Bambu Lab A1 3D Printer Recall - All You Need To Know

bamboo lab have just dropped a bombshell and told everybody to stop using their brand new printer the A1 in this video I'll not only explain the reason for this unprecedented move but I'll also show you what I think they can do to fix things strap in this one could get emotional this video is sponsored by PCB way so first of all if you have a bamboo lab A1 stop using it switch it Off remove the power cable and hide it somewhere I'm not being over dramatic here a problem has been found that could in a worst case scenario cause a fire or Worse right now your 3D printer has been made safe we can start digging into what on Earth is going on and how something so potentially dangerous could happen to such a well-respected company within 3D printing space I've had to make this video in a bit of a hurry to get the word out so you'll have to excuse the croaky voice and the lack of editing the problem is all related to the cable that runs between the base housing and the heat bed on the A1 whilst bamboo lab are currently actively investigating the cause on at least some machines this case cable is becoming damaged this damage can then result in an electrical short which as I say can cause a fire or worse so how does this cable get damaged why would the damage cause a fire and what a bamboo lab going to have to do to not only fix the problem but also restore customer faith in them again we probably all have a very basic understanding of electricity and its dangers however what you might not be aware of is that bambo laab are doing something slightly different with their heated bed that not many other 3D printer Manu facturers do with the A1 bamboo lab decided to power their bed with AC Mains voltage which depending where you live could be anywhere between 110 and 240 volts ac what a lot of other manufacturers do is use lower 12 or 24 volts DC voltage which is similar to something like a car battery the main reason for doing this is to either deliver the same amount of current to the bed using a smaller cable or alternatively deliver more current to the bed using the same size cable what this basically means is faster bed heat up times which we like unfortunately as you may be aware higher voltages could be harmful to humans which we don't like any manufacturer using these higher voltages must therefore take extra precautions to separate this higher potential energy from the Main's voltages running through the wires and US delicate humans now bamboo lab are not the only 3D printer manufacturer using AC voltages in their heat beds companies like artillery have been doing this for quite some time and my sidewind X2 has an almost identical setup and hasn't killed me yet if DC voltages were used for bed heating whilst a short could cause a fire there's a much lower risk of electrocution so the AC power on its own isn't necessarily the problem the other issue with cabling on bed Slingers 3D printers whose Bed moves back and forth for the ya- AIS movement is that their wires need to be capable of flexing a lot if you didn't know inside these kind of cables that are used for carrying current from one place to another are multiple insulated wires inside these insulated wires are one or more strands of a conductive material usually copper if you've ever repeatedly bent a piece of metal like copper you will have seen the results of metal fatigue repeatedly bending a piece of metal Beyond a certain point will cause it to break however the thinner that metal the greater an angle it can usually tolerate therefore to allow electrical cable to bend multiple times without braking it needs to be made up of multiple thin wires rather than one thicker one if you've ever seen wires used in household electrics then you might have come across sing sing Le conductor wires this isn't a problem here because the wires in your walls don't move however if your cable is going to move then it's important that the correct type of wiring is used to ensure that that movement doesn't cause any damage to the internal conductors or insulation to know if your cable is capable of surviving the punishment it's going to be put through you need to know how much it's going to bend and critically in this case how tight that bend will be what appears to have happened with the damag cables on the affected A1 machines is that their cables have been bent through two tight an angle which has initially damaged the outer insulation unfortunately once the outer insulation is damaged it no longer provides the necessary support for the wires inside which then in turn become overly fatigued until some of the electrical conductors inside start to break the remaining unbroken conductors inside that wire try to carry the load by taking on some of the extra work but in doing so generate more heat this heat buildup exaggerates the damage until eventually it's hot enough to actually melt the intell ation once the insulation is gone then current is free to flow between the wires inside the cable which in turn generates much more heat what generally happens at this point is that electrical protection devices like fuses blow to stop any current flow which electrically isolates the damage the A1 certainly with a UK power lead is protected by a fuse I should just say that there are currently no reports of fires with bamboo lab A1 machines as far as I know however there were similar problems with another Manu ufacturers Model A few years ago which caused massive damage this is all very scary stuff which is why bamboo lab have taken the potential reputation killing move of telling people to stop using their new 3D printer that they've just paid a good sum of money for understandably many customers are unhappy and I'm not surprised whenever a new electrical device is put on sale we assume that it's been put through rigorous testing to ensure that it's safe many customers feel that something like this should never get past the R&D stage let alone into thousands of production units which have been shipped all over the world I'm in no way going to defend or pretend I have any insight into bamboo lab's design and production processes I have no affiliation with them at all other than them sending me this A1 for review before this problem was found however they have publicly said that initially it seems that the cables on affected units may have suffered an additional stress either during shipping or whilst in customer hands if this is the case then it may not have shown up in any kind of In-House testing let's also not forget that the A1 is only the second beds Slinger the bamboo lab have produced many other 3D printing manufacturers suffered very similar problems with their bed wiring becoming damaged during use in their early days of producing beds Slingers however many of these issues were generally forgiven as it was a different time in the rapidly evolving 3D printing industry a few years ago as 3D printer owners we weren't really that surprise to find a problem with a machine that we'd have to figure out a solution for ourselves the units we were able to buy back back then were little more than mass-produced DIY machines that were not subjected to any kind of testing before being shipped to customers if something went wrong it was very rare to receive any kind of communication from the manufacturer and nobody would react in the way that bamboo lab have so far not being able to use your 3D print app is very frustrating but it's better that they do this while they investigate rather than somebody getting hurt unfortunately bamboo lab have become a victim of their own success their rapid rise to what many see as the number one in the 3D printing industry means that customers expect more machines like the A1 are bringing many new users to 3D printing new users who will not be expecting to need to fix their own machine or indeed worry about leaving them unattended no in my opinion this issue has the potential of not only damaging bamboo lab's reputation but 3D printing as a whole if you're one of the people affected by this issue with the A1 and are now left without a 3D printer to use why not consider using PCB way PCB way are well known for PCB prototyping and Manufacturing but did you know that's not all they do PCB way now also have extensive 3D printing CNC Machining and laser cutting options to help you complete that project when the machine you've bought is out of action check out the links in the description to see their full capabilities now back to the A1 situation so what do bamboo lab need to do to put things right as we've seen the cause of the damage appears to be the bed wirring being kinked this could have been done during assembly at the factory during shipping or even even potentially during assembly by the customer at home it's also possible that the damage could have been caused by customers pushing the 3D printer back to close to another object whatever the cause it appears that the wiring is not up to spec to survive all of the abuse a 3D printer can be subjected to in the first few days of this problem being addressed there was a file released for a clamp that you could place on your wiring with the idea of it stopping the damage being caused I did this as advised but unfortunately I was never really convinced that this would do anything other than just push the problem Downstream now my A1 doesn't show any signs of damage so I might just be lucky however due to the potential seriousness of the problem bamboo lab have now advised that all A1 users stop using their machines while they investigate the problem this is just to keep everyone safe so what are their options as we've seen it's all down to the specification of the cable and the radius that it's bent through to me there are two potential Solutions stop the cable from being bent through a tight radius or replace the cable with one that's capable of being bent through a tighter radius I suspect the actual solution will be a combination of both of these a 3D printable add-on for undamaged cables on machines that have already shipped might prevent the cables from being kinked but what about your machine how can you be sure that there's no internal damage to your cable waiting to catch you out after a year of wear and tear also any new higher specification cable will also have a limit to the bend radius that it can sustain without damage which means that there will also have to be some sort of strain relief added to any new cable I am sure that bamboo lab will be working day and night to fix this issue as their reputation depends on it they have initially said that any fix could take 2 to 3 months but I expect something to happen much quicker than that the most difficult part might be how they actually Implement any potential fix specifying a new cable and designing in some strain relief might be relatively quick but is it a repair that users can make themselves as we're dealing with Main's voltages I would be very hesitant to advise anyone but professionals to make repairs it may be that all machines have to be shipped back to Bamboo or maybe to local licensed repair shops that can carry out the repairs safely to see just how much work it involves I disassembled my A1 with the view to removing the cable and I think it is possible that a novice could change this cable but only if a new bed was supplied with it however in replacing the bed you then need to make some other critical adjustments so I don't expect users to be fixing this problem themselves also a very big problem that bamboo lab currently face is that they're a Chinese company this has all happened at the worst possible time for them with the Chinese New Year only a couple of weeks away this is a time when traditionally workers take a good chunk of time off to celebrate their Spring Festival just as bamboo lab need to work their hardest everyone will be looking for time off I don't envy them and many of you will be furious about what has happened but it does seem that they're being proactive at the moment and taking responsibility for putting things right I also fully sympathize with those of you who've carefully considered your purchase and saved your money to buy the A1 these 3D printers are not cheap and buying something else to use while you're waiting for your A1 to get fixed is probably not an option these sort of problems only usually arise after a few weeks of testing which is why you'll never see my 3D printing reviews pop up first it can take weeks and hundreds of hours of testing to find all of the potential problems that could crop up with 3D printers or similar machines I don't take my job lightly and know that I have a responsibility to find any Cal faults and hold manufacturers to account I test machines thoroughly and don't make recommendations lightly I loved printing with my A1 for the limited amount of time I was able to use it but I didn't rush out a video telling you to buy it and it will now be sitting on a shelf collecting dust while I wait for a fix like everybody else only once all of these problems have been resolved will I offer my full assessment of the A1 so for now there's no more news we wait to see what comes next hold on whilst editing this video there's been an update from bamboo so I thought I'd jump back in front of of the camera to give you an update I'll link to this new blog post in the description below but I'll also just run through the details for you first they apologize for not updating everyone quicker and as I thought they're working hard on a solution they go on to say that they believe the cable problem only affects around 0.1% of all of the A1 machines whilst this number is small we take the safety of our customers very seriously and until we learn more about what exactly causes the heat bed problem we recommend everyone stop using the printer for their safety at this time time we are unable to determine with 100% confidence what causes the problem and we prefer to choose the safe option which is to recommend everyone stop using the printer until more information is available they then go on to say that they don't expect customers to make the decision as to whether their cable has been damaged or not so have opened up the returns for all A1 owners whether you've got damage or not if you choose to return your A1 you get an $80 discount on any other bamboo lab 3D printers including another A1 when they become available however new machines with upgrades aren't likely to be available until May the alternative is to wait for them to send you a new cable which will include a new heat bed as I thought new cables are likely to be available at the end of March and if you stick with your machine and replace the cable yourself you'll receive a $120 discount voucher however they also say that in some countries you may not be allowed to change the bed depending where you live if this is the case then you will have to return your machine and get a replacement in May if that's what you choose to do I really don't know where you find out what the regulations are on working on electronic devices in your particular country as I showed the job isn't really that difficult and when it comes to the electrical work all you're really doing is unplugging and reconnecting a few different connections but be careful here you may feel confident in your abilities to get a printer back up and running a couple of months sooner but people like home insurers might not be careful that you're not invalidating your cover art by working on effectively Main's electrics yourself my advice would probably be to send your A1 back get the $80 discount and then decide what to do from there either wait for a new A1 in May or buy something else at least then you know whatever you decide to buy will be Factory assembled and fully covered there are also details of how to apply for a return or indeed to choose the option of keeping a printer and having a new cable so I'll link to the form you need to fill out in the description below they then end by apologizing again and saying that this plan could change if they find out any more through their investigations but they will keep everybody updated via the blog and now as of the 5th of February you're up to date hit subscribe if you want to see any updates I have about the bamboo lab A1 situation or to see my full review when I can finally make it or click one of these videos to see what I thought of other 3D printers that I've tested thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Ricky Impey

Views: 39,220

Keywords: bambu lab, bambu lab a1, product recall, a1 recall, a1 fault, bambu labs, bambu lab a1 recall, ams, ams combo

Id: ue8lnOy0Jv0

Length: 14min 54sec (894 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 05 2024