This is the Bambulab X1 Carbon, and
it's not only impressively fast, printing parts 3 times quicker than many other 3D
printers. The X1 Carbon was developed under the leadership of a bunch of former DJI engineers.
This doesn't show only in its look but also in the incredible feature set and the best thing - it
will retail in its basic version for only $1000. This machine is the long-needed wake-up call for
the industry and will make established brands like Prusa and Ultimaker sweat! But let's not only look
at what makes it poop but also dig a little deeper to find out how well it's made and how they
can sell it at this ridiculously low price! Let's find out more. Guten Tag everybody,
I'm Stefan, and welcome to CNC Kitchen. This video is sponsored by Zellerfeld and
they are looking for talent within the 3D printing community, so maybe you! Zellerfeld
is an innovative company with the goal of putting 3D printed shoes on every foot in
the world! They’re backed by the folks who helped to start Tesla, SpaceX, and Paypal,
and they’re developing the factory of the future. If you love to assemble machines
and would like to do this on a large scale, to help create the blueprint for their factory
of the future, then you need to check them out! The team at Zellerfeld are developing the whole
process chain, from creating a custom slicer, to building innovative multi-material 3D
printers and developing new post-processing techniques to define the future of footwear! If
you can only think about additive manufacturing from morning till night and want to help bring
3D printed products to the masses, then check out their job listings using the link below or
directly send them a message! Most positions are currently for Hamburg, Germany but they are
in the process of expanding to the US as well! Okay, so the Bambulab X1 3D printer is basically
everything anyone using a 3D printer ever desired. I'm quite happy that I had the opportunity
to test it for the last couple of weeks. I'll spare you the unboxing, and initial setup - many
more videos are available that show this already. This also won't and can't be a review
since especially the software is still beta, and the user experience will
change - hopefully for the better. Bambulab took everything good that popped up
as individual features in projects or products and condensed it into this 3D printer. First
things first, it's fast! And with fast, I mean really fast and not only by the numbers in
an advertisement. This machine was consistently able to print parts in half or a third of
the time as my beloved Prusa MK3, with very similar print quality. This is possible due to
a high flow direct drive hotend and extruder and its CoreXY kinematics with vibration and
flow compensation as we know it from the pressure advance and input shaping features from Marlin,
ReprapFirmware, and Klipper. The only difference here is that the X1 Carbon automatically
tunes itself with regular resonance sweeps and an extrusion test for pressure advance
and flow calibration before each print, so it's always set perfectly for any material. It
does that by using a combination of line lasers and a camera in the tool head. Bambulab calls
that Micro Lidar, but I think it's basically a line 3D scanner used to triangulate a super
high-resolution 3D map of your extrusion line to take the guesswork out of linear advance and
flow calibration patterns. I'm not sure here, but I think they also use the camera to scan
the bed before and after the first layer and calculate the difference to determine
if the first layer went down properly. Using this motion system and calibration technique,
the X1 lets you easily print at 250 mm/s and accelerations of 20000 mm/s², which is an order
of magnitude higher than most other machines! Let's also take a look at some details a
little closer. I'll first turn it over. The three leadscrews for z are all connected with
a single belt and a nice tensioning mechanism. The bed itself rides on a carrier which can be
leveled using 3 knobs, though I think this is only for the factory, and the rest will be
done via mesh bed leveling when you use it. Speaking of that - the X1 probes the bed via its
nozzle though it doesn't have a force sensor in the printhead like some Creality machines do but
has three load cells under the mounting points of the bed. This is an excellent solution because
it keeps the printhead very stiff. After all, a load sensing unit usually requires a compliant
element which would be bad for fast printing. The printhead itself is really complex with the
two slots for the line lasers for 3D scanning, additional lights, and the camera. If we open it
up we can see the direct drive system, a filament cutter for reliable multi-material printing, and
the hotend heatsink combo. The nozzle alone is unfortunately not user-replaceable, and in case
of wear, failure, or severe clog, you will need to buy a new block, which they said won't be
too expensive. If we open the back, we can spot a large daughter board that probably manages
everything the printhead does. Interestingly it's connected via USB-C for power and data transfer
- well, at least they use a USB connector - if you could charge your phone, here is something
I rather won't try out. Anyways - the board has its own microprocessor and the components for
all the fans, motors, lights, lasers, cameras, accelerometers, sensors, and whatever else,
which is really impressive. Here we can also spot the carbon fiber linear rails the X1 comes
with. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take a look at the bearings they use because this could be a
concern for some in terms of wear and longevity. Though IGUS, for example, sells exactly this rod
and bearing combo, so I wouldn't be too worried. Now to the back of the machine, which is metal
and is simply held in place by some screws. Under another cover that shields curious users
from getting shocked by mains voltage, we can find the passively cooled 100 W power supply. They
get away with such a small unit because the bed is running on mains, and it only needs to power
the 40W nozzle heater and the steppers and fans. Here we also find another board, which is probably
the mainboard, where the printer firmware runs. It features another microcontroller, and under
the heatsink, pairs of DC motor drivers, which I guess they use to run the stepper motors.
I’d love to know why they didn’t choose to directly use stepper motor drivers like the ones
from Trinamic, with all their added benefits. Anyways everything is nicely laid out and wired,
which shows that they know what they are doing, but what's your opinion. The high-resolution
screen is probably run by its own processor, which also manages connectivity and the smart stuff
like the 3D scanner and the spaghetti detection. But back to the general specs of the machine.
The hotend is capable of reaching 300 °C. The bed which is 256 x 256 mm big and is removable
can reach 120 °C and is, as we saw, AC powered. All of that is enclosed in a chamber that can heat
up to around 60°C with the heat of the printbed, so you can print high-temperature
and technical materials easier. Still, I would have loved to see a 350°C
hotend to work with high temp Nylons and PPS, for example. The integrated charcoal filter
reduces bad smells, yet there is no HEPA filter against ultrafine particles emitted
during printing. Proper cooling is provided by a dual-sided cooling fan and a gigantic 12W
radial fan that cools your prints from the side and is probably partly the enabler to solidify
material quickly enough for speed printing. Nothing on this machine looks half-assed. Every
detail is well designed, from a compliant part for nozzle cleaning to fiber-reinforced
parts at sections of the printer where stiffness and strength are critical. Some
things rather even look over-engineered, like the filament pulling and winding gearbox
of the AMS, with levers and worm drives. Yes, besides the printer there
is also a multi-material station. It also serves as a hermetically sealed
material enclosure with spaces for desiccant but unfortunately without a hydrometer. Bambulab
says you will even be able to daisy-chain 4 of these for printing with 16 different materials
or colors - if you ever needed this. When you perform a multi-material print, the X1 will
cut the loaded material right after the nozzle, and rewind the filament without the half-melted
blob of material that so often causes issues on other multiplexing systems. It gets pulled back
to the AMS, where it's re-spooled onto the roll. Then the next material gets fed to the nozzle.
The leftover part of the material is purged onto a ramp that that printhead engages to form a
nice blob, shaken off, and pooped out of the back. Then it cleans its nozzle, purges some more
material onto a tower, and continues printing. This is unfortunately quite wasteful and leaves
you with a ton of purged material depending on the model you're printing. It's a price you pay on
such a system, but the reliability of the cutting system might make it pay for itself! I didn't
have a single failed material change so far. All of this comes with a beautiful
enclosure that uses glass doors, a nice, high-resolution color touchscreen, a camera
for time-lapses and spaghetti detection, an already well-working slicer that's
based on PrusaSlicer and SuperSlicer, WiFi connectivity, and an app that already
works okay. Everything for $1000 for the X1 that lacks the camera, the big fan, and
some other stuff, $1200 for the X1 Carbon or $1500 for the combo with the Multi-Material
station. Awesome! Where can you buy it? Well, this is a controversial topic. It's
currently on Kickstarter - even available at a discount, where it already raised millions of
dollars. The thing is, and listen closely here. YOU DON'T BUY ANYTHING ON KICKSTARTER!
You invest in a company and/or product, and if everything goes well, you'll receive your
reward - here in the form of a printer. If they fail for almost any reason, be it sourcing,
pricing, patent problem, hell, or even the weather - your money is gone. No insurance,
no crying, and no nagging will help you! Don't spend your money on Kickstarter if you can't
also afford just to burn it. This set aside, from a marketing standpoint, I totally understand this
decision because Kickstarter is a great buzzword and the ever-increasing counter of backers
motivates even more backers to invest rather than a boring pre-order site even though it robs any
safety measures from the backers. But if Anker, Creality, and a ton of others are doing it, why
blame them? They needed the cash flow and are already in the production of the Kickstarter
units, which should start shipping by July. With all the test units in the wild and
also my unit right here working quite well, this reduces the risk for other backers a little,
but as said before - sourcing, patents, weather… Honestly, if you ask me, and I get similar
offers very frequently - how they managed this campaign is quite remarkable! As far as I'm
aware - no paid videos, no affiliate links for testers and influencers, and no restrictions
on what we can say or even if we feature it. They approached me and told me that they are
confident that their product is a game-changer and would appreciate the feedback. That simple!
They properly credit community members for their previous work and the models they present
on their site! Every bit of communication with them was kind, forthcoming, organized, and
professional, which I highly credit and don't often encounter! But if this means you should
back it or not is something I'll discuss later! They said the X1 Carbon will be a
game-changer, and I honestly think it is. They packed everything that currently sets
individual printers apart from each other and put it into a beautiful package that's working
right out of the box with no assembly. On top of that, they innovate with their 3D scanner for
automatic material calibration and first layer checking and will even include AI spaghetti
detection. The software still needs some work, but it's already mostly functional. All of
that at a price that is really hard to beat. But how can they sell such a machine for this
price, where a Prusa MK3 costs almost as much and a Raise3D or even an Ultimaker cost factors
more. I think it all boils down to economy of scale. With their background at DJI, they seem
to know how to design things for a mass market. They most certainly went all in invested millions
in injection molds, stamps, fixtures, and whatnot, so they could cheaply mass-produce parts.
They made it easy to assemble with modularity and a very slim Bill of Material - they, for
example, try to use as many as possible similar screws. The disassembled back and electronics
revealed just 3 different types of screws with 2 different hex sizes, which is probably
the same for the rest of the machine. They won't be able to earn something with
this machine if they only sell a couple of thousand - but after 100 thousand or more,
this approach will definitely pay out for them, so they need to aggressively take over a lot of
market share with their pricing and features. As said before - this isn't and can't be a review
of the machine because they are still working a ton on the software. But what I and other people
of the internet received already works very well and gives a great impression of what we can
hopefully expect. They currently release very regular slicer and firmware updates which improve
things, but it will be quite interesting to see how far they really get until the first backers
receive their unit. Just some examples - filament runout detection doesn't properly work yet
sometimes, spaghetti detection is sometimes really wired and probably needs more training
data. I constantly get random error messages, and sometimes loading and working with the AMS is
quite buggy. But I think it's nothing that can't be fixed via an update. Also, as nice as all the
automatic calibration are - the full set of it, which fortunately isn’t always required can easily
take 10 to 15 minutes until a print even starts. On the other hand, there are also some things I
don't like and that are probably already final. The bed carrier lacks a proper endstop for
the spring steel bed, and I sometimes placed it crooked on a standoff. The LED light is quite
dim - which might make it look cooler but is just a bit inconvenient. The AMS isn't compatible with
all filament spools - wider ones like the popular cardboard spools here in Europe, or Prusament, or
Fiberlogy spools don't fit. Protopasta spools are too big in diameter to work with the system.
This is due to the compactness of the unit, because it needs to fit within the printer for
a small shipping volume but might still be a downside for some. Though if you're not using
the AMS you can use the provided spool holder or anything else. You also might know that I'm a
bit noise sensitive. Even though the machine has a quiet mode, it doesn't come close to the
silence during printing of Prusa's machines, for example - but hey, even in the quiet mode,
you'll still be printing faster than two Prusas combined and sleeping next to a printer is
something I anyways always advise against. And even though Bambulab said that their test
machines already printed 3 tons of material which probably comes close to 100k hours, we can't
be sure about the longevity of the system and barely have a clue how much spare parts will cost,
and if, when and where they will be available. Still, besides all of that - the Bambulab X1
Carbon was one of the most pleasant machines out of the box I've ever used! I didn't tune,
calibrate, or set up anything - had not a single print fail or release from the base. I'm sure I
could give this machine to my dad, and he would be able to print parts without any prior printing
knowledge because the X1s smart features eliminate most of the guesswork! I was able to print parts
faster than ever at a quality on par with other state-of-the-art printers! For example, these side
parts for my filament rack are printed from PETG in 4.5h with decent wall thickness and infill.
Prusa on its fast profile: 12h - which is crazy. But great speed also comes with great
responsibility - uh, I mean challenges. Even if Bambulab does a great job of cooling the
parts, overhangs and bridges might not always look perfect and I even had reduced strength values
during the tests of my last video when I printed too fast and the machine under extruded a bit.
In the end, I slowed the prints down to only twice my regular speed instead of three times.
But this means that if you really want to go to the machine limits you might need to select a
suitable material and also tune it to the process! So, after all of that - should you back this
machine now on Kickstarter, should you wait until you can buy it retail, or should you
stay away from it completely? If you have money to play with and desperately hope to get one
of these machines soon, go ahead - there have been worse over-funded Kickstarters in the past, but
keep in mind - the really good early bird deals are already gone. For everyone else, I'd honestly
wait until it's available in their regular store, which will be quite soon. I even think
this is in the interest of both you and Bambulab. You have the added security
that you buy a product and not help fund it, and as it looks, they will set up local
warehouses to maybe save you the $145 in shipping which is almost as much as you would save with the
current late early birds. Bamabulab has probably succeeded in what they wanted and created a ton
of promo and cash flow to get the production up and running and might anyways rather sell you an
X1 Carbon without the $250 discount you currently get. I guess the only final achievement for
them would be to beat the Ankermake Kickstarter, and in my opinion, they would really
deserve that due to their incredible work. Finally - the thing I'm most interested
in is what this will do to the current 3D printer market and if this will break the
neverending flood of Ender-3 derivatives. There will still be a huge market for
cheap entry-level printers because, with Bambulabs price tag, they are rather
catering to the semi-professional market. But what happens to the Prusa MK3 and all other
printers in that price segment because as it looks right now, the X1 will be the new reference
in many regards! This might clear the market a little, but I think it's the desperately needed
kick in the lazy butt of many manufacturers to innovate themselves and create something new! But
let me know in the comments if the hype around this machine is justified, if you have backed it
or if you're expecting a Kickstarter disaster? Thanks for watching, everyone! I hope
you found this video interesting! If you want to support my work, consider becoming
a Patron or YouTube member. Also check out the other videos in my library! I hope to see you
in the next one! Auf wiedersehen and goodbye!
