There’s no easy 3D printer, but Bambu has won me over

May 26, 2024 05:00 PM - 5 months ago 61826

If you asked maine to urge an “easy” user 3D printer, I’d pass you first: contempt countless innovations, you still can’t rather deed a fastener to reliably photocopy a 3D model. Buying a 3D printer is buying an full hobby, 1 wherever — if you’re a lazy bum for illustration maine — galore attempts will move into worthless gobs of plastic.

But if you persisted, I’d show you my 1 clear prime for lazy bums: nan Bambu P1P.

What, a printer from nan institution that recalled its newest model and whose earlier ones once went rogue? Yep — because not only did Bambu grip those incidents pinch accelerated apologies, investigations, transparency, and moreover refunds, nan $599 Bambu P1P is besides perfectly nan easiest, astir reliable 3D printer I’ve used.

It makes my stalwart aged Ender 3 Pro look for illustration a hunk of junk. It makes its closest competition, nan $559 Creality K1C, consciousness for illustration an inferior clone. I’ve spent months testing them broadside by side, and I’d personally prime nan Bambu each time.

Don’t get maine wrong: nan K1C is nan amended prime for immoderate tinkerers since its afloat enclosure, bed, and other instrumentality fto you people higher somesthesia plastics for illustration ABS arsenic good arsenic ones reinforced pinch solid aliases c fibers. (Bambu sells nan $699 P1S for that.) And I did successfully usage some nan P1P and a brace of Creality K1 printers to nutrient dozens of objects complete nan past year, including pegboard mounts, figurines for my kids, and these badass unofficial Nerf blasters:

With either of these printers and a small knowledge of what’s easy 3D-printable, I tin (sometimes) nonstop an full sheet afloat of parts to these printers and expect them to each move out. 

But if you want less package and filament headaches, I would perfectly constituent you to Bambu. And I’d urge you steer clear of nan original Creality K1 wholly — I spent months struggling pinch issues that were instantly fixed erstwhile I swapped for nan newer K1C model.

I took transportation of some nan P1P and nan original K1 past summer, and originally, I thought I’d beryllium comparing some to nan AnkerMake M5. They’re each portion of a recent activity of printers promising a immense summation successful speed and smarts. 

One of my first prints connected nan Bambu P1P: nan achromatic broadside panels it’s worn ever since.

But nan Bambu P1P and Creality K1 bid stood retired arsenic nan astir affordable full-size, full-featured CoreXY printers that declare you tin people correct retired of nan container — pinch nary request to bolt together a printer framework aliases moreover tighten belts. And while you can’t “just commencement printing nan infinitesimal your K1 arrives,” arsenic Creality puts it, some printers are mostly prebuilt, pretuned, and fresh to spell 20 aliases 30 minutes aft you trim nan packing tape. You region a fewer information pieces; connect their screens, powerfulness cables, and filament rotation holders; link to your location web for updates; and past property a fastener for automated setup. 

Each will automatically level their furniture truthful your prints virtually get disconnected connected nan correct foot. They tune their motors pinch vibrations truthful intense, they shingle nan full aboveground nan printers are opinionated on. That’s intentional — because excess activity ruins prints, and printing quickly creates much movement, they thatch themselves to debar frequencies that rattle excessively hard. As I alluded to before, they some person CoreXY kinematics systems that supply an incredibly speedy, unchangeable bead of integrative without needing to sling your exemplary backmost and distant connected a moving bed. 

With a CoreXY printer, nan caput moves successful 2 dimensions while nan furniture slow lowers, keeping nan exemplary stable.

Bedslingers, for illustration this Bambu A1 Mini, fling nan exemplary 1 guidance and nan people caput another.

But nan adjacent measurement is wherever nan Bambu P1 and Creality K1 printers statesman to diverge. When it’s clip to instrumentality your sportfishing statement of consumable integrative into a Creality printer, you person to thread nan needle, pushing a crisp constituent of integrative into a conduit and done nan extruder truthful that nan basking nozzle tin melt and squirt it retired 1 mini bead astatine a time. 

It’s nan measurement galore 3D printers person worked for years, but it leaves a batch of room for personification error. It feels imprecise: you snip your filament astatine an perspective to get a crisp point, past largely… shove until it feels right. Then you property a fastener and transverse your fingers that nan K1C’s motorized extruder will return it from there. Or manually shove it immoderate much and dream nan filament doesn’t break inside. Or you physically region nan filament tube, for illustration I ever did pinch my aged Ender 3, truthful astatine slightest you tin beryllium judge you’re pushing consecutive down into nan extruder without binding. 

This Pikachu, made of silk PLA, came retired beautiful good connected nan K1C.

Here it is pinch supports removed.

It could beryllium worse! With nan original K1, nan filament pathway was truthful jam-prone that nan institution coiled up designing and shipping multiple replacement parts during nan clip I had nan printer, and moreover then, I had immoderate trouble. With nan K1C’s wholly redesigned nozzles, I’ve mostly been capable to shove filament successful without issue.

But Bambu sidesteps each of that: there’s nary needlepoint pinch a Bambu printer astatine all! Press a fewer buttons, insert uncut, flat-ended filament until you consciousness it being pulled distant from your hand, and then, successful my experience, it does nan remainder itself. The Bambu printer besides automatically cuts disconnected nan molten spot erstwhile you’re ejecting filament, producing a bully clean-cut extremity I tin effortlessly rewind without dragging connected nan printer’s soul parts. And, each azygous print, nan Bambu purges that leftover molten filament into what owners person affectionately dubbed nan “poop chute.” 

The mini non-touch surface is 1 of nan fewer weaknesses of nan Bambu P1P. I’m getting utilized to it.

The upshot: it took months earlier I saw my Bambu P1P jam for nan first time. I’ve moreover had bully results astatine times pushing old, brittle filament into Bambu printers. With nan K1 and moreover K1C, it’s acold little foolproof, arsenic Creality makes you shove it done a filament runout sensor and a tight crook successful nan tubing earlier nan extruder tin drawback it. I’ve surgery nan filament a mates of times successful nan K1C and galore times successful nan original K1.

And if you do person to get wrong that extruder to hole aliases switch parts, Bambu makes it a breeze: its magnetic screen conscionable lifts off, and $35 buys you a complete modular hotend pinch heatsink, fan, heating element, and thermistor each attached — conscionable 2 screws and a fewer easy cablegram pulls to switch it.

Bambu’s magnetic screen pops disconnected to uncover conscionable 2 screws and 2 easy-pull connectors to region nan hotend.

To get wrong Creality’s, you person to unscrew screws instantly underneath, and parallel to, nan greased rails.

With Creality, location are 5 screws you person to region astatine uncomfortable angles and a silicone sleeve that requires prying, and past you person to scope underneath to get astatine its mini rear-facing connectors. You whitethorn moreover person to propulsion retired a brace of pliers because nan Creality assembly statement inexplicably glues those connectors into place.

Mind you, you’re not going to beryllium doing that each time aliases moreover each month: you mostly only switch a nozzle if it wears out, gets severely jammed, aliases if you want to people astatine higher solution for much item aliases astatine little solution for much speed. For reference, I coiled up replacing worn parts of my Ender 3 Pro’s hotend doubly successful 3 years aft a bid of messy jams. 

Creality’s furniture is simply a spot harder to cleanable and maintain... and whose thought was it to purge filament adjacent to a instrumentality intake?

The past logic I deliberation Bambu is simply a amended prime for beginners is nan people furniture aboveground itself: really easy parts adhere and detach and really easy it is to clean. The Creality K1 bid ships pinch a soft PEI build sheet that’s theoretically amended for precocious somesthesia materials and initially gave my parts an incredibly soft face. But it tin beryllium a situation to region immoderate parts unless you use a coating of nan included glue instrumentality (the benignant kids usage to paste insubstantial together), and it’s easy to adhd excessively small aliases excessively much. I coiled up tearing a chunk retired of my build sheet aft excessively bladed a coating. 

Also, without a “poop chute,” I ever recovered nan K1 and K1C dripping mini unwanted beads of integrative that’d upwind up embedded successful nan bottommost of models unless I cautiously cleaned nan people furniture earlier each use. 

This should springiness you a bully glimpse astatine nan Bambu’s sheet texture.

The P1P, meanwhile, ships pinch a textured PEI-covered stainless alloy sheet that’s almost ne'er missed for me, nary glue required. Generally, my parts are already loose by nan clip nan furniture cools. You tin buy specified a sheet for Creality, too, though, and still beryllium paying little than nan P1P aft you person both. 

Not each of Creality’s K1C choices are worse for beginners! While its “AI camera” attaches to nan printer astatine a somewhat awkward angle, nan timelapses it creates are overmuch easier to show and download than nan ones from Bambu’s camera. I admit nan K1C’s elemental twist-to-lock filament reel holder (Bambu uses screws), nan USB larboard to load files (Bambu only gives you microSD), much reliable Wi-Fi, and of course, nan ample 4.3-inch colour touchscreen. It’s truthful overmuch easier to reprint a successful creation aliases navigate a thumb thrust erstwhile you tin really pat a image of each creation connected a screen, alternatively of Up-Down-Left-Right navigating done Bambu’s mini text-only interface. 

Creality’s K1C comes pinch a USB larboard and anti-vibration feet.

I besides for illustration that nan Creality comes pinch anti-vibration feet, although, retired of nan box, my Bambu prints had much unchangeable lines and dependable aboveground textures moreover without them. The Bambu P1P is besides quieter and tin wholly move disconnected its fans erstwhile idle. I’ve often travel backmost to nan Creality K1C aft a time distant and recovered it humming loudly successful my garage.

Both companies request to activity connected their software, but Creality’s is decidedly worse. While I’m having nary existent awesome problem pinch Creality’s ain Creality Print desktop app for basal 3D prints successful PLA and elastic TPU plastic, I had awesome issues printing firmer and / aliases transparent PETG. It’s besides missing loads of features compared to rival slicer apps you’d usage to hole your models for printing. (A slicer turns a 3D style into printable horizontal layers and spits retired codification that tells nan printer really to shape each one.) 

Image slider: near is P1P, correct is K1C, utilizing nan aforesaid rotation of filament. I’m having these aboveground value issues pinch PETG, but not PLA.

You can usage those rival slicers, but you whitethorn request to tune them for your printer yourself — immoderate had moreover refused to support nan K1 until Creality fulfilled obligations to unfastened root its code. (It seems Creality has now done so.) OrcaSlicer is simply a celebrated third-party replacement that does person its ain K1 profile, and it helped maine people successful PETG erstwhile Creality Print wouldn’t.

Creality’s mobile app, meanwhile, is gamified to nan constituent that I want thing to do pinch it. I conscionable want a measurement to commencement and show prints, not gain points for printing trendy junk! I moreover had to move disconnected app notifications aft I sewage bombarded pinch constituent earning opportunities each day, though it seems nan company’s trim backmost connected nan notifications since launch.

The grounded people I’m talking about: it’s for a wireless mouse.

But while Bambu’s slicer is awesome and its app doesn’t person nan aforesaid annoyances, I’m not wholly judge I tin spot nan company’s cloud. One period aft nan company’s very bully apology for its rogue printer incident, I had a akin issue. I went retired to nan car shed 1 greeting to find a exemplary I’d printed straight from its unreality half-finished, stuck to my nozzle, pinch a second halfway printed transcript of nan exemplary connected nan floor.

I’ve tried to people a fewer different models from its caller MakerWorld, a spot wherever you tin supposedly find one-click prints validated to activity connected Bambu’s circumstantial printers, nary slicing aliases tweaks necessary, but 1 became a immense hunk of worthless integrative because it really wasn’t validated. I conjecture I could ever spell pinch a backstage LAN-only connection to nan printer alternatively of utilizing nan cloud.

It doesn’t return a batch of imagination to spot from present to an moreover easier 3D printing future. Bambu’s caller A1 bid printers now person wholly tool-less hotend swaps — just popular nan pieces off. The company’s moving connected caller sensors that tin observe erstwhile your filament tangles while it’s still connected nan roll, thing that occasionally trips up each 3D printer I’ve yet used. I’ve besides yet to spot a 3D printer institution vessel their printers pinch a barren container to support moisture retired of their filament, but Creality does waste them separately, and it’s decidedly thing they could do to get america person to that push-button, get-object future! 

(I’m not saying you should bargain an A1: I had much jams and lower-quality results with an A1 Mini than my P1P, nan filament tangle discovery still doesn’t work, and galore things I people are excessively large for its bed. I haven’t gotten to trial nan full-size A1 since its recall.)

The biggest measurement 3D printers will gain trust, though, is if companies for illustration Creality and Bambu extremity shipping them earlier they’re ready. I can’t judge nan unspeakable authorities nan original Creality K1 first shipped in, and if you lurk successful nan correct places connected Reddit and Discord, you’ll perceive veterans opportunity that nan Bambu P1P shipped pinch early issues, too. And I’ve publication plenty of testimonials from Bambu customers who, for illustration maine pinch nan Creality K1, were expected to unfastened up their printers to hole surgery things alternatively of sending them successful for service. It’s a bully reminder that these are hobbyist devices, not user products, moreover arsenic these companies talk astir democratizing 3D printing for everyone.   

No matter which printer you’re eyeing, I powerfully urge steering clear of ones that person conscionable launched. Wait for early adopters to robust things out! But if you’re itching to get printing, I’m beautiful happy pinch nan astir two-year-old P1P. 

Photography by Sean Hollister / The Verge

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