BambuLab P1P Review - What is the point in this?

I'll be honest up front the inspiration for me doing this review is honestly more for my benefit than anyone else's after I realized just how good bamboo printers are for beginners and I reviewed the x1c and A1 provided by bamboo along with reviewing the A1 Mini for my own channel sake I decided to go back and look at both the p1p and the p1s again mostly for the sake of having a Hands-On point of reference for future videos the good news for you is that now I get to share my thoughts about this product and discuss why you probably shouldn't buy it which is a weird opinion for me to have right after all everyone knows I'm no more than a shi for bamboo I'm Ross and this is f Hammer videos now as I like to frequently say my reviews are for those of you who like me don't fancy spending your time tinkering with a printer and instead just want a reliable product that works out of the box as much as possible you see my hobby here is about printing stuff at least more than it's about messing about and tweaking printers I'm looking for a printer which reduces the barrier between setup and the thing I want printed and in my experience fdm printing General quality and speed has been fine on all products for well over a year now on most of the units that I've tested so it's the features and approach that matter a lot more to me and as I sat and wrote this review having just come off the back of the bamboo A1 review a printer which is all but perfect for absolute beginners coming now to the p1p retroactively it does make me scratch my head a bit wondering who exactly I should recommend this to there's a lot of benefits to this model sure but we'll get there first let me walk you through it because like all other bamboo printers these are a mile ahead of the competition in terms of their user approach unboxing and setup is one of the easiest processes you can follow like all the other bamboo products I've owned they have a QR code on the box that links you to a video and a written guide on how to set up the printer and I suggest you follow it even if you're an experienced printer user there's nothing awkward or difficult in the process but the guide is a handy checklist to make sure you haven't missed a step but other than cutting some cable ties the only building you need to do is attaching the filament reel holder on the back of the unit and plugging in the screen you do need to unscrew the securing bolts for the bill plate too but that's pretty obvious thanks to the big red arrow stickers pointing at them it comes with a great bunch of extras most of which are actually useful replacements for consumables within the machine I even got a whole kilo of bamboo green pla filament with this purchase and that's pretty damn awesome especially for a beginner and to me the best thing about Bamboo's own filament with their printers is that the bamboo Studio slicer already has some decent profile settings to get this to work and this is for all of the individual colors and filament types too and if you want to buy more of it well I know this bit sounds like an ad but you may as well Beware of the benefits this company offers I can't really do a review of the printer and the services without sounding like an ad when it's a good thing but anyway you'll get a discount when buying direct from bamboo for 6 months after you buy the printer the prices are then directly comparable to any decent quality filament from anywhere else and you don't need to replace the whole reel just get a refill pack instead for less money and this also saves you having to dump a big useless reel made out of plastic into the waste so with any of the bamboo filaments like the Reel you get with it just attach this stuff to the back tell the slicer what you're using and print an object in fact you don't even need the slicer app on your PC to get started you can do most of this direct from the display unit thanks to the Myriad of included files on the printer's micro SD card but I've got more to say on that later on going back to your outof boox experience once you've followed the video or written guide just turn the printer on and the screen will walk you through the rest of the SLE during this process you get a QR code pop up which allows you to connect the printer to your account in the bamboo handy mobile app and from here whenever you sign into that account using the desktop slicer the printer's available to send prints to and to the few people who are about to comment I'm never going to buy a printer if it forces me to create an account you aren't required to do this you can skip this step and still use the printer entirely offline and transfer prints to it via the included SD card just like any other fdm printer you just won't have the benefits you get from features that would quite obviously need an online account and the final stage of setup is the printer's self-calibration where it tests itself for vibration compensation and bed leveling so I recommend before you do any of this bootup sequence put the printer where it intends to live because if you change the surface to something more or less sturdy or even slightly at a different angle you'll probably want to run the vibration compensation calibration again externally the printer has a few things to be aware of which may seem quite obvious but not all brands are as sensible as bamboo who actually think about user experience for their printers the power socket and switch are on the back of the printer the only other port to care about really is the one for the micro SD card located just behind the screen and like almost every bamboo printer this has some cool functions built in like Wi-Fi which is used for remote printing monitoring and firmware updates and you now get the 720p camera module included with the printer by default when watching prints remotely this isn't as smooth as the x1's 1080p camera but it's still better than no camera and time-lapses exported by this are also generally fine and the printer comes with a light to keep an eye on printer overnight too but one of the things I really love about these types of printers the most is that accessing things like the nozzle should you want to swap it like the X1 Carbon it's just a case of pop off the magnetized cover from the hot-end unit unscrew two bolts and you can replace the whole unit assembly including the fan and what pretty much every new printer wants these days print quality wise this thing is great out of the box and I'm saying great because it's not good it's great this printer prints incredibly quickly and despite whatever claims you may see nowadays regarding printers speeds most are capable of speeds far beyond what the materials we print with would actually support so it's fine in that regard and in fact like I've said about bamboo printers before the whole printer could be described as fine but because so many other brands are less than just so when compared to Bamboo printers these small things stand out in terms of usability by a clear mile but it's not perfect nothing is I want to talk about a couple of negatives one is the filament reel placement like many framed corx y printers now the Reel is on the back though at least with this unit The Reel does sit slightly proud of the back Edge so you can half blindly remove the Reel and replace the line through the filament tube from its backs side like many of this Styler printer you might actually be better off with an external filament dryer box which has the added benefit of taking moisture out of your filament too there are some other placement options for these reels but I'll come on to that shortly CU it goes better with a later part of the video the other negative is the UI now I actually expected this to be worse than it is but I forgot when I thought that that well this is bamboo and for a very simple low resolution monochrome UI this is still very intuitive and it's easy to navigate the four SE and various onscreen options using little more than a directional pad with the select and back button and had I not recently reviewed the A1 printers I'd have been happy with this but because the newer A1 series both of those cheaper printers have a prettier and slightly more functional UI now this monochrome UI retrospectively feels a little bit of a let down but let me be very clear about why because this probably doesn't matter to most people with the A1 units you can tell the printer which filament you're using direct from the display this will then sync to the desktop slicer application on the P1 series you need to do this in the phone app if you want that function you see it's not a huge deal is it but where this matters a little bit more is if you have the AMS upgrade but again the benefits minor you see on the A1 when you choose to print one of the many pre-sliced files that come bundled with the printer on the SD card if they're multicolor print you can actually tell the printer which filament to use from the AMS for the different colored parts of the model on the P1 series with an AMS it just picks the colors in order of what filament is in what slot 1 2 3 and four but again this is only for the multicolor prints that come bundle with the printer all of the rest of them you'd Slice on your PC and then send it with the relevant colors to the printer remotely and that all works fine so again it's minor but that is a slight problem with the UI that the P1 series has that the A1 series has now resolved additionally where I've mentioned how I like how easy it is to swap the nozzle here actually the A1 series is better for that too because that just clamps in place whereas here you've still got to unscrew it and one other slight gripe is that of all the prints built into the printer there's no way to know what they actually look like because there's no images on this UI so between this and the p1s I've now printed everything I hadn't already printed in my A1 reviews just to know what they are and what they look like but again whilst I'm being negative here this lack of an image only really matters for prints that come included with the printer and most of you will only ever print a handful of these like the scraper tool and that's obvious what they are you'll most likely print less than a quarter of these built-in models and everything after that will be models you sliced on your PC and either sent wirelessly to the printer with colors pre-selected in the slicer or transferred to the printer via the SD card so should you buy this printer well it's easy to recommend on the basis of it being a bamboo printer and if like me you want to spend more time printing stuff and less time mocking around with a printer anything by bamboo is easily the best choice if that makes me a shill fine if you're happier to do a bit of tinkering that's also fine I'm not saying bamboo printers are the best for everyone I'm saying they're the best for people who care more about the act of printing than the technology of printers so if you accept that and still know you want a bamboo printer why should you get this one specifically well I'd always suggest you buy a printer based on your budget first the A1 Mini is a cuty teeth printer the A1 is the best place to start with a bit of freedom in terms of size and you've got the choice to get both of these units with a single AMS lie as an option this gives you a lot of choices for creativity where the p1p and arguably the p1s benefit is with the build plate not moving back and forth the printed models are a bit more stable mid print which helps the success rate on taller prints and it also saves a bit of depth on your worktop because you don't need clearance for the bed to move all the way back and forward and the p1s are marginally faster too not in printing speed so much because like I said that's limited by your filament but in movement speed between gaps in a print so the speed increase is marginal really I think now that the A1 exists and this p1p alone is $40 or pounds more than the A1 with an AMS light the p1p is for those people who are either on a budget now but intend to upgrade later perhaps to the p1s and here you can also upgrade it to have up to four AMS units whereas the A1 series can only have one AMS light per printer or maybe this is for those people who want a stable framework and perhaps intend to upgrade it themselves in a more unique and personal way you see one part of the sales pitch or interesting features for the p1p is that there's already a load of official and unofficial chassis mod plates that you can print for yourself and as much as I wanted to print the Companion Cube case from Portal this has been done to death by other channels so I decided to just print out the official bamboo pegboard module for me but I did print some Companion Cube d20s because I didn't want to feel totally left out in the video game representation space now unfortunately this pegboard module is a bit of a pain to fit because as a few people have pointed out the holes don't always line up but through force and persistence I managed to get it on in the end and you do these using the extra screws that you get in the box with the printer they actually come with extra screws for you to add mod plates on with and because this is one of the earliest official mod plates there's a load of creators out there who've made their own add-ons for it including filament holders that mount on the side solving our earlier placement issues so yeah it may be useful to you to get the P1 1p and build something like this maybe so you have all of your printing tools to hand in a configuration and style that you want in which case the p1p option is a good call for your requirements also as a side note that I'm sure will upset some people you may have noticed that I decided to print this play in colors to match my own branding black and orange normally gray and orange but I didn't have enough gray but I've only just realized now when watching back I've actually taken a bamboo printer and made it look like it was built by prer so whoops but I am glad I printed something for it in the very least because the style of this printer without any kind of frame on it doesn't really meet Bamboo's typical design standards and even unlike other poorer quality printers this p1p looks a bit worse out of the box it honestly looks less like a stable printer framework because all of the protruding bolt holes everywhere kind of make this look more like an unfinished product and that's unfortunate and I guess you can't really have the best of both worlds but this looks less like a framework for you to build from and more like a p1s or an x1c where they've taken panels off though still what you get here is a solid bamboo quality printer with all the features that people have come to love but if you aren't bothered about having a slightly speedier and more stable core XY over a beds Slinger and you don't ever see yourself wanting enclosed AMS units I'd say don't buy it get the A1 and be happy with that or if you're liking this but can afford the extra $100 of £90 for the fully enclosed p1s also don't buy this get the p1s if you aren't sure what the benefits of the p1s are well you definitely need to check out my next video because it will cover that one in detail so as I said in the intro it's an odd one to recommend now that it's sandwiched between the A1 and the p1s I'm sure if you're after this you already know you are and have a very specific reason to want it for your particular use scenario for the rest of you check out my p1s video next and afterwards go back and watch the A1 video because you may not even need this much of a printer I want to say thanks for watching and a huge thanks to our growing list of members you see on the screen right now please consider joining them to get your name up in the credits and early access to our videos too you can support us by dropping a comment Down Below in the form of a super thanks that's just basically a tip but if you are thinking of buying this or any of our printers please click the affiliate links in the description below the videos before you make a purchase whether it's for these printers or whether it's for filament and that gets us a kickback at no cost to you and it tells companies like bamboo that our videos are useful to the community I normally like to finish with some kind of movie quote but I'll leave it to you to guess where this following quote is from though I'll do it in a very British way kept you waiting huh until next time bammer [Music] out [Music]

Channel: FauxHammer

Views: 63,321

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Id: v4tSSmaIy24

Length: 16min 13sec (973 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 16 2024