Well, I’ve had the Bambu Lab X1 Carbon for a little while now, and I’ve been working on understanding it’s strengths and limitations, as well as how to optimize prints for speed and quality as needed.

Bambu Lab X1 Carbon with AMS​

So far, I am very happy with the printer. It fits the role I had intended for it—a tool for rapid prototyping and printing end use parts. Here’s what I have learned so far:

1. It’s fast!
It’s very fast, sometimes maybe too fast if the filament can’t handle it. But you don’t have to print faster than works well, of course. Still for rapid prototyping, speed wins over refinement and you can make that choice when you need it. To quantify “fast”, on average it is five times faster than a Creality Ender-3 V2 Neo with better print quality.

2. It’s slow!
Not slow printing but getting ready to print. By default it homes the bed and levels it; checks structural resonance of the printer to cancel it; and calibrates input shaping and pressure advance for extrusion using the on-board “LIDAR” (actually more like a laser-based 3D scanner but you could call it LIDAR, and they do). This takes up to 7 minutes altogether, and this doesn’t account for the bed and nozzle heating.

But, because of these things, it never fails to have a perfect first layer (if I do my part of properly preparing the bed (cleaning, and applying glue as required). It also has superlative print quality because of them. It is also not required to do any of these except for the homing. You can turn them off (they are on by default) when you submit the job.

The net result is probably saved time since you don’t have to deal with failed prints and restart them, and better quality. Now, don’t get me wrong, the X1 is not immune to failed prints, it just isn’t very likely to have them because of first layer problems.

3. It’s not as convenient to change out nozzles as traditional 3D printers.
One of the reasons the X1 is so good is the fully integrated design. Bambu Lab has tried to control as many factors as possible to ensure high quality and reliable results, as well as ignoring many “requirements” that traditional RepRap descendant printers must consider. One of these things is the toolhead, particularly the hot end.

BL has full integrated the nozzle, hot end, heatbreak, and and cold end in a single unit. This means you can’t just replace the nozzle like an E3D hot end, for example. Instead, you must replace the entire unitary piece. But this isn’t quite as bad as you might think...

.4mm Hot End Assembly
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This is not as cheap as $2.00 brass nozzles, but you can get the .4, .6, or .8 hardened steel (think filled engineering filaments like PA-CF, or PA-GF) for 14.99 each, the .2mm nozzle is stainless steel and only $9.99. That the .2mm is not the hardened steel makes sense, you do not want to try to run a filled filament through that tiny opening. The printer ships with a .4 in the hot end and a spare.

But if you had to change this part every time you want a different aperture it would be unacceptable because you also have to transfer the fitted ceramic heater and thermistor, which involves thermal paste and... well, let’s just say you wouldn’t do it. Thankfully, you don’t have to do that.

Instead, BL will sell you a complete hot end assembly—with nozzle/heatbreak/cold end, heater, thermistor, and cooling fan for $34.99 (or $29.99 for the .4mm, though I don’t know why). This makes the other part an occasional replacement part and acts as a quick(er) change option. It is only necessary to open the magnetically fixed cover of the toolhead, remove two screws and unplug three connectors to extract the current “nozzle” and the reverse to put in a different one. This is easily accomplished in 3 minutes with a little practice.

.4mm Complete Hot End
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BL could certainly make it a lot easier to do, and aside from a bit of anxiety about the connectors* I don’t find it any more difficult than dealing with a traditional nozzle swap and in some cases it will be much easier since you don’t have to pull the filament out of the nozzle to make the swap, you can just cut it with the toolhead’s filament cutter if you forgot, or it is jammed with a clog.

(*which is greatly mitigated by the fact that spares for the heater and thermistor are dirt cheap and I have several on hand)

I have purchased complete .2, .6, and .8mm assemblies so I can use any of the sizes easily.

4. It’s precise!
I tested the .6mm nozzle and had excellent results with enhanced part strength over the. .4mm probably due to better layer adhesion and fantastic results from filled filament: PA-CF (Nylon 6 with Carbon Fiber), PLA-CF (Polylactic Acid with Carbon Fiber), and I will be testing PET-CF (Polyethylene Terephthalate with Carbon Fiber) as well.

Today I mounted the .2mm and took that for a spin. It defaults to a .1mm layer height (of course, ½ the nozzle diameter is very standard) which is half the size of the .2mm default for the default .4mm nozzle. This means twice the layers so longer print times (twice as long!) but with a concomitant increase in precision and surface finish.

BL provides profiles for .06, .08, .10, .12, and .14mm layers when the .2mm nozzle is selecting in BambuStudio*—the open source slicer maintained by BL. .06mm is very small. If we compare it to the default .2mm we have about ⅓ of the height, so three and a third smaller times as many layers for the same Z dimension. This is a lot of layers.

So. of course I printed a 3DBenchy with all the default settings for the Bambu Lab PLA Matte filament I used. The results were excellent. No defects to speak of, no stringies, no sagged bridge, and an impressively intact bow.

3DBenchy with .1mm Layers using BL PLA Matte
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But this got me thinking. With such a small layer height (and even smaller if you turn on layer optimization which I will discuss at another time) it should be possible to print very small things in detail. So, I scaled down Benchy to 25%, 37.5%, and 50% and printed them in VoxelPLA PLA Pro* (which is a PLA+ or PLA Tough under other brands). The results were stunning.

Teensy Benchys: 25% (~15mm) on the dime, and 50% (~3mm) on the quarter
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The amazing quality of these prints gives me a lot of hope for printing very small and precise parts. I almost can’t believe how good they are. I’ll have more to report as I work with the printer more, and hopefully some finished projects that really show off what it can do. But I certainly have no problem recommending the X1 Carbon if the price is in your range and you need a printer that’s a tool, not a hobby. This is probably the leading edge of the 3D-printer-as-appliance days sure to be coming.

(*VoxelPLA sells 1kg spools of very good PLA+ for 16.99, with free shipping at three spools. It is very good, and I do not hesitate to recommend it. VoxelPLA runs a print farm and this is the filament they commission for themselves, so they “eat their own dog food” as Silicon Valley likes to say. They offer a limited range of colors that change from time to time, but the value is fantastic.)

 

Thank you for this review! It's rare to get a look at super fine detailed prints like that. Most of my prototypes have small features that need to be accurate, and it's very hard to find out what different printers are capable of.

 

$1450 seems to be the price at the moment. I hope it's worth it!

 

$1450 seems to be the price at the moment. I hope it's worth it!

While ~$1500 is "a lot" when you consider printers that cost under $200, such printers aren't comparable. In fact, almost no printers are commensurate with the X1 Carbon even in the same price range.

When considering what to buy, I included offerings from Prusa and Lulzbot—both excellent printers—in the price range of the X1C. After careful consideration it became clear that although each had some advantages, the overall leader, for my application, was the Bambu Lab.

The print speed and quality of the X1C is outstanding. The other printers can produce beautiful prints, or print fast, while the X1C does both at the same time. And, for those tough cases where the filament or model demands slowing down, the X1C can still go relatively faster, and its precision at even lower speeds is startling.

It is also fully enclosed, allowing it to print engineering materials like nylon, and even more exotic things, with very high success rates*. And, something that none of the other candidates offered—multifilament prints—is included in the price with the AMS that automatically changes filaments according to how you sliced the print.

This could be color, compatible but different polymers, or completely different polymers in a one object at a time print scenario. The AMS is also an effective dry box that let's me have up to four filament options ready-to-go without exposing them to humid air.

So, "is it worth the 1.5 kBucks?"—yes, it is. Should you buy it if you don't have that money to spend on a 3D printer? No, that would be silly. The question of what to buy for less is a separate one. If you have a budget, I can certainly give you the information I have about other options, but it really depends on what price point your budget and requirements puts you at.

*The one filament I have yet to succeed with is Delrin/POM/Acetyl and that is on account of bed adhesion. Delrin is a huge pain to get to stick, and the most likely solution is to cover the bed in paper or cardboard, so that's next. I have managed to get it to adhere to a PEI build plate for a couple of layers, and I do get layer adhesion which is a good sign, but it just doesn't want to stick which is actually a good thing because that's one of the reasons to print with it!

 

Thank you for this review! It's rare to get a look at super fine detailed prints like that. Most of my prototypes have small features that need to be accurate, and it's very hard to find out what different printers are capable of.

You are certainly welcome. I am glad it was useful to you. The hype around Bambu Lab printers makes sorting things out difficult. I think the cast that you see an X1C with an AMS in use by just about every prominent YouTuber in the 3D space is a good sign there is some substance behind it.

Of course, they've received the printer free in many cases, but I can understand why BBL would do that. None of them have suggested, and it doesn't seem to be the case, there are any attached strings. And, in at least one case, (Clough42, who is a serious machinist and 3D printer user) a second was purchased!

I think BBL's strategy was very good. There would naturally be skepticism about an unknown company making the claims that the X1C deserves, and running a Kickstarter (a potential red flag, of course). But this seems to be a strong exception to the new-company-kickstarters-for-unlikely-products-are-scams general rule that I could blame no one for defaulting to.

I have also been able to stock up on spares for all wear parts (like belts, cutters, and the like) and for the couple of things that seem to be potentially vulnerable to failure (e.g.: the heat bed signal cable). Although some parts are proprietary (this cable isn't, I could make one) the prices for the parts is exceptionally reasonable. At least at this time it doesn't seem that Bambu Labs is adopting a lock-in strategy to make money. They seem very open to making the ecosystem affordable to live in, and their proprietary choices do seem to be justifiable in terms of offering a better experience in a controlled environment.

This last is not too different from Apple, except that the spares are not overpriced. BBL seems to be a pretty above board and customer focused organization. I see no reason for that to suddenly change and I am no pollyanna, I am just not a dysfunctional cynic either.

I find it interesting that folks who have the hobby of owning a 3D printer are among the loudest critics of BBL while folks who need to use a 3D printer, even though they might already have more than one i3-style bedslinger from big names in the 3D space, are among the biggest fans. I think this is telling.

Please let me know if you do get an X1C and how it works out for you. I know from the BBL forums, which they do not police for negative commentary, some people can have bad experiences. The printer is not perfect, which is not a knock against it. It is exceptionally good which should be enough but of course entrenched, old school 3D printer "enthusiasts" may not be completely objective about things.