reasonable prices. It is very common in the manufacturing industry for a company to sell you a customized machine, and then charge crazy amounts of money for the OEM spare parts.
@@Cara.314 maybe... I feel like the 3D printing community is much more willing to tinker and use aftermarket parts/ improvements that "break" a warranty instead of only using OEM parts. Bambu labs hopefully realizes this and will keep the spare parts prices low.
The spare parts are very reasonable and available now, but Bambu is still on their first generation of products. It will be interesting to see if these parts will still be available when the company moves on to “X2” and “A2” printers. It would be a shame if they treat the printers as disposable like so many other tech products.
the whole bambu ecosytem , i think is fantastic. made it very very easy for me to get into 3d printing. I think its part of the reason for their success!
I work at a 3D printing lab in Greece called 3D HUB and we mostly use Bambulab's P1S for our FDM print farm, and what I can tell everyone is that they're reliable as hell. And, servicing them is pretty easy compared to other machines, it is actually a peace of cake to be honest, even if you're not experienced. All the screws are mostly the same, and there are instructions for everything.
Same but x1c print farm. Thousands of hours run time. Minimal parts replaced way less down time than creality machines which have finally been replaced.
im greek and i LOVE my p1s !!! Even though im new to 3d printing their wiki and many many videos you can find on the net , make it easy to fix or replace defective items.
As a month long a1 owner who knows literally nothing. I have taken apart the extruder housing to examine the extruder gear because I though it was slipping (it was actually a clogged nozzle) before a month ago I didn’t even know what an extruder gear looked like. While I would call myself mechanically minded and do watch videos on all issues in life, I have to say it was extremely easy to work on and Bambu labs offers links and QR codes for just about any issue you could have. I am so thankful that this is my first printer and my next one will be a Bambu labs also. 👍👍
I‘m working with 3D printers for T least 7-8 years. Started with an Anet A8 and went through several printers including resin printers. I bout my Bambu X1C 2.5 years ago and it had its first clogged nozzle after 11 monthes of printing. I had to watch a video because that’s the only printer I own on which I never had to do repairs. I removed the nozzle and the extruder with just a few screws and 15 minutes later it was running again. That was a year ago!
I was so worried when a circuit board in my X1C toolhead burned out, but super happy with Bambu's support in diagnosing the fault and then sending out a replacement board that I could swap out myself. The level of detail in the wiki is awesome!
I just bought an A1 combo last night and reading the documentation, and I have to agree with you 100% they really went the extra mile to document every single thing. Most software I work with doesn't have anywhere near this level of documentation!
I honestly Love how the made it very easy to repair and the addition of the Type C connecters is great love this and would love to see things like this from more 3D printer Makers
The clean routing and well thought out packaging causes more component replacement time. Thanks for the video. It looks like they live up to the hype. Well designed.
Totally agree. One of the biggest strengths is Bambu's support of reasonably priced replacement parts and instructions for maintenance and repair. Minimizes downtime, and makes it much easier to keep machines running and printing rather than having to tinker to get this to work right.
I got a laugh out of the bed replacement for A1 of you showing the instructions say you only need to use 1 tool, but then show using at least 4 different tools. 😂 I know, they're all effectively the same tool but just found it funny how many tools we will use to NOT use the included horribly unergonomic included tool. ❤
I agree with you assessment on the Prusa Mk3. Taking the control box or tool head about is always a nightmare. Mine has been reliable, but there have been a couple of issues where I had to do work on both of those and it took way longer than it should. I replaced the heater in the hotend and added a robust 2 pin connector just behind the "tail". In the future, I can replace this part without taking the extruder and control box all apart to rout new wires in.
I put my Mk3 in an Ikea LACK enclosure that was popular at the time I started getting into 3D printing. When it came time to add the MMU3 to it, I was deeply deeply regretting the serviceability nightmare that I had put myself in. Took me around 15 minutes to just plug in the MMU3 to the logic board alone because of the awkward angles involved.
I was super satisfied with their customer support at first with the Bambu Labs A1 bed replacement everything was quick until they started shipping out beds and I got an response to my support ticket telling me to bring it back to the authorized dealer I bought it from even though I opted to wait for the replacement bed. And now they haven’t responded. Aside from that I love the machines I have from them
I have a P1S + AMS. Routine stuff is so far very straight-forward and easy to replace. I've worked on the hotend, extruder, AMS, etc... But the biggest nightmare was when I tried to run wire for additional LEDs and was looking for a wiring path and pulled the camera accidentally disconnecting the flex cable. Plugging that back in is near-impossible. I had to disassemble the entire printer. And some pieces (like the front panel and aux fan) were impossible to remove without damage.
I operate a Bambu farm and I have had zero problems repairing machines. This includes PCBs, belts, tool heads and beds. Some of my machines are at 5000 hours with few issues. If I have bad dreams they are always the same... I walk into the print room and it is full of Creality products.
I'm very pleased with Bambu Labs, so far! Though I've had no issues with mine, I'm glad to see that replacement parts are inexpensive and easy to install! Thanks, Michael!
I have a P1S and have done some work on mine. I have had a broken filament in the AMS and can confirm it is a delicate task. The hardest part was plugging back in the two cables between the filament holder shell and the main AMS case. I have big hands and there is a tight space to work in. A little more length in these cables would make the job easier. Took me about 45 minutes and the longest part was replugging the cables. I have changed the hot end and extruder to a hardened steel as I wanted to print some cf filament. Recently I changed to a .2 mm hotend for some fine printing. In both cases, I was able to do the job relatively smoothly with first change taking the longest. In both cases I found the tutorial clear and straightforward. I found the hardest part was to get the hotend cable back under the retaining clip. I will be back changing the hotend back to a .4 or bigger once I have finished my fine printing for speed reasons.
Just so you are aware, the P1S uses stainless steel extruder gears, not the hardened steel ones that the X1C uses, so if you plan on printing a lot of CF filament you should upgrade them too as the gears can wear out too as they are in direct contact with the filament and are pushing it through.
So Michael you hit it out of the park again. We can always count on your thoroughness. Thank you for the video. It sounds like you recommend the P1P, I have been contemplating buy one of these.
I think it's very good that you also make videos about such topics. I had a blob on my a1 mini a week ago. At first I was terrified of the effort that would go into fixing it. This expectation was completely wrong lol. I was expecting the process i had with mi prusa mk3s which was way more complicated to fix and cost way more when i had a blob years ago. 11:54
Being able to repair a device isn't usually the problem (unless the manufacturer goes really anti-repair), but sourcing a correct replacement part is. It's really unfortunate when a manufacturer with proprietary parts goes bust or doesn't produce spares anymore.
There are many cars that not manufactured anymore and there is no original spare parts available, but you can always fix such car with non-original spares.
@@TheNamelessOne12357 depends on where you live i guess, i live in Europe and wach a lot off car related youtube stuff and im always a bit jealous to see that in the States and the UK theres loads off car parts available for older cars. Here they have so many design iterations during the product lifespan so actually getting the right parts for older cars can be very difficult
@@JoopKarelSpank1 Yes, I live in France and repairing or maintaining your car is counterproductive if you plan to sell it, because people want invoices as proof of work done. I just watch Chrisfix as entertainment and pay the however 100s of euros I need to every year for the maintenance ^^
I agree. I had to remove the entire PTFE tube system one piece at a time yesterday on my p1s looking for snapped pieces of filament from an old roll of pla I stupidly tried to use when it was obviously too brittle. When I got down to the tool head, I decided to go ahead and replace the extruder gears and hot end with the hardened steel ones I bought to start playing with more abrasive filaments. It took all of 20 minutes to do and was pretty easy.
These are the easy fixes... Next video is changing bearings on the xy-system, or replacing the heatbed in the X1, or anything where you have to remove all the panels (ask Nero3D).
I snapped the cable on my X1c hot end cover (I had a bit of old filament snap in the extruder, and I forgot to put the cover back on when I was finished. Definitely user error) so bought a new one from BL. It arrived in two days, and was super easy to replace. The only other isue I've had is (again due to old filament) snapped filament in the AMS. It is a pain to get to the internal tubes, and I agree with you that a hatch on the bottom would make that process 100% easier. All the routine maintenance an owner has to do is easy and clearly instructed online.
Took me a around 1.5 hours to replace the single bed sensor wire on my X1C, now granted i was also filming the video, but having to remove half the enclosure just to swap a wire for the bed to the controller is not the most efficient thing.
I performed the heated bed cable replacement on my X1C along with updating the older boards and cables in the hotend with the most current versions. Aside from being annoyed when I first found out they changed everything around in the hotend and I had to buy a whole new set of parts to replace the outdated stuff, the actual work itself wasn't bad at all. Bambu Lab's support resources and guides are very good, and when you combine them with all the content on RUclips, most folks should be able to pull off repairs if they're decently mechanically inclined.
The closed nature scares me I can see it becoming a issue, Either out of service machines breaking with no way to get parts, Or worse spare parts skyrocketing in a attempt to force more new sale... But so far bamboo has been a very good boi.
An X1C is definitely fixable, but apart from the nozzle, extruder, and part cooling fan swap, replacing other parts is complex, and the machine isn't easy to work on; some parts are hard to reach or require many steps of disassembly as shown in the example of the A1's PCF. On the positive side, there aren't many types of screws, and most work is done with a 2mm Allen key. I have a kickstarter unit where I have replaced the toolhead board electronics, extruder assembly and motor (the entire toolhead had to be torn down to the bare rods to replace all of this), replaced a bed sensor (no big deal), replaced the bed sensor cable (a bit complex), replaced mainboard fan (no big deal), one of the AMS stages (quite involved, since the new one wasn't compatible with the electronics, being an early unit). Luckily, all replacements were provided by bambulab FOC during the warranty period and after doing all the above, the machine has been reliable for 3000+ hours, doing occasional maintenance as prompted, and is my go-to printer for most tasks. My other 6 vorons are envy.
Yes. Which this video didn't actually presented. What he did was not repair, was replacing of parts, anyone can do that... except when they stop making the parts. The real thing here is how ACTUALLY REPAIRABLE are the parts, not that you can buy them while they are still making them. We need schematics.
I think for experienced users of other machines, these repair items aren’t bad. For those that bought these machines for their infamous ability to slice and print with minimal work, the repairs could be very frustrating or upsetting.
I think the really bad part of the p1 and x1 series printers is the carbon rods that have bushings used instead of bearings. They never designed these to be replaced, rods are glued in. Until some customers had major issues, Bambu said they would not even sell the replacement parts. Now they do, but it's very time consuming to replace. No improvements either, so they will just wear out again. Thankfully they went with rails on the A1 series.
I ordered A1, waiting for it to arrive, this is very re-assuring after hobby 3D printing constantly for 6 years and having experience with 7 printers. I'm no stranger to swapping boards etc so it'll be great hjaving it easy for once!
You will be happy with it. I had one and an X1C and sold the A1 for extra money. But the printer itself and ams both are more reliable than the X1C, it was a beast and just perfectly printed everything I threw at it. I used it all throughout the recall even though I wasn't supposed to and it was fine. One tip I will give, is that the A1 is an extremely fast bed slinger that is capable of near xy speeds, so you might want to throw a brim on the taller prints. I guess it's a newbie tip but I definitely had a print thrown off the bed and it was my fault haha
I was literally just researching this today. My nozzle clogged last night, and it was an incredibly easy fix compared to other printers I've owned. Just heated the nozzle to 260, removed the bowden tube, and manually pushed the filament through. On other printers I would have to completely dismantle the hotend to clear the blocksge. It got me wondering how repairable they are overall.
There are components and components though. The ones shown on the video are relatively easy to swap, but there are some that requires a lot of disassembly to be replaced, like the bed sensor wire of the X1C.
There are also parts that cannot be replaced individually but you have to replace the complete component. For example, if the bearings on the X axis of the X1/P1 are worn down, you have to replace the entire X axis. As far as I know, this is a 4-5 hour job.
@@andreas.grundler absolutely not. You can strip the entire printer to bits in that amount of time -- there is a lot of fud going around about gantry replacement, yet I have seen very few needing to do it, considering X1 is nearing 2 years of original X1C units being in the wild, it is fair to say that the bearing/bushings are robust enough to last a long while.
I just disassembled the back cover and poop chute of my X1C to replace the motherboard fan. Not even a week later, its already making noises again. That thing must really not like any heat. I'm going to go aftermarket next time
@@kazolar My point was actually that you have to replace the whole X axis instead of just replacing the bearings. They may last a long time but they will wear down in the end. And there are other parts on the X axle that can break, such as the idler wheels. These cannot be replaced separately either. I got the information about how long it takes from someone who has already replaced his X axis. He may be slower than you, but it's still a lot of work.
@@andreas.grundler There's a reason for this and it's 100% those carbon rods. Bambu is assuming if your bearings are gone then your rods are either damaged, or will be from the bearings. So they want you to replace the whole setup instead of just replacing the bearings. Otherwise people are replacing bearings and not fixing the problem. Carbon Fiber has no place in an application like this is if you ask me. Drastically reducing the life of the machines.
I was surprised when I looked at spares for the A1-Mini. The prices seemed reasonable and pretty comprehensive range of components. Not needed to replace anything yet but have gathered a few of the more obvious parts to have to hand should a failure occur.
I agree that the bed replacement was fairly straight forward except for the fiddly part of getting the new wires to where they needed to be. I did mine last month but am still waiting on my voucher that was promised,
On my X1C, the hotend looked like it had broken, but the heated part just pushed off of the heatsink. I just cleaned it up, heated it with a microtorch, and pushed it back on. It's run for hours and hours since. I was running PA-CF through the .4mm nozzle, but they recommend the .6mm nozzle so that may have been partly to cause. But it still shouldn't come off like that, there's no way the extruder has enough force to do that. If it comes off again, it's going to be put back on with either red loctite, or maybe some Rocksett.
As the head technician at a print farm with 50 X1C printers, I can confirm that they are in fact not hard to fix, as long as you have an infinite amount of spare parts.
for common replacements bambu seems easy - i've got this issue where the ams starts blinking red and disconnects after roughly 8-12h on-time. now this is a weird issue because it's not clear what fails after the random amount of time. The website has a guide for diagnosing the issue but it's very tedious because of having to measure resistance from 34 up to 99 points to determine the faulty board. i've quicky tried it and realized i need to have a proper sheet to write down all the 99 values (bambu gives a partial template for this) in order to find the value that's most likely to be the issue..
i agreed fully with the video, they did a extreme good job to keep it as simple as possible even when the mini fan seemed more complicated, it is still well designed i hope that other brands also take up that kind of design to make things easy to repair, or atleast easy to access with out a 95% disassembly requirement :D
I appreciate you coving the first thing that matters to me, "not designed" for repairs. Everything breaks, and as someone who gets a lot of hate from consumers when they bring things in to be repaired and they genuinely can't be or are totaled from minor cosmetics at the worst I find this design philosophy absurd and offensive. I ended two companies because of this unsustainable [expletive deleted] impacting the end user and them in turn taking that frustration out on me. I'm making the comment to support you on engagement as I normally detest ranting and trolls but want to thank you for addressing this very important matter that applies to all electronics anymore.
Recently did a full maintenance on our X1C inside and out. Never inspecting the underside before and to our surprise the [Z Belt Tensioner] was jank when installed by the manufacture... I wanted to simply purchase a replacement of the tensioner and came to found out it's a part that's not sold on the store....
Glad I watched this, as I thought I would be able to use my X1 hot ends on a future purchase P1S. I didn’t know the connectors were different. I’ll probably get another A1 to go with the one I have. At least the hot ends are interchangeable. Thanks for the info.
Great coverage! I have to tear down my X1c bed and rails because of a wobble causing irregular failures, its going to be a lot of troubleshoooting, so one thing I’d like is some kind of master list of possible issues that contains big word-clouds for loose searching for hard to articulate issues.
The AMS Problem i learned the Hard way when i used up old Filament that maybe it is not smart. I even had an exploding PLA Roll, 2x 100g was what was left and around 60g in half circled in the AMS and some in the Feeding tubes below. And others kept breaking, but that was old Filament, everything which was less then one year open didn't break.
100% agree that the Prusa while good, they are a complete pain to work on. I ended up upgrading from the MK3 to X1C purely because I was tired of how painful it was to work on the machine.
I mostly agree - if filament is stuck into that hub of sorts in the AMS, it's a real PITA to get it out. Not only isn't that thing meant to be serviced, it all screws into plastic, so if that happens repeatedly, you'll destroy the part.
One thing to point out with changing the hotend on the X1 is those connectors are apparently pretty weak. I'm currently waiting on a replacement board because when I went to swap out my .2 nozzle for the .4, one of the connectors pulled straight off the board with the wires. The process of replacing the board looks pretty straight forward from the guide and video. Unfortunately it's taking nearly 2 weeks to go from opening the ticket to getting the replacement part.
I think the consumer 3d printing industry is in an interesting transition between hobbyist/tinkerer and appliance. Bambu is the poster child for the transition. I bought my first printer less than a week ago a P1S from Microcenter after months of research. I bought from a brick in mortar shop in case of issues. When I got the printer home the AMS would not communicate with the printer. Here's where that transition was obvious. The solution on the Wiki: 1)Check the pins on all your cables - No problem 2) Check the back of the printer for bent pins - No problem 3) grab your multimeter and do check these 24(!) resistance values. This where you move back from appliance to tinkerer device. I appreciate that the wiki has this detailed info but, I think if you're trying to open the hobby up to less technical people the process needs work. I was fortunate that a coworker brought in his AMS and I could swap parts. The problem was my 4 pin bus cable & I'm getting a new one from Bambu on Monday. If I didn't have that option I would have boxed the printer back up and exchanged it.
My AMS has a problem that started with a snapped filament, found a guide online and got the obvious bit out. Snapped again, had to take more of it apart this time to reach the stuck filament. Haven't been home much this year to use my printer since, but Slots 1 & 2 work, 3 & 4 inconsistently show error lights and any attempt to load them snaps the filament. Have taken a brief look but didn't find the problem - if I ever get home long enough I'll have to involve Bambu support. One thing putting me off investigating in the few opportunities I've had is the shortness of the internal cables... to reconnect the internals you have to plug in the power & bus cables while the parts are in the way of where your hand has to go making it really difficult.
My calibration sticker is torn for my X1-Carbon. Its the little white sticker with the dots on the right side of the print bed that the printer uses to calibrate its Lidar. I created a support ticket back in February for this and it took Bambu 19 days to get back to me, and they sent me an out of scale PDF file of the pattern for the sticker so I can print my own instead of just sending replacements -_- Their sticker is extremely precisely printed to the point that regular home printers will have inconsistencies that the Lidar might pick up, I told this to bambu and their reply was "theoretically, this shouldn't cause any issues and it should work" and then they reiterated that theres nothing they could do to send replacement stickers. Other people have had this issue too lol. Doesn't give me much hope if something more major breaks if they can't sent a damn sticker or put them for sale
I had to replace my hot-end on the X1 after I was a big dummy and completely missed a small piece of foam at the front right of the unit. That's where the unit will move during the homing process, so since it was not able to move to the correct position, it really messed with the positioning. It ended up bending the nozzle, but not breaking it. I did bend it back, but I chose to replace it instead of bending it back. It's worthwhile to note that the X1 and P1 units do come with a spare 0.4mm hot-end in the parts box. This was my first time I ever replacing one (on any printer), and it went fairly well. The only frustration that I had was the lingering one about forgetting the aforementioned piece of foam! There are some user-created tweezers to help make pulling the X1's cables out a bit easier. I didn't have too much of a problem with them, but they are definitely not super easy to remove. Regarding the AMS, I think the biggest problem that I've had with it is that you have to be *VERY* careful that you get the rear tube inserted properly. I've found it pretty easy to feel like there's the expected amount of tension on the tube, but it actually isn't inserted properly. If you do it wrong, you'll likely end up with a bunch of filament spewing into the dome of the AMS as it tries to feed the printer to no avail.
I went from the newer A1 to an X1C. The ams lite works surprisingly well and is very forgiving, plus you can put tiny spools or use cardboard spools with ease. And he doesn't have to roll back the spools all the way since all four tubes are already at the print head, so it just pulls the filament back literally 1 inch. The regular ams is definitely more picky, I was having my doubts after getting it a couple weeks ago but its been fine now. I printed off some tiny spool adapters so I can use the 200kg ones in there when I have to lol but its just better to use big rolls and bambu ones at that. Having the ams be airtight is very nice, I have it filled to the brim with dessicant lol
I have a X1 Carbon with AMS and a P1P and have been able to do all the maintenance on them myself without too much trouble. Just read the documentation and take your time, you can do it!
This has been an interesting process with the A1. Normally those “warranty void if removed” type situations apply when you start removing major components from a piece of electronics. Despite the legal grey area of it not being true. These companies can at a whim make it “ok” to replace things they would otherwise say, sorry but a new one. I am happy they are providing a ton of spare parts
Watched this as qidi max 3 owner and saw that is not bad. Qidi also sends you an stl of the hotend cover if you want to print it by yourself. The closed source environment is one reason for me to choose not for bamboolab
I’ve had my P1P since a month after launch, and I’ve messed with most of it at some point or another. It’s not any more complicated to work on than any other printer I’ve had. I started off with an Anycubic Predator, though, so my perspective may be slightly skewed. Still, while there are places that aren’t any fun to get to and jobs I’d rather not have to deal with, that’s been true for everything.
I had an issue with brittle PLA breaking in the AMS, I have no idea why but a section of that spool was very brittle. It took me a while to figure out what the issue was but once I did it wasn’t difficult to open up the AMS and fix it. However the printer didn’t tell me what was wrong, it just kept trying to retract the filament, running the motor at high speed (no filament there to provide a load to work against so it was just freely spinning), to the point you could start to smell it, like a hot plasticky oily smell. I assume the printer just thought that it hadn’t retracted enough yet as the filament was still in the internal sensor. I am very surprised the printer can’t figure out that if it has been retracting for a while, there is no filament in the top filament sensor but filament in the internal sensor that it has had a breakage. If left unattended I think it would probably end up burning the motor or melting the gears.
9:46 It's not like you can't scan and 3d print the fan cover then sell it on-line for the next guy who needs only that (without the fan) - there's this guy who started printing mailbox flags for the very same reason - they weren't sold separately - and it ended up not only funding his entire 3d printing hobby, but also made life easier for people who broke that pesky piece of plastic and didn't want to buy a whole new mailbox.
someone on Makerworld invented these little clips you click onto the 3 plugs for the X1C hot end wires, and makes swapping nozzles way faster: X1C Hotend Quick Swap Plug Grips
I had P1S with a mysterious problem. Tech Support at BL worked with me, helping in every possible way, sending parts, etc., for a month. In the end we weren't able to repair the bricked printer, so they sent me a new one. In my experience, this was an unprecidented event in comparison to any other manufacturer. On top of that, BL has a website with every single part (reasonably priced) to make any repair, along with what appears to be full-support WIKI, another unprecidented standard. If there's a downside, it's a slight language/translation issue and the lag of having to do all support online (laggy and slow). BTW, I also noticed that the replacement P1S had several improvements over my original. BL's business model, while not open source, is more than impressive. The bottom line for me personally was that I am more than impressed.
I think you did the ams the harder way. Leave the end of the ptfe tube on the machine and same for the cable. Release both from the ams instead and it’s easier to put back on imo, especially if you can’t get to the back of the printer easily. I had a roll of filament that kept breaking the ams for some reason so I got pretty fast at removing those small pieces pretty quickly. Doing it this way seemed to be the fastest way of doing it after trying it the way you did first.
I understand that you felt that the part cooling fan replacement could have been easier. But I have a Prusa Mk3 and the amount of work to replace almost anything on the extruder (and hotend) assembly is staggering. I have to tear down most of the more complicated mechanics for the extruder because of the cable "management" going all the way to the mainboard in an unnecessary complex manner. Bambu lab seem to design to be able to replace parts, whereas Prusa only designed (the Mk3) for ease of building, not ease of replacing parts. This video was one of the deciding points for me when getting a Bambu Lab printer. I'm sure there will be even better printers to repair in the future, but this is a giant leap forward for me that want to use the printer as a tool.
Oh crap, I totally forgot to put those 2 screws back into the AMS, I've been running without them for months and months. I've just put in my second set of PTFE tubes.
Yeah just had a brand new P1S with a clicking B motor. Sounded bad. So I had to replace that and it was another one of those needlessly over complicated tasks. Could’ve been made much simpler. Luckily I’m an auto tech so I’m use to longer fiddly jobs. But these things just print so well for the price.
So basically it boils down to; You get parts for a reasonable price, good instructions, a really useful database for error codes, but gotta pay for the sleek look with some more work. Honestly, quite great in my book. They get lots of hate for not being open source, but that does not have to mean they are Apple levels of anti consumer.
To remove stuck filament on the regular AMS the fastest way is not by pushing it with filament like that. After you remove the 2 screws, just flip the now loose base, disengaged the ptfe with the filament and pull. The whole process from start to finish is at most 5 minutes if your doing it slowly and fairly simple. Although there's no doubt that on the AMS lite it's 10 times easier.
on my p1 ive upgraded to a 0.6mm "ali cht" nozzle and the heater couldnt keep up resulting in a heater error every now and then. then i ordered a "upgrade" resistor for the x1 that has 88W instead of 48w and soldered it to a spare 48W heater harness i cut open for the p1 (due to different connector) and now it runs perfectly fine. i even was able to do 55mm³/s flowrate with it.
The X1C was not designed with repairability in mind. It is a pain in the butt. I think it is better than it was originally. I have one of the kickstarter models and they made improvements even on that. The head bed sensor cable replacement was painful for my early model as it was obviously never made to be changed. The sheer number of screws on the back panel and so many of them being different is pretty insane. That said, the Creality K1 is far harder to change parts in the head or extruder.
I've repaired several items on my X1-C. Worked through error codes. It's way more intuitively built, and easier to repair than any printer I've owned in the past. Perfect? Nothing is... But not hard to work on at all. Best of all? It's needed little for the hours I have on it. My only long term worry is will parts be available in a few years, when this isn't in production. I expect either Bambu or the aftermarket will step in with the quantity sold thus far. For now, though it's a tank. A very repairable tank.
@@000elemental000 Belts are common. Just need a length. The carbon rods shouldn't wear out in our lifetime... Assuming you keep them clean/lubricated/etc.
I have bad prints where the surfaces are more like mesh than a solid surface. I changed everything on the Bambu X1C and problem doesn’t go away. It’s collecting dust until I find energy again to trial and error some more on that thing.
I was always under the impression it was "If it breaks you better be prepared to do the work yourself or you're screwed" I feel like that's appropriate, and it curbs people's expectations of Bambu's Service. They are called the "Apple of 3d Printing" and they don't have a single service center? Apple's entire schtick is if you live in a city, even a small city, there's an Apple store to take your Apple product to and get more Apples put in it or w/e
If the A1 heatbed cable you've demonstrated was yours and was OK, then I don't think it is. You can see delamination characteristics already in the 'air pocket' behaviour - the outer sheath is acting contrary to the movements you're placing on the cable, eg: the sheath isn't contracting when the opposite edge is expanding. Isn't it? Anyway, I may have just demonstrated why Bambu Lab moved from a voluntary to a full recall :D
I'm assuming you're referring to the A1 series. For P1 and X1 you can purchase any board you need. Give it a few more months, I'm sure the MCU will become available. Anyone who owns an A1 series printer at this point is still covered by their warranty so purchasing the MCU as a standalone item isn't necessary at this point.
If you have an early ams unit, even beyond Kickstarter, you need a new mainboard to swap the first stage feeder’s, because the available spares are not compatible. Again: Support required.
@@crowguy506 I’ll admit it’s odd that the AP board isn’t available. The board for the first revision of the AMS probably has limited availability at this point so additional support is understandable in that instance. Just out of curiosity, have you needed these parts? How was your experience obtaining them?
@@Founders4 Bambu sent me 3 AP boards for two printers. The display connection is horrible. The AP board contains your printers „identy“ . They need the SN to match it. I never had issues with my A1mini/ams lite, but my real ams units are painful. It shows that they’re a rushed product with too much plastic. Only one of them is Kickstarter. The lite is so much more mature. 16 colors in theory would be fun, but in practice it’s a single material printer and works flawless until you connect an ams.
My X1C had a broken Lidar from the factory. After six weeks, they sent me a new one, but I needed to replace it. This was moderately inconvenient because I need to get a heat gun to remove the glue, and of the tiny hex screws, one of which vanished. They wouldn't send me a replacement screw, and I couldn't find one anywhere... so my *new X1C has a missing screw.
If you have an X1E, it can be a pain to get spare parts if that part is not stocked by the Bambu Labs online store. You are at the mercy of the local reseller and then they might struggle to get answers from Bambu if it is not a common part. Many parts on the X1E are the same as the P1S, but Bambu is not open about this. (I suspect to support the large extra markup for being an X1E)
honestly the price for replacement parts is quite good and resonable. but theres no saying what the landscape will look like in a few years when their next generation is released and they have little reason to continue producing these parts. however with the userbase of bambu printers its possible aftermarket parts will continue to provide service parts if bambu stop
It is really nice to see that Bambu Lab is offering their spare parts at reasonable prices. It is very common in the manufacturing industry for a company to sell you a customized machine, and then charge crazy amounts of money for the OEM spare parts.
dont worry, we'll get there, it's the natural progression.
@@Cara.314 maybe... I feel like the 3D printing community is much more willing to tinker and use aftermarket parts/ improvements that "break" a warranty instead of only using OEM parts. Bambu labs hopefully realizes this and will keep the spare parts prices low.
The spare parts are very reasonable and available now, but Bambu is still on their first generation of products. It will be interesting to see if these parts will still be available when the company moves on to “X2” and “A2” printers. It would be a shame if they treat the printers as disposable like so many other tech products.
the whole bambu ecosytem , i think is fantastic. made it very very easy for me to get into 3d printing. I think its part of the reason for their success!
They give you NO support on how to use those parts or tell you what parts you need....They tell you to go watch a video
I work at a 3D printing lab in Greece called 3D HUB and we mostly use Bambulab's P1S for our FDM print farm, and what I can tell everyone is that they're reliable as hell. And, servicing them is pretty easy compared to other machines, it is actually a peace of cake to be honest, even if you're not experienced. All the screws are mostly the same, and there are instructions for everything.
Same but x1c print farm. Thousands of hours run time. Minimal parts replaced way less down time than creality machines which have finally been replaced.
Same. 15 units.
Yep, I'm always amazed by bambus' attention to detail. I would love to have a print farm one day
im greek and i LOVE my p1s !!! Even though im new to 3d printing their wiki and many many videos you can find on the net , make it easy to fix or replace defective items.
Not too fond of the non removable nozzles.
As a month long a1 owner who knows literally nothing. I have taken apart the extruder housing to examine the extruder gear because I though it was slipping (it was actually a clogged nozzle) before a month ago I didn’t even know what an extruder gear looked like. While I would call myself mechanically minded and do watch videos on all issues in life, I have to say it was extremely easy to work on and Bambu labs offers links and QR codes for just about any issue you could have. I am so thankful that this is my first printer and my next one will be a Bambu labs also. 👍👍
Bambu is setting the standards very high, and that's a great thing to see. Thank you for debunking this myth in such detail!
I‘m working with 3D printers for T least 7-8 years. Started with an Anet A8 and went through several printers including resin printers.
I bout my Bambu X1C 2.5 years ago and it had its first clogged nozzle after 11 monthes of printing.
I had to watch a video because that’s the only printer I own on which I never had to do repairs.
I removed the nozzle and the extruder with just a few screws and 15 minutes later it was running again. That was a year ago!
I was so worried when a circuit board in my X1C toolhead burned out, but super happy with Bambu's support in diagnosing the fault and then sending out a replacement board that I could swap out myself. The level of detail in the wiki is awesome!
I just bought an A1 combo last night and reading the documentation, and I have to agree with you 100% they really went the extra mile to document every single thing. Most software I work with doesn't have anywhere near this level of documentation!
@@GeddyRCI’m loving my a1 combo
I honestly Love how the made it very easy to repair and the addition of the Type C connecters is great love this and would love to see things like this from more 3D printer Makers
The clean routing and well thought out packaging causes more component replacement time. Thanks for the video. It looks like they live up to the hype. Well designed.
Totally agree. One of the biggest strengths is Bambu's support of reasonably priced replacement parts and instructions for maintenance and repair. Minimizes downtime, and makes it much easier to keep machines running and printing rather than having to tinker to get this to work right.
I got a laugh out of the bed replacement for A1 of you showing the instructions say you only need to use 1 tool, but then show using at least 4 different tools. 😂 I know, they're all effectively the same tool but just found it funny how many tools we will use to NOT use the included horribly unergonomic included tool. ❤
Thanks for video.
For the broken piece in AMS. Don’t do as I did today and forget to take out the desiccant trays with the beads in it.
I like how quick the repairs were on the whole and the prices are very reasonable
I agree with you assessment on the Prusa Mk3. Taking the control box or tool head about is always a nightmare. Mine has been reliable, but there have been a couple of issues where I had to do work on both of those and it took way longer than it should. I replaced the heater in the hotend and added a robust 2 pin connector just behind the "tail". In the future, I can replace this part without taking the extruder and control box all apart to rout new wires in.
I put my Mk3 in an Ikea LACK enclosure that was popular at the time I started getting into 3D printing. When it came time to add the MMU3 to it, I was deeply deeply regretting the serviceability nightmare that I had put myself in. Took me around 15 minutes to just plug in the MMU3 to the logic board alone because of the awkward angles involved.
I was super satisfied with their customer support at first with the Bambu Labs A1 bed replacement everything was quick until they started shipping out beds and I got an response to my support ticket telling me to bring it back to the authorized dealer I bought it from even though I opted to wait for the replacement bed. And now they haven’t responded. Aside from that I love the machines I have from them
I have a P1S + AMS. Routine stuff is so far very straight-forward and easy to replace. I've worked on the hotend, extruder, AMS, etc... But the biggest nightmare was when I tried to run wire for additional LEDs and was looking for a wiring path and pulled the camera accidentally disconnecting the flex cable. Plugging that back in is near-impossible. I had to disassemble the entire printer. And some pieces (like the front panel and aux fan) were impossible to remove without damage.
I operate a Bambu farm and I have had zero problems repairing machines. This includes PCBs, belts, tool heads and beds. Some of my machines are at 5000 hours with few issues. If I have bad dreams they are always the same... I walk into the print room and it is full of Creality products.
I'm very pleased with Bambu Labs, so far! Though I've had no issues with mine, I'm glad to see that replacement parts are inexpensive and easy to install! Thanks, Michael!
I have a P1S and have done some work on mine.
I have had a broken filament in the AMS and can confirm it is a delicate task. The hardest part was plugging back in the two cables between the filament holder shell and the main AMS case. I have big hands and there is a tight space to work in. A little more length in these cables would make the job easier. Took me about 45 minutes and the longest part was replugging the cables.
I have changed the hot end and extruder to a hardened steel as I wanted to print some cf filament.
Recently I changed to a .2 mm hotend for some fine printing.
In both cases, I was able to do the job relatively smoothly with first change taking the longest. In both cases I found the tutorial clear and straightforward. I found the hardest part was to get the hotend cable back under the retaining clip.
I will be back changing the hotend back to a .4 or bigger once I have finished my fine printing for speed reasons.
Just so you are aware, the P1S uses stainless steel extruder gears, not the hardened steel ones that the X1C uses, so if you plan on printing a lot of CF filament you should upgrade them too as the gears can wear out too as they are in direct contact with the filament and are pushing it through.
@@conorstewart2214yes, I know I replaces the extruder gear also with a hardened steel
There is a nice printable "AMS Disconnect Tool" for unplugging those cables.
So Michael you hit it out of the park again. We can always count on your thoroughness. Thank you for the video. It sounds like you recommend the P1P, I have been contemplating buy one of these.
I think it's very good that you also make videos about such topics.
I had a blob on my a1 mini a week ago. At first I was terrified of the effort that would go into fixing it. This expectation was completely wrong lol. I was expecting the process i had with mi prusa mk3s which was way more complicated to fix and cost way more when i had a blob years ago. 11:54
Being able to repair a device isn't usually the problem (unless the manufacturer goes really anti-repair), but sourcing a correct replacement part is.
It's really unfortunate when a manufacturer with proprietary parts goes bust or doesn't produce spares anymore.
There are many cars that not manufactured anymore and there is no original spare parts available, but you can always fix such car with non-original spares.
oh my god why are you everywhere
@@TheNamelessOne12357 depends on where you live i guess, i live in Europe and wach a lot off car related youtube stuff and im always a bit jealous to see that in the States and the UK theres loads off car parts available for older cars. Here they have so many design iterations during the product lifespan so actually getting the right parts for older cars can be very difficult
@@JoopKarelSpank1 Yes, I live in France and repairing or maintaining your car is counterproductive if you plan to sell it, because people want invoices as proof of work done. I just watch Chrisfix as entertainment and pay the however 100s of euros I need to every year for the maintenance ^^
I agree. I had to remove the entire PTFE tube system one piece at a time yesterday on my p1s looking for snapped pieces of filament from an old roll of pla I stupidly tried to use when it was obviously too brittle. When I got down to the tool head, I decided to go ahead and replace the extruder gears and hot end with the hardened steel ones I bought to start playing with more abrasive filaments. It took all of 20 minutes to do and was pretty easy.
These are the easy fixes... Next video is changing bearings on the xy-system, or replacing the heatbed in the X1, or anything where you have to remove all the panels (ask Nero3D).
replacing beds on the x1c are alot easier in the new revisions....
Impossible to change bearings on the y-axis due to epoxy glued. Very disappointed with that tbh.
This video has been very informative, and has made me really glad that I bought a Prusa.
I snapped the cable on my X1c hot end cover (I had a bit of old filament snap in the extruder, and I forgot to put the cover back on when I was finished. Definitely user error) so bought a new one from BL. It arrived in two days, and was super easy to replace. The only other isue I've had is (again due to old filament) snapped filament in the AMS. It is a pain to get to the internal tubes, and I agree with you that a hatch on the bottom would make that process 100% easier. All the routine maintenance an owner has to do is easy and clearly instructed online.
Took me a around 1.5 hours to replace the single bed sensor wire on my X1C, now granted i was also filming the video, but having to remove half the enclosure just to swap a wire for the bed to the controller is not the most efficient thing.
Skill issue
@@WheatMillington Yep, building printers for years and following the bambu provided instructions are a skill issue
I performed the heated bed cable replacement on my X1C along with updating the older boards and cables in the hotend with the most current versions. Aside from being annoyed when I first found out they changed everything around in the hotend and I had to buy a whole new set of parts to replace the outdated stuff, the actual work itself wasn't bad at all. Bambu Lab's support resources and guides are very good, and when you combine them with all the content on RUclips, most folks should be able to pull off repairs if they're decently mechanically inclined.
I'm glad I waited for V4 of my old faithful, an Artillery X1 where most bugs had been corrected.
Well we can just hope they will continue to provide replacement parts for the foreseeable future and at reasonable prices.
Thanks a bunch for all the info, Michael! 😊
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
wait until the load cells starts to fail, that's apparently 4 hour job
The closed nature scares me I can see it becoming a issue, Either out of service machines breaking with no way to get parts, Or worse spare parts skyrocketing in a attempt to force more new sale... But so far bamboo has been a very good boi.
An X1C is definitely fixable, but apart from the nozzle, extruder, and part cooling fan swap, replacing other parts is complex, and the machine isn't easy to work on; some parts are hard to reach or require many steps of disassembly as shown in the example of the A1's PCF.
On the positive side, there aren't many types of screws, and most work is done with a 2mm Allen key.
I have a kickstarter unit where I have replaced the toolhead board electronics, extruder assembly and motor (the entire toolhead had to be torn down to the bare rods to replace all of this), replaced a bed sensor (no big deal), replaced the bed sensor cable (a bit complex), replaced mainboard fan (no big deal), one of the AMS stages (quite involved, since the new one wasn't compatible with the electronics, being an early unit).
Luckily, all replacements were provided by bambulab FOC during the warranty period and after doing all the above, the machine has been reliable for 3000+ hours, doing occasional maintenance as prompted, and is my go-to printer for most tasks. My other 6 vorons are envy.
My termistator on X1C went kaput. You have to buy a hole bed assembly 135 eur for 2 eur termistator.
Ooof.
Thats insane.
@@jeremyglover5541 Bambu Labs is in the business of making money. One way to do that is to make parts exclusively and expensive.
Yes. Which this video didn't actually presented. What he did was not repair, was replacing of parts, anyone can do that... except when they stop making the parts.
The real thing here is how ACTUALLY REPAIRABLE are the parts, not that you can buy them while they are still making them.
We need schematics.
I think for experienced users of other machines, these repair items aren’t bad. For those that bought these machines for their infamous ability to slice and print with minimal work, the repairs could be very frustrating or upsetting.
I think the really bad part of the p1 and x1 series printers is the carbon rods that have bushings used instead of bearings. They never designed these to be replaced, rods are glued in. Until some customers had major issues, Bambu said they would not even sell the replacement parts. Now they do, but it's very time consuming to replace. No improvements either, so they will just wear out again. Thankfully they went with rails on the A1 series.
I ordered A1, waiting for it to arrive, this is very re-assuring after hobby 3D printing constantly for 6 years and having experience with 7 printers. I'm no stranger to swapping boards etc so it'll be great hjaving it easy for once!
You will be happy with it. I had one and an X1C and sold the A1 for extra money. But the printer itself and ams both are more reliable than the X1C, it was a beast and just perfectly printed everything I threw at it. I used it all throughout the recall even though I wasn't supposed to and it was fine.
One tip I will give, is that the A1 is an extremely fast bed slinger that is capable of near xy speeds, so you might want to throw a brim on the taller prints. I guess it's a newbie tip but I definitely had a print thrown off the bed and it was my fault haha
I was literally just researching this today. My nozzle clogged last night, and it was an incredibly easy fix compared to other printers I've owned. Just heated the nozzle to 260, removed the bowden tube, and manually pushed the filament through. On other printers I would have to completely dismantle the hotend to clear the blocksge. It got me wondering how repairable they are overall.
There are components and components though. The ones shown on the video are relatively easy to swap, but there are some that requires a lot of disassembly to be replaced, like the bed sensor wire of the X1C.
There are also parts that cannot be replaced individually but you have to replace the complete component. For example, if the bearings on the X axis of the X1/P1 are worn down, you have to replace the entire X axis. As far as I know, this is a 4-5 hour job.
@@andreas.grundler absolutely not. You can strip the entire printer to bits in that amount of time -- there is a lot of fud going around about gantry replacement, yet I have seen very few needing to do it, considering X1 is nearing 2 years of original X1C units being in the wild, it is fair to say that the bearing/bushings are robust enough to last a long while.
I just disassembled the back cover and poop chute of my X1C to replace the motherboard fan. Not even a week later, its already making noises again. That thing must really not like any heat. I'm going to go aftermarket next time
@@kazolar My point was actually that you have to replace the whole X axis instead of just replacing the bearings. They may last a long time but they will wear down in the end. And there are other parts on the X axle that can break, such as the idler wheels. These cannot be replaced separately either.
I got the information about how long it takes from someone who has already replaced his X axis. He may be slower than you, but it's still a lot of work.
@@andreas.grundler There's a reason for this and it's 100% those carbon rods. Bambu is assuming if your bearings are gone then your rods are either damaged, or will be from the bearings. So they want you to replace the whole setup instead of just replacing the bearings.
Otherwise people are replacing bearings and not fixing the problem.
Carbon Fiber has no place in an application like this is if you ask me. Drastically reducing the life of the machines.
I was surprised when I looked at spares for the A1-Mini. The prices seemed reasonable and pretty comprehensive range of components. Not needed to replace anything yet but have gathered a few of the more obvious parts to have to hand should a failure occur.
I agree that the bed replacement was fairly straight forward except for the fiddly part of getting the new wires to where they needed to be. I did mine last month but am still waiting on my voucher that was promised,
On my X1C, the hotend looked like it had broken, but the heated part just pushed off of the heatsink. I just cleaned it up, heated it with a microtorch, and pushed it back on. It's run for hours and hours since. I was running PA-CF through the .4mm nozzle, but they recommend the .6mm nozzle so that may have been partly to cause. But it still shouldn't come off like that, there's no way the extruder has enough force to do that. If it comes off again, it's going to be put back on with either red loctite, or maybe some Rocksett.
As the head technician at a print farm with 50 X1C printers, I can confirm that they are in fact not hard to fix, as long as you have an infinite amount of spare parts.
for common replacements bambu seems easy - i've got this issue where the ams starts blinking red and disconnects after roughly 8-12h on-time. now this is a weird issue because it's not clear what fails after the random amount of time. The website has a guide for diagnosing the issue but it's very tedious because of having to measure resistance from 34 up to 99 points to determine the faulty board. i've quicky tried it and realized i need to have a proper sheet to write down all the 99 values (bambu gives a partial template for this) in order to find the value that's most likely to be the issue..
i agreed fully with the video, they did a extreme good job to keep it as simple as possible
even when the mini fan seemed more complicated, it is still well designed
i hope that other brands also take up that kind of design to make things easy to repair, or atleast easy to access with out a 95% disassembly requirement :D
I appreciate you coving the first thing that matters to me, "not designed" for repairs. Everything breaks, and as someone who gets a lot of hate from consumers when they bring things in to be repaired and they genuinely can't be or are totaled from minor cosmetics at the worst I find this design philosophy absurd and offensive. I ended two companies because of this unsustainable [expletive deleted] impacting the end user and them in turn taking that frustration out on me. I'm making the comment to support you on engagement as I normally detest ranting and trolls but want to thank you for addressing this very important matter that applies to all electronics anymore.
Recently did a full maintenance on our X1C inside and out. Never inspecting the underside before and to our surprise the [Z Belt Tensioner] was jank when installed by the manufacture... I wanted to simply purchase a replacement of the tensioner and came to found out it's a part that's not sold on the store....
So happy to just view this. Bought a P1S a month ago and haven’t looked back. Informative and helpful as always.
Glad I watched this, as I thought I would be able to use my X1 hot ends on a future purchase P1S. I didn’t know the connectors were different. I’ll probably get another A1 to go with the one I have. At least the hot ends are interchangeable. Thanks for the info.
All those little breakout boards, tiny wires and plugs on the toolhead... Nope. Thanks for the clear look inside these machines.
Great coverage! I have to tear down my X1c bed and rails because of a wobble causing irregular failures, its going to be a lot of troubleshoooting, so one thing I’d like is some kind of master list of possible issues that contains big word-clouds for loose searching for hard to articulate issues.
The AMS Problem i learned the Hard way when i used up old Filament that maybe it is not smart. I even had an exploding PLA Roll, 2x 100g was what was left and around 60g in half circled in the AMS and some in the Feeding tubes below. And others kept breaking, but that was old Filament, everything which was less then one year open didn't break.
100% agree that the Prusa while good, they are a complete pain to work on. I ended up upgrading from the MK3 to X1C purely because I was tired of how painful it was to work on the machine.
Agree with that, anything to do with removing the extruder is a pain.
Yes... compared to the Prusa things certainly look easier. This topic is another feather in the cap for Bambu.
I mostly agree - if filament is stuck into that hub of sorts in the AMS, it's a real PITA to get it out. Not only isn't that thing meant to be serviced, it all screws into plastic, so if that happens repeatedly, you'll destroy the part.
One thing to point out with changing the hotend on the X1 is those connectors are apparently pretty weak. I'm currently waiting on a replacement board because when I went to swap out my .2 nozzle for the .4, one of the connectors pulled straight off the board with the wires. The process of replacing the board looks pretty straight forward from the guide and video. Unfortunately it's taking nearly 2 weeks to go from opening the ticket to getting the replacement part.
one thing that stumped me for a few minutes was filament failing to feed because there was broken clear filament in the tube that i could not see
I think the consumer 3d printing industry is in an interesting transition between hobbyist/tinkerer and appliance. Bambu is the poster child for the transition.
I bought my first printer less than a week ago a P1S from Microcenter after months of research. I bought from a brick in mortar shop in case of issues. When I got the printer home the AMS would not communicate with the printer. Here's where that transition was obvious.
The solution on the Wiki:
1)Check the pins on all your cables - No problem
2) Check the back of the printer for bent pins - No problem
3) grab your multimeter and do check these 24(!) resistance values.
This where you move back from appliance to tinkerer device. I appreciate that the wiki has this detailed info but, I think if you're trying to open the hobby up to less technical people the process needs work.
I was fortunate that a coworker brought in his AMS and I could swap parts. The problem was my 4 pin bus cable & I'm getting a new one from Bambu on Monday. If I didn't have that option I would have boxed the printer back up and exchanged it.
My AMS has a problem that started with a snapped filament, found a guide online and got the obvious bit out. Snapped again, had to take more of it apart this time to reach the stuck filament.
Haven't been home much this year to use my printer since, but Slots 1 & 2 work, 3 & 4 inconsistently show error lights and any attempt to load them snaps the filament. Have taken a brief look but didn't find the problem - if I ever get home long enough I'll have to involve Bambu support.
One thing putting me off investigating in the few opportunities I've had is the shortness of the internal cables... to reconnect the internals you have to plug in the power & bus cables while the parts are in the way of where your hand has to go making it really difficult.
My calibration sticker is torn for my X1-Carbon. Its the little white sticker with the dots on the right side of the print bed that the printer uses to calibrate its Lidar. I created a support ticket back in February for this and it took Bambu 19 days to get back to me, and they sent me an out of scale PDF file of the pattern for the sticker so I can print my own instead of just sending replacements -_-
Their sticker is extremely precisely printed to the point that regular home printers will have inconsistencies that the Lidar might pick up, I told this to bambu and their reply was "theoretically, this shouldn't cause any issues and it should work" and then they reiterated that theres nothing they could do to send replacement stickers. Other people have had this issue too lol. Doesn't give me much hope if something more major breaks if they can't sent a damn sticker or put them for sale
I had to replace my hot-end on the X1 after I was a big dummy and completely missed a small piece of foam at the front right of the unit. That's where the unit will move during the homing process, so since it was not able to move to the correct position, it really messed with the positioning. It ended up bending the nozzle, but not breaking it. I did bend it back, but I chose to replace it instead of bending it back. It's worthwhile to note that the X1 and P1 units do come with a spare 0.4mm hot-end in the parts box. This was my first time I ever replacing one (on any printer), and it went fairly well. The only frustration that I had was the lingering one about forgetting the aforementioned piece of foam! There are some user-created tweezers to help make pulling the X1's cables out a bit easier. I didn't have too much of a problem with them, but they are definitely not super easy to remove.
Regarding the AMS, I think the biggest problem that I've had with it is that you have to be *VERY* careful that you get the rear tube inserted properly. I've found it pretty easy to feel like there's the expected amount of tension on the tube, but it actually isn't inserted properly. If you do it wrong, you'll likely end up with a bunch of filament spewing into the dome of the AMS as it tries to feed the printer to no avail.
I went from the newer A1 to an X1C. The ams lite works surprisingly well and is very forgiving, plus you can put tiny spools or use cardboard spools with ease. And he doesn't have to roll back the spools all the way since all four tubes are already at the print head, so it just pulls the filament back literally 1 inch.
The regular ams is definitely more picky, I was having my doubts after getting it a couple weeks ago but its been fine now. I printed off some tiny spool adapters so I can use the 200kg ones in there when I have to lol but its just better to use big rolls and bambu ones at that. Having the ams be airtight is very nice, I have it filled to the brim with dessicant lol
I have a X1 Carbon with AMS and a P1P and have been able to do all the maintenance on them myself without too much trouble. Just read the documentation and take your time, you can do it!
This has been an interesting process with the A1. Normally those “warranty void if removed” type situations apply when you start removing major components from a piece of electronics. Despite the legal grey area of it not being true. These companies can at a whim make it “ok” to replace things they would otherwise say, sorry but a new one. I am happy they are providing a ton of spare parts
Watched this as qidi max 3 owner and saw that is not bad. Qidi also sends you an stl of the hotend cover if you want to print it by yourself. The closed source environment is one reason for me to choose not for bamboolab
I’ve had my P1P since a month after launch, and I’ve messed with most of it at some point or another. It’s not any more complicated to work on than any other printer I’ve had. I started off with an Anycubic Predator, though, so my perspective may be slightly skewed. Still, while there are places that aren’t any fun to get to and jobs I’d rather not have to deal with, that’s been true for everything.
I had an issue with brittle PLA breaking in the AMS, I have no idea why but a section of that spool was very brittle. It took me a while to figure out what the issue was but once I did it wasn’t difficult to open up the AMS and fix it.
However the printer didn’t tell me what was wrong, it just kept trying to retract the filament, running the motor at high speed (no filament there to provide a load to work against so it was just freely spinning), to the point you could start to smell it, like a hot plasticky oily smell. I assume the printer just thought that it hadn’t retracted enough yet as the filament was still in the internal sensor. I am very surprised the printer can’t figure out that if it has been retracting for a while, there is no filament in the top filament sensor but filament in the internal sensor that it has had a breakage. If left unattended I think it would probably end up burning the motor or melting the gears.
9:46 It's not like you can't scan and 3d print the fan cover then sell it on-line for the next guy who needs only that (without the fan) - there's this guy who started printing mailbox flags for the very same reason - they weren't sold separately - and it ended up not only funding his entire 3d printing hobby, but also made life easier for people who broke that pesky piece of plastic and didn't want to buy a whole new mailbox.
I think Bambu Labs is phenomenal in offering parts compared to all the other printer companies except maybe Prusa, and at super reasonable prices!
someone on Makerworld invented these little clips you click onto the 3 plugs for the X1C hot end wires, and makes swapping nozzles way faster: X1C Hotend Quick Swap Plug Grips
I had P1S with a mysterious problem. Tech Support at BL worked with me, helping in every possible way, sending parts, etc., for a month. In the end we weren't able to repair the bricked printer, so they sent me a new one. In my experience, this was an unprecidented event in comparison to any other manufacturer. On top of that, BL has a website with every single part (reasonably priced) to make any repair, along with what appears to be full-support WIKI, another unprecidented standard. If there's a downside, it's a slight language/translation issue and the lag of having to do all support online (laggy and slow). BTW, I also noticed that the replacement P1S had several improvements over my original. BL's business model, while not open source, is more than impressive. The bottom line for me personally was that I am more than impressed.
Would really love to see the Changing of the carbon rods, I hear it can be kind of a pain in a butt
I think you did the ams the harder way. Leave the end of the ptfe tube on the machine and same for the cable. Release both from the ams instead and it’s easier to put back on imo, especially if you can’t get to the back of the printer easily.
I had a roll of filament that kept breaking the ams for some reason so I got pretty fast at removing those small pieces pretty quickly. Doing it this way seemed to be the fastest way of doing it after trying it the way you did first.
I understand that you felt that the part cooling fan replacement could have been easier. But I have a Prusa Mk3 and the amount of work to replace almost anything on the extruder (and hotend) assembly is staggering. I have to tear down most of the more complicated mechanics for the extruder because of the cable "management" going all the way to the mainboard in an unnecessary complex manner. Bambu lab seem to design to be able to replace parts, whereas Prusa only designed (the Mk3) for ease of building, not ease of replacing parts. This video was one of the deciding points for me when getting a Bambu Lab printer. I'm sure there will be even better printers to repair in the future, but this is a giant leap forward for me that want to use the printer as a tool.
Totally agree about the Prusa MK3 tool head. What a pain!
Oh crap, I totally forgot to put those 2 screws back into the AMS, I've been running without them for months and months. I've just put in my second set of PTFE tubes.
Yeah just had a brand new P1S with a clicking B motor. Sounded bad. So I had to replace that and it was another one of those needlessly over complicated tasks. Could’ve been made much simpler. Luckily I’m an auto tech so I’m use to longer fiddly jobs. But these things just print so well for the price.
you have all the best 3d printers behind you.
sounds a bit like my life! I mean, I'm 31.... what else is left for me? ahem
I agree, pretty easy and parts costs are very reasonable.
So basically it boils down to;
You get parts for a reasonable price, good instructions, a really useful database for error codes, but gotta pay for the sleek look with some more work.
Honestly, quite great in my book. They get lots of hate for not being open source, but that does not have to mean they are Apple levels of anti consumer.
I just thought the same, at least in this department they aren't Apple like.
To remove stuck filament on the regular AMS the fastest way is not by pushing it with filament like that. After you remove the 2 screws, just flip the now loose base, disengaged the ptfe with the filament and pull. The whole process from start to finish is at most 5 minutes if your doing it slowly and fairly simple. Although there's no doubt that on the AMS lite it's 10 times easier.
on my p1 ive upgraded to a 0.6mm "ali cht" nozzle and the heater couldnt keep up resulting in a heater error every now and then.
then i ordered a "upgrade" resistor for the x1 that has 88W instead of 48w and soldered it to a spare 48W heater harness i cut open for the p1 (due to different connector) and now it runs perfectly fine. i even was able to do 55mm³/s flowrate with it.
Great video, thanks for making this 👍
Seems easy compared to some diesel pump and injector replacements I've done.
"If they break, it is game over" - Artillery left the chat (probably quite literally xD)
The X1C was not designed with repairability in mind. It is a pain in the butt. I think it is better than it was originally. I have one of the kickstarter models and they made improvements even on that. The head bed sensor cable replacement was painful for my early model as it was obviously never made to be changed. The sheer number of screws on the back panel and so many of them being different is pretty insane. That said, the Creality K1 is far harder to change parts in the head or extruder.
I've repaired several items on my X1-C. Worked through error codes. It's way more intuitively built, and easier to repair than any printer I've owned in the past.
Perfect? Nothing is... But not hard to work on at all.
Best of all? It's needed little for the hours I have on it. My only long term worry is will parts be available in a few years, when this isn't in production. I expect either Bambu or the aftermarket will step in with the quantity sold thus far.
For now, though it's a tank. A very repairable tank.
I'm more worried about belt replacements. And the carbon rod assemblies
@@000elemental000 Belts are common. Just need a length. The carbon rods shouldn't wear out in our lifetime... Assuming you keep them clean/lubricated/etc.
I have bad prints where the surfaces are more like mesh than a solid surface.
I changed everything on the Bambu X1C and problem doesn’t go away. It’s collecting dust until I find energy again to trial and error some more on that thing.
I do not own a Bambu printer, but what I saw in this video impressed me. And it is good to see replacement parts that are very reasonably priced.
you should do a video to build a whole bambulabs just from spares !!
I was always under the impression it was "If it breaks you better be prepared to do the work yourself or you're screwed" I feel like that's appropriate, and it curbs people's expectations of Bambu's Service.
They are called the "Apple of 3d Printing" and they don't have a single service center? Apple's entire schtick is if you live in a city, even a small city, there's an Apple store to take your Apple product to and get more Apples put in it or w/e
very jealous of your transparent extruder!
Well done. Love my X1C
If the A1 heatbed cable you've demonstrated was yours and was OK, then I don't think it is. You can see delamination characteristics already in the 'air pocket' behaviour - the outer sheath is acting contrary to the movements you're placing on the cable, eg: the sheath isn't contracting when the opposite edge is expanding. Isn't it? Anyway, I may have just demonstrated why Bambu Lab moved from a voluntary to a full recall :D
The fun starts with PCB boards not sold by Bambu. You need the support to send you a unit, but we don’t know what happens after warranty is over.
I'm assuming you're referring to the A1 series. For P1 and X1 you can purchase any board you need. Give it a few more months, I'm sure the MCU will become available. Anyone who owns an A1 series printer at this point is still covered by their warranty so purchasing the MCU as a standalone item isn't necessary at this point.
@@Founders4 Nope. Referring to X1C. The ap board for example is unbuyable.
If you have an early ams unit, even beyond Kickstarter, you need a new mainboard to swap the first stage feeder’s, because the available spares are not compatible. Again: Support required.
@@crowguy506 I’ll admit it’s odd that the AP board isn’t available. The board for the first revision of the AMS probably has limited availability at this point so additional support is understandable in that instance. Just out of curiosity, have you needed these parts? How was your experience obtaining them?
@@Founders4 Bambu sent me 3 AP boards for two printers. The display connection is horrible. The AP board contains your printers „identy“ . They need the SN to match it. I never had issues with my A1mini/ams lite, but my real ams units are painful. It shows that they’re a rushed product with too much plastic. Only one of them is Kickstarter. The lite is so much more mature. 16 colors in theory would be fun, but in practice it’s a single material printer and works flawless until you connect an ams.
After you've worked on any Audi of recent build... all of this is light duty and comparatively simple!
Upgrade your work david.... only work on jaguars! ahem
WHOAAAA okay I luckily don't need the belt tensioning, but if I do, I'm doing that guy's special method, WOW
My X1C had a broken Lidar from the factory. After six weeks, they sent me a new one, but I needed to replace it. This was moderately inconvenient because I need to get a heat gun to remove the glue, and of the tiny hex screws, one of which vanished. They wouldn't send me a replacement screw, and I couldn't find one anywhere... so my *new X1C has a missing screw.
If you have an X1E, it can be a pain to get spare parts if that part is not stocked by the Bambu Labs online store. You are at the mercy of the local reseller and then they might struggle to get answers from Bambu if it is not a common part. Many parts on the X1E are the same as the P1S, but Bambu is not open about this. (I suspect to support the large extra markup for being an X1E)
honestly the price for replacement parts is quite good and resonable. but theres no saying what the landscape will look like in a few years when their next generation is released and they have little reason to continue producing these parts. however with the userbase of bambu printers its possible aftermarket parts will continue to provide service parts if bambu stop
… still waiting on that A1 replacement… I’ve given up and started using my printer again.