Hello, 3D Printing Friends! This 3D printer
can crank out a custom sliced Benchy in about 20 minutes. And slicing it yourself
using the standard settings in the slicer, it'll do it in a little over 30 minutes.
But how's the print quality? And is the printer itself any good?
Well stick around, because that's what we're going to find out.
I'm Bryan, and you... are watching BV3D! Hi, welcome back! Okay, so today we're taking
a look at the new Bambu Lab P1S 3D printer. And this is the combo with the four slot AMS unit,
so you can print with up to four materials at once. But we'll talk about that in a little bit.
The P1S is the newest printer from Bambu Lab. And thanks to Bambu Lab for sending this to me
free of charge, so I could show it to you. It follows the X1, and the X1 Carbon,
and the P1P. Now let's look at where the P1S fits in the Bambu Lab product lineup.
At the top, there's the X1 Carbon, retailing for $1,200. It has a metal and glass enclosure,
a color touch screen, a hardened steel nozzle, an auxiliary parts cooling blower, Micro-LiDAR
for filament flow rate calibration, an HD print chamber camera, and AI print failure monitoring.
And at the bottom, there's the P1P, retailing for $600. It's the bare bones, open frame model with
no enclosure, a monochrome screen with control buttons, a standard steel nozzle, a low data
rate camera, and no print failure monitoring. So now, there's the P1S that retails for $700.
It takes a lot of the desirable features of the X1 series and brings them to the P1 series.
Features like a full enclosure, the big auxiliary parts cooling blower, an activated carbon
chamber air filter, a fan to regulate the print chamber temperature, and a few other things.
And so it's in the middle of the product lineup, although at the price it's a lot closer
to the P1P than it is to the X1 Carbon. Like all current Bambu Lab printers, you can
add the AMS unit later for an extra 350 bucks, or get it as a combo for a little less when you
buy the printer. Oh, side note about the AMS unit. You can actually connect four of them to a single
printer through a device called the AMS Hub, which gives you access to a whopping 16
colors or materials for a single print. So, let's look a bit more closely at the P1S. The
printer ships fully assembled, and if you get it as a combo with the AMS, the AMS unit is packed
inside the printer so it doesn't take up any extra room in the box. Bambu Lab says it'll only
take you about 15 minutes to unbox the printer, set it up, and start printing. I think if you've
done it a few times already, you could hit that number, but realistically you're probably looking
at more like 30 minutes from cutting the tape on the box to printing something. Particularly
if the AMS is in the mix now. That's not to say it's difficult to set up the AMS, it's just a
couple of extra steps and that takes extra time. So. Details! The P1S is an enclosed
printer with a welded steel frame and a full enclosure made of glass and plastic, in
this deliciously sinister space gray color. It has a 256mm x 256mm x 256mm build volume. It
has a camera inside the print chamber that can record time lapse videos of your prints and let
you see what's happening live inside the print chamber by using the Bambu Studio software or the
Bambu Handy mobile app. The screen is the same one that Bambu Lab uses on the P1P. It's a control
panel with a monochrome screen and buttons for making selections and navigating the menus. It's
not as fancy as a screen on the X1 series, but it gets the job done. It uses a CoreXY motion system
for fast movement. It can move the tool head a maximum of 500mm/s with a maximum acceleration of
20,000mm/s^2. Now, the actual printing speed is controlled by the Bambu Studio slicer software,
which you'll use to prepare models for printing, and it's generally between 200 and 300mm/s. It's
got an all metal hot end with a direct drive extruder, and a stainless steel nozzle that can
reach temperatures up to 300˚C. Now this enables you to print higher temperature materials. And
it's got a filament runout sensor, so it can let you know when you need to run out and get
more. It's perfectly happy printing PLA, PETG, TPU, PVA, PET, ABS and ASA filament. So that's
a lot of material types you can choose from. The printer has several cooling fans, some for
the electronics and some to cool the model being printed. It's got a control board fan, and a
fan to regulate the temperature inside the print chamber when you're printing materials that need a
warmer printing environment. There's a small parts cooling blower on the tool head, and an auxiliary
parts cooling blower, and that's this big monster on the left inside the chamber. That one helps
provide overall cooling of the model, which is important when you're printing fast. And it's got
an activated carbon air filter, for air that gets exhausted out the back of the printer. The P1S
features a textured PEI-coated spring steel print surface for easy removal of models after printing.
It also has automatic bed leveling, using the nozzle itself to probe the bed surface. And it
has vibration compensation and pressure advance, to help ensure accurate printing at high speeds.
The printer can connect to a Wi-Fi network to make use of Bambu Labs cloud service, or you can go
old school, keep the printer off your network entirely, and save files from the Bambu Studio
slicer to a Micro SD card. Then plug the card into the printer, and print that way. The Bambu
Studio software allows you to monitor and control the printer, view the camera feed, and send
print jobs. But the printer either needs to be in communication with the Bambu Lab cloud service, or
in LAN Only mode for those features to work. LAN Only mode is where the printer is connected
to your Wi-Fi network, but specifically NOT communicating with the Bambu Lab cloud service.
Bambu Lab also has a mobile app, Bambu Handy, that lets you monitor and control the printer
the same way that Bambu Studio does. But as of this video, the printer needs to be talking to the
Bambu Lab cloud service to make use of that app. Let's talk a little bit about the Automatic
Material System, or AMS. It holds four spools of filament, and the printer can request (and
automatically load) any one of them at a time. So the printer, with its single nozzle, can
print with up to four different filaments during a print job. And with an AMS Hub, you can
connect up to four AMS units, giving you up to 16 different filaments in one print. So that's
definitely a benefit. The AMS unit has an RFID tag reader in each filament slot, and filament
from Bambu Lab has RFID tags on the spool hubs. So if you're using Bambu Lab filament, the AMS
can automatically detect the type and color, because that information is tied to the tag's
ID. But that doesn't mean you're limited to only using filament from Bambu Lab. You
can load filament from any manufacturer, as long as the spool fits in the AMS unit. You'll
just have to tell the Bambu Studio slicer software about the filament. And that's where you'd
specify the type and the color. Even when you're just printing with a single material, it's
great to be able to pick the one you want to use for your next print job from the spools that are
already in the AMS, without having to get up and manually unload and load a spool of filament. The
printer takes care of that for you, automatically. Loading the AMS is a matter of opening
the lid, putting the spool in the slot, and inserting the filament into that slot's
feeder. Press the loading lever down a bit, push the filament in, and the AMS takes care of
the rest. It rolls the spool back and forth a few times, looking for an RFID tag to read. If it
finds one, it knows what's loaded. If it doesn't, you'll need to set that up in the slicer.
Speaking of the slicer, Bambu Studio lets you easily assign filaments to different parts
of a model that was designed to print in multiple colors or materials. And if the model that
you want to print wasn't designed that way, Bambu Studio has a relatively easy
to use "painting" system that allows you to apply color to the model.
And now, let's address the filament in the room... I mean, the elephant in the room.
There's a major drawback to printing a model using multiple filaments with a single nozzle printer.
And this isn't exclusive to the AMS. It applies generally across similar systems. And the drawback
is filament waste. Every time the printer swaps filament, it has to purge out the old filament
by pushing the new filament through the nozzle until all traces of the previous filament color
are gone. And the amount of that purge varies. When switching from a light color to a dark color,
it doesn't take as much filament as it does when switching from a dark color to a light color. If
you go from a deep blue filament to a bright white filament, the system will need to purge and purge
and purge until all traces of the blue filament are gone, and you're only left with white. And
the printer can't automatically detect this, either. But the slicer can make educated guesses,
if you've set the filament colors correctly. It knows it needs to purge more when switching to a
light color from a dark one. Also, the filament swaps take time. The more purging, the longer it
takes. If you're adding a little spot of color on a print, like maybe painting the eyes in on
a figure, that's not so bad. But if there are filament swaps on every single layer, that can
significantly increase the print time compared to a single color print. For one particular model
I printed, it increased the print time by a factor of about eight. And oh boy, was there a lot of
purge waste! Now, there are ways to reduce the waste on a per model basis and I'll cover that in
a future video. But the result was pretty cool. Now, don't think I'm hating on the AMS,
I'm not. I just wanted you to know what to expect if you're going to be doing a lot
of multi-color or multi-material prints. And speaking of prints, let's take a look at
some of the things that I printed on the P1S! This is the pre-sliced Benchy that comes on the
printer's MicroSD card. Including bed heating, filament loading, and bed probing at the beginning
of the print, its total print time is about 25 minutes. If you start counting the print time
from when the printer actually starts to print the model, it's only about 20 minutes. The quality on
it is really, really good. I don't see any ringing or stringing. This black filament is PolyMaker's
PolyTerra Dark Charcoal PLA, which has a matte finish instead of being glossy. Now, I do see a
change in print surface quality about halfway up the model, where the deck starts to get printed.
Below that point, it's a little bit glossier, but above that, it's more matte. Once the deck gets
printed, the geometry gets a little more complex, and the layers take a little bit longer. So I
think this is a result of the speed differences on those parts of the print. Slicing a benching
myself, using the standard 0.2mm layer Heights and default speed settings, it took 37 minutes to
print this Benchy. Again, excellent print quality, and no ringing or stringing that I can see. But
there's still that surface quality difference I noticed on the pre-sliced one, where it goes from
a glossier finish to a more matte finish. It's a bit more pronounced with this filament.
But it's also still a really good print. I also printed a print-in-place Folding
Travel Clothes Hanger. It took about two hours to print. The hinges are built
into the print, so once it's done, you just take it off the printer and unfold it,
and you've got yourself a travel clothes hanger. The P1S had no trouble printing the interlocking
parts. The hinges weren't stuck or fused, and it just worked the first time I tried
to unfold it. It's a pretty clever design, so if you travel a lot, you can give
it a try and see if it works for you. And I printed a handful of these Chip Clip models,
and they're great we're keeping larger chip and snack bags closed. They didn't take long at
all to print, and the surface finish on them is really smooth. The green and orange ones are
printed in Bambu Lab filament, and the red one is printed in a Creality matte PLA. It didn't seem
to matter what filament brand I printed them in, the P1S did a great job with all of them.
No stringing, just a great smooth print. I also printed this Dragon Bust by designer Heino,
from printables. It prints in two parts, the base and the dragon itself. Now, the dragon needs
supports for the long horns that protrude from the back of its head, and for a couple of the spiky
bits down the back of its neck. The surface gets a little rough where the supports were touching
the model, but that's actually a common thing. I printed this in a silk PLA. It's a co-extrusion
filament, where half of it is silk blue and the other half is silk silver. So the color looks
different depending on the viewing angle. It looks so impressive at regular size
that I wanted to print it a bit bigger. So I did! At 200% scale, it just barely fits
on the P1S, but the result is spectacular! Shiny metallic blue on one side, and shiny
metallic silver on the other. It's gorgeous! Now, so far everything I've shown you
has been a single material print. This can print multiple colors, and I didn't want
to disappoint. So I printed this Herringbone Planetary Gear in four colors. Now this wasn't
originally designed for multi-material printing, but the Bambu Studio slicer software has a
feature that allows you to split a model into separate objects. So I did that, and then assigned
different filaments from the AMS to the gears. Then I sent the print job to the P1S.
And it took EIGHT HOURS! For this one model! Why so long? Because I'm using all four
filament slots on the AMS, and I'm using all four filaments on each layer of the print.
Each swap can take up to a minute to complete, so all those filament swaps add time to the print.
But when it was done, I popped it off the print bed and it spun easily. None of the gears had
stuck to each other, like sometimes happens, and I didn't have to mess with it at all.
Then, just to show that the P1S can print this model quickly, I printed it as a
single color model, and that only took an hour. And this one spun easily after it
was done printing, too. And just to give you an idea of the normal speed of the P1S, if you
printed this on a basic printer like an Ender 3, it could take close to three hours to print.
So that's about it for the prints. We're getting close to the end, so let's start
wrapping things up. Now from what I can tell, the P1S is every bit as fast as the X1 Carbon. It
doesn't have all the advanced features of the X1 Carbon, like the Micro-LiDAR, the hardened steel
nozzle, and the color touch screen, and the good print chamber camera... But I think if your use
case doesn't involve abrasive filaments, and you don't need print failure detection, I'd recommend
the P1S over the X1 Carbon. You get most of the same functionality at almost half the price. The
print quality is great too, and it doesn't seem any louder than the X1 Carbon. Of course, neither
of them are quiet machines. With great speed comes great decibels. They're not obnoxious, but you
definitely know when they're printing something. Comparing multi-material to single material,
specifically the herringbone planetary gear, I could print eight of these as a single color
model in the time that it takes to print one four color model. And there's a lot of filament waste
when doing all those color swaps. This is a couple of weeks worth of printing purge. Now I also want
to mention that I had some weirdness with the AMS on one of my first prints with it. The unit
seemed to be having a hard time rewinding the filament back onto its spool, so the printer would
pause, and I'd get a notification on my phone, and I'd have to manually intervene to get the
filament to rewind. I think the problem was just that one particular spool with filament, because
when I swapped it out for the Proto-pasta filament to print the four color Herringbone Gear, the
AMS worked fine for the entire eight hour print. Oh, one other thing. I had an opportunity to test
the power loss recovery feature, and it worked. I started this double-sized Dragon print
before leaving for work, and about an hour later the power went out in our neighborhood.
I came home at lunch and resumed the print, and I can't tell by looking at this that the power
had ever gone out. But I know that it happened within the first 10 millimeters of the print.
Now The eagle-eyed observers among you may have noticed that this particular example
seems to be somewhat incomplete, and that is due to a failure of the supports.
They snapped in half on one side of the dragon, after it started printing one of the long curving
horns. And since I had no way to get the supports back where they needed to be, I had to cancel the
print, lest I end up with MOST of a dragon and a side order of spaghetti inside the printer.
Re-slicing with a slightly different type of supports solved the problem, and I
ended up with this glorious specimen. So that's the new Bambu Lab P1S. Thanks to Bambu
Lab for sending this over free of charge so I could show it to you. Links for everything
that I printed are down in the description, along with a link to Bambu Lab for
the P1S if you want to check it out. Big thanks to everyone who supports the
channel, whether with channel memberships, or by using the links in the description. If you
liked this episode, give it a thumbs up, and maybe consider subscribing so you don't miss future
episodes. Well, 3D Printing Friends, that's about all the time we have for this one. And now that
we're at the end, let's go print something cool!
