Last week on The Next Layer:
Jonathan discovers the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon, but finds that there
are some unexpected surprises. All right, where were we? Oh, that's right. It takes forever to get going. Okay, great. So a week has passed since the last video. The filament is on a plastic spool. It's loaded up. We press print on this, beautiful
touch screen and we wait. A lot. This is another one that came as a
surprise to me, even though I've heard Stefan at CNC Kitchen talk about it
on his fantastic Meltzone Podcast. This thing takes a long time
to get going and when I heard Stefan say that, I thought he
meant like three or four minutes. I mean, I'm no stranger to danger when
it comes to waiting for prints to start. I mean, my Voron 2.4 up there has a
350 by 350 millimeter aluminum plate, and that's pretty big, and it can take
a few minutes to heat up all the way, but this thing literally takes seven to
ten minutes to actually start printing. Ten minutes. That's insane. I guess I don't criticize them for
it because quite frankly, once it does start printing, the first layer
is absolutely perfect every time. And yeah, Bambu Lab listened to user
feedback and gave users the option at the start of every print to opt out of
some parts of that print start sequence. And in all fairness and honesty, I guess
I'd rather wait seven minutes for the print to start knowing that it will work
perfectly the first time rather than have to monitor the print for the first
20 minutes, or worse yet, have a large percentage of my prints fail on the first
layer and then need to be restarted. It's just seven to ten minutes. It's smart. Like really smart. Okay, okay, I know we're already into this
second video in the series and I still haven't even gotten this thing printing. Now you know how that startup sequence
feels, but in all seriousness, once I did get this thing printing, I immediately
had a really unique experience that I just had to share with all of you. It was the kind of experience that
makes you realize that you are dealing with a higher and significant
form of intelligence, like when you look into an animal's eyes and
you go, oh wow, this thing gets it. Here's what happened. As you know, the Bambu Lab printers
are really fast, and that means that they generate a lot of force. They do, after all, have 20 meter
cubed acceleration, and as we know, force equals mass times acceleration. As you may also know, I work in a
cramped office in the city center, at least until my Patreon hopefully gains
enough supporters and I can afford to move out of here, and that means that
I have a flimsy folding desk behind me. Now, after setting up the Bambu Lab
X1-Carbon, I immediately realized just how much it was shaking the table. And so in the middle of the print,
I took one of my lighting tripods and propped it under the table
to give it some extra support. Within seconds, a notification popped
up on the screen telling me that the Y axis, the very axis that I had
just put the support in front of, had change resonance frequency
since the beginning of the print and that I should calibrate it at
the beginning of the next print. What? This thing is so smart, it literally is
analyzing and measuring the resonance frequencies for all of its axes, I
think, in real time as it's printing. Dude. And this is just a small taste of
how clever this machine really is. If you use Bambu brand filament, it
knows what filament you've put in the rollers in the AMS, it knows which
plate is installed on the heatbed and if it's installed correctly, and it
alerts you if that plate doesn't match the one that you said in the slicer. I'm pretty sure it knows
what I did last summer. The point is this printer is a far
cry from my Prusa's eight bit board, and it uses all the information it
collects to protect you from yourself and make your printing experience
easier and more frustration-free. And aside from all the hype about fast
printing, the awesome fit finish and user experience, the ability to print all kinds
of materials and the insanely low price relative to other machines of its class
- all of which you already knew about, that is one of the lesser known sleeper
features that really makes a huge difference in the user experience. The filter isn't what you think. Now, one little thing that did
kind of annoy me is discovering that the carbon filter in there
isn't exactly what you think. Bambu is pushing the
X1-Carbon as their flagship. The printer capable of printing anything
from ABS to polycarbonate out of the box. And so when you read that, one of the
differences between the X1-Carbon and the X1 is the activated carbon filter, which
they advertise as filtering out volatile organic compounds, you tend to assume that
the printer is going to, you know, filter. But what I discovered, which you really
only know if you specifically looked on their website and checked under
which category they list the filter is that this isn't for filtering the air
in the chamber, but rather it's for filtering the exhaust from the printer. And I mean, that's fine as long
as it's actually doing that. But in the default profiles for things
like ABS or ASA, Bambu slicer, which as I said before is really clever about
just doing things like reminding you to use the right build surface, does
not integrate the chamber fan at all. In fact, even if you dig into the
filament profile where there are all sorts of cooling settings, there's
nothing about the chamber fan to be found. In fact, the only way that I've found
so far to activate the chamber fan manually while the printer is printing
if you want to filter is to do it on the screen or manually in the software,
and I've even seen a lot of users that are printing internal third party
filters that filter the air inside without actually venting it out. Now honestly, I really don't like
that solution because I feel like it goes against the entire ethos of
what Bambu is trying to accomplish with their rigorously tested,
perfected, and done-for-you profiles. And I definitely don't think that
it's a good idea to cram extra stuff into the printer with warnings
like this one in the bottom. Fortunately, this is one thing that Bambu
Lab can easily fix with a software update. And one more idea, an area where
their walled garden approach, which I promise I'm going to get to in
just a minute, can really shine. Because you see, Bambu slicer is really
only ever going to be used with their printers and a handful of other ones
that they've added, like the Vorons, which they know the exact specs of. And that means that if they want to,
they can build in specific settings right into the profiles for things like ABS. They could, for example, set it up
so that anytime you select ABS or another material with a lot of VOCs,
the machine automatically adds a five minute filtration stage to the end
of the print where the screen will remind you in bright red not to open
the door until it finishes exhausting the VOCs through the carbon filter. Or given that Bambu Lab only offers this
fan for the X1-Carbon, they could simply do a bunch of tests in-house to determine
at what fan speed or temperature the chamber fan is able to operate without
warping each different type of material. Though, I guess, of course it's gonna
vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. But then they could simply put those
into the profiles for the X1C only. Now, I'm sure Bambu will improve
this over time, and that's precisely why they send review units out to
people like myself for feedback. But for us end users out there, just
remember that in the meantime, if you want to actually use the carbon filter, you
need to remember to turn it on manually in the software or on the touchscreen. Which brings us to my final and
perhaps most important point. It's a walled garden. Look, I get it. Bambu Lab has created what I honestly
believe is a best in-class product here. You've heard this from every other
creator who has one and yeah, I agree. This thing is light years ahead of the
competition, and I think that they, like Apple, would argue that this
was made possible only by creating a complete ecosystem from soup to nuts. They make the printer, they make
the hotend, they make the material switcher, they make the software,
they make the filament, they make the replacement parts, at least for now. And just like Apple, with Apple Silicon
and MacOS, they've been able to achieve significantly better performance because
the hardware and the software are designed to work in perfect harmony without needing
to waste engineering resources, designing for many different models or edge cases like user upgrades or tons of
different hardware variations, like something like Android. Now, I fully appreciate that, but it also
means that for the time being, you are a hundred percent dependent on them for
each and every part of the equation, even at the expense of repairability, as many
have noted, but also customizability. So if for example, you want to use
another slicer such as Prusa Slicer or Cura, or you want to use different
software like OctoPrint for monitoring your prints and doing time lapses and
octo lapses, well, you're outta luck. And don't expect to see any CHT
nozzles, or Revo Obxidian nozzles, or any of that stuff come out
for Bambu products anytime soon. In fact, even the build plates have
a proprietary identifier in them so companies like Wham Bam have
fortunately reverse engineered it, but it has limited the amount of
products that are available for this printer despite how popular it is. But it doesn't necessarily
have to be this way. I mean, Bambu Lab could still
maintain complete control over their product and ecosystem, but open certain parts of it up to
third party innovation, similar to how Apple has the Made For iPhone
certification program for hardware, and of course the App store for software. Personally, I'd love to see CHT
nozzles and all different kinds of build plates on the hardware side. I'd love to see my favorite filament
manufacturers implementing those awesome RFID chips that are Bambu
Labs certified to work with the AMS on the filament side, and I'd be thrilled
to see an App store where I could download approved third party plugins, like Exclude
Object, or Octolapse, or Obico, and so on. And yet, at the end of the day, this
product is still really, really awesome. I mean, this would be a
serious win-win for Bambu. They would get to maintain the top
to bottom control of their product that gives them this tremendous edge, and they would also benefit from
others innovating on their platform. After all, it does seem to be working
for Apple, who's the world's most valuable technology company and
has the highest market share of any smartphone manufacturer in the world. Apple's products from iPad to
iPhone to MacBook all boast the highest consumer satisfaction in
each of their respective categories. And I mean, I love Apple products,
from the Apple watch, iPad, iMac, iPhone, Apple TV, and just about
anything else they wanna sell. Personally, I've been living happily in
the walled garden for over a decade now. So unless and until Bambu Lab opens up
parts of their hardware and software for third parties to play ball, I
think you really have to ask yourself. How much do you really care about things
like third party software, open source hardware, and user customizability
if they come at the expense of the product's performance and quality? Which is really the same question
I've always had with Apple products. Oh, hey. Editing Jonathan here. So last week I said that the thing
I hated the most about the X1-Carbon was the cool plate and needing to use
glue sticks and the fact that there was no textured surface provided. Well, fortunately, the good folks at
Wham Bam reached out and let me know that they had already developed a PEX
flexible build plate for the X1-Carbon, which works with the LiDAR, works with
the QR code, and is just a plug-and-play upgrade that people are raving about. So Wham Bam was kind enough to sponsor
this episode to let you all know not only about their awesome build plate system
for the X1-Carbon, but also their full line of flexible PEX build plates for
pretty much every 3D printer out there. Wham Bam is unique in that they have
their own material called PEX, which is designed to work with every single
material, creating an awesome first layer adhesion without any need for a
glue stick, except it does stick too well to PETG, so you will need glue
stick to make it stick less well. People rave about Wham Bam's products. I'm really excited to be using
them as well, and I want to thank Wham Bam for helping me invest in
equipment and building out hopefully a future studio so that I can make
more videos like this for all of you. Check them out in the link
below, show them some love, and thanks again to Wham Bam. All right, let's get back into the video. So what's my conclusion? For me personally, I'll definitely
be using my Bambu Lab X1-Carbon a lot more in the future. I really love this printer, and
I think that with a few software tweaks, it's only going to get better. Plus, as I noted in last week's
video, Bambu has been super responsive about actually doing
those tweaks and improvements, so I'm optimistic that those are
gonna happen sooner rather than later. And while I'm definitely not letting
my Voron go anytime soon, I can already feel that the X1C has replaced my Prusa
MK3S+ as my go-to it just works printer. So let me know in the comments below
if you'd be interested in a comparison between any of the printers that I have such as the Voron or the Sovol
SV06, for example, or if you like me, have pretty much just decided
that this is the reigning champion. By the way, I want to take a quick
moment to thank my Patreon supporters, new and old, who among other perks, like
exclusive discounts to top manufacturers, a weekly newsletter of my top 3d prints, and early ad-free viewing of my
videos, have actually known that this video and last week's video
were coming for weeks now, and they all managed to keep it a secret. So thanks to all of you for your
support and for keeping the cat in the bag so this video would
have more of a surprise factor. Thanks as always to all of you for
watching, liking and commenting, subscribing, and all of that because
it really does make a difference. I'll see you in the next
one and happy 3D printing!
