At a lookProfessional’s Score
Professionals
- Wonderful print high quality
- Quick print occasions
- Computerized color altering
- Constructed-in digicam
Cons
- Primary non-touchscreen management panel
- Filament wastage may be excessive in multicolour printing
- No failed print detection
- Lacks “Skip Object” from X1 Carbon
Our Verdict
The Bambu P1S is a wonderful 3D printer that’s nicely definitely worth the comparatively excessive worth. The Combo is good if that you must frequently print in a couple of color, however it’s additionally actually useful having the ability to print totally different objects in several colors with out having to vary filament manually. It’s only a disgrace Bambu didn’t put a pleasant touchscreen on it.
Worth When Reviewed
$949
Greatest Costs At the moment: Bambu P1S Combo
Bambu Lab is a model that has appeared virtually of nowhere and rapidly established a status for top-notch print high quality. Utilizing a CoreXY movement system, its printers are additionally a lot sooner than conventional “mattress slingers” so you’ll be able to have your cake and eat it: great-looking prints with out the lengthy wait occasions.
The P1S is likely one of the firm’s newest fashions, providing lots of the flagship X1 Carbon’s options at a extra reasonably priced worth.
Which means it’s appropriate with the Bambu AMS – successfully a CD autochanger (bear in mind these?) for 3D printing – and has the identical construct quantity, print speeds and high quality.
There are a couple of disadvantages, however these received’t be deal-breakers for everybody. You would possibly find yourself deciding to spend much more on the X1 Carbon, however there’s nonetheless a lot to like right here.
Options & design
- 256mm cubed print quantity
- Totally enclosed design
- Totally automated mattress levelling
The P1S is actually a totally enclosed model of the P1P. Being protected against temperature modifications and drafts within the room is essential if you’re printing with sure sorts of filaments comparable to ABS that want a constant ambient temperature that’s larger than room temperature.
Construct quantity is similar 256x256x256mm, as is CoreXY motion system and management panel, with the primary distinction – other than the aspect and high panels forming an enclosure – being a built-in digicam that allows you to monitor prints.
The P1S stands head and shoulders above the competitors. Print high quality is completely astounding
Given the tiny worth distinction between the 2, the P1S is the apparent alternative.
For the uninitiated, all Bambu printers come just about able to go and with the P1S you simply want to connect the display, spool holder and take away the packing materials (and transport screws) earlier than starting to print.
With the P1S Combo, setup takes about 40 minutes as a result of you need to extract the AMS from the print chamber first. Thankfully, Bambu has an incredible YouTube video and step-by-step directions that present you precisely which screws to take away and the best way to join all of it up.
Jim Martin / Foundry
Whenever you swap it on for the primary time, you’re prompted to attach it to Wi-Fi and hyperlink your Bambu account, which you’ll need to create, most likely within the Bambu Useful cell app.
After that, it runs an in-depth calibration that takes round quarter-hour. As soon as that’s accomplished, you can begin printing. As you’d hope for at this worth, mattress levelling is totally automated, so the primary layer ought to be excellent each time.
You’ll be able to select whether or not or to not run a a lot shorter calibration earlier than every print, however that is 5 minutes nicely spent, particularly for something that takes greater than an hour to print.
One of many chief variations between the P1S and Bambu’s flagship X1 Carbon is the display. On the latter you get a pleasant color touchscreen, much like that on the Creality K1 and K1 Max, reviewed. It makes the X1 Carbon simple to make use of and exhibits you an image of what you’re about to print.
The small dot-matrix monochrome display on the P1S is undoubtedly its worst characteristic and feels misplaced on what’s in any other case a premium machine. Even low-cost bed-slingers now have touchscreens, so the very fact you need to use a course pad to navigate to menus and choices on the P1S is disappointing.
Jim Martin / Foundry
There’s nearly sufficient data and management, comparable to present temperatures, remaining print time and the power to load and unload filaments. And as most individuals will begin prints from the Bambu Studio app on their laptop or by way of the cell app, it’s not an entire catastrophe.
Surprisingly, the P1S’s mattress is restricted to 100°C, which is 10°C lower than the X1 Carbon. Not that it makes a lot distinction: you’ll be able to nonetheless print ABS, ASA, PETG and different filaments with out warping points.
AMS – Computerized Materials System
- As much as 4 reels of filament
- As much as 4 AMS items per printer
The AMS sits on high of the P1S and has area for 4 reels of filament.
Jim Martin / Foundry
You’ll be able to nonetheless dangle a fifth reel on the spool holder on the rear, however that is an both or state of affairs: you can’t have all 5 reels accessible for printing on the similar time.
The AMS is a very intelligent little bit of equipment. You merely insert the filament from every spool into the feed tube a little bit means and that’s it: from then on the AMS handles loading and unloading routinely.
It’s air-tight, or at the least near it, and two giant packs of silica gel assist to make sure no moisture may be absorbed by the filament whereas it’s within the AMS.
Jim Martin / Foundry
Swapping reels out and in can be simple as none are left routed by way of to the print head. You need to push down fairly exhausting on the gray tab however then the filament may be pulled out and a brand new spool dropped in. Poking the filament into the tube is sufficient: the AMS takes over.
Efficiency
- Very good print high quality with most filaments
- Quick
- Just about no failed prints
It’s the tip outcome that issues most, and that is the place the P1S stands head and shoulders above the competitors. Print high quality is completely astounding, from the clear, even end to the precision that permits you to print intricate working fashions whose components aren’t fused collectively.
Jim Martin / Foundry
Bambu was adequate to ship quite a lot of filament to strive together with carbon-fibre infused PLA and PETG to the a lot tougher-to-work-with TPU.
In actual fact, it was solely when printing with TPU that print high quality took a nosedive. It was acceptable for small issues just like the spiders you see above, however though this telephone case printed efficiently with some strategically positioned helps, the small backside chamfer was fairly messy on the highest edge and general high quality was merely nowhere close to fashions printed with extra inflexible filaments.
Jim Martin / Foundry
I’ll let the P1S off right here as a result of TPU is tough for any printer, however I’ll say that it’s annoying to need to swap between utilizing an exterior spool and filament within the AMS. You’ll be able to’t put TPU within the AMS, and meaning disconnecting its feed tube and manually feeding the TPU (or no matter you’re utilizing externally) into the print head.
I couldn’t discover a means in Bambu Studio to print from that exterior reel with out additionally disconnecting the AMS’s energy cable. It confirmed the TPU loaded appropriately, however nonetheless gave me no choice to print from it, throwing an error as a result of – after all – there was no matching filament within the AMS.
Velocity is the opposite spotlight. That’s one thing you must count on from any CoreXY printer, however for those who’re upgrading from one thing like a Creality Ender 3 or another mattress slinger, it appears unimaginable to have the ability to get such prime quality prints in so little time.
A 3Dbenchy takes lower than 20 minutes, round 1 / 4 of the time most entry-level 3D printers take, and the default velocity of 300mm per second means prints hardly ever take greater than an hour or two.
Reliability is nice, however not excellent. Nevertheless, other than one or two disappointments the place issues didn’t follow the textured PEI plate, the one occasions prints failed was once I made a mistake comparable to choosing the mistaken plate in Bambu studio or forgetting to take away the prime tower from the construct plate earlier than beginning one other print. It’s a little bit irritating that the P1S can’t use its digicam to detect failed prints, and it’s additionally annoying that you would be able to’t exclude a particular mannequin that’s failing on the construct plate and proceed to print the others as you’ll be able to on the X1 Carbon. However these are all the reason why you would possibly need to go the entire hog and simply splash out on that printer as a substitute.
Multi-colour printing is, after all, the opposite big purpose to decide on a Bambu P1S. There are workarounds for doing this on different printers, however having an automated system that modifications colors with out ready so that you can go and intervene is a large profit.
Jim Martin / Foundry
As a result of the previous color needs to be purged from the nozzle earlier than the brand new one emerges, color modifications can burn up a good quantity of filament. And when you can organize it in order that there are minimal modifications, that works solely in sure circumstances, comparable to when colors change vertically within the mannequin, as proven above.
For those who needed, say, the articulated axolotl proven beneath with every section having alternating colors, then the filament would have to be modified at the least as soon as for each single layer of the print. That doesn’t simply burn up a variety of filament, it additionally provides a variety of time.
Jim Martin / Foundry
Bambu Studio permits you to specify how a lot filament ought to be “flushed” for altering from any color to a different, however may even routinely decide how a lot must be purged if you wish to guarantee no color bleed. For instance, within the mannequin beneath, I intentionally lowered the flushing quantity between purple and white to indicate that you find yourself with pink for some time (take a look at the underside) till the purple is totally gone. The sample seen right here is just because the white is just one layer thick.
Jim Martin / Foundry
There are additionally choices to flush into the mannequin’s infill, the place the combined color received’t be seen. The default setting in Bambu Studio can be to print a ‘prime tower’ that helps with the color modifications, besides, when filaments are swapped the P1S nonetheless ejects a coil of filament out of a chute on the rear. It’s unusual there’s nothing to gather them: they merely find yourself on the desk behind the printer, or on the ground.
Jim Martin / Foundry
The purpose right here is that printing with a number of colors when the printer has just one nozzle isn’t significantly quick or environment friendly. It does work nicely although, and it’s fairly wonderful to observe the AMS in motion, loading and unloading totally different filaments as required.
There’s one other profit, too. Even for those who don’t want a mannequin to have a number of colors, the AMS means you’ll be able to rapidly and simply swap to a special color for the following print routinely. Don’t underestimate how useful that’s.
Bambu Studio & Useful app
You don’t have to make use of Bambu’s slicer or app, however you’d be barely mad to not. Studio isn’t a Cura clone, so can take a little bit getting used to for those who’ve solely ever used Cura.
For first-time customers, it’s nice to have all the pieces in a single app: preparation, slicing and print monitoring. Studio has quite a lot of instruments, together with the power so as to add helps manually, but additionally –and crucially – a portray device that allows you to add totally different colors to things.
Jim Martin / Foundry
There are many nice tutorials on Bambu’s wiki that train you the best way to use the instruments, which is nice as a result of they are often fairly complicated. Portray specifically isn’t as simple as you would possibly count on, though if you choose the proper choices it’s attainable to rapidly fill sure areas with out having to color them manually together with your mouse.
Jim Martin / Foundry
As Studio can sync colors from what’s loaded within the AMS, you don’t need to set these up manually both, and it’s so simple as right-clicking on an object and altering filament color to a kind of accessible.
The most effective issues about Studio is that it’ll apply presets primarily based on the filament you’re utilizing. And though you don’t need to solely use Bambu filament, there are presets for all of them which suggests you don’t have to consider what mattress and nozzle temperatures to make use of: they’re set routinely.
As I used to be about to publish this overview, Bambu Lab launched www.makerworld.com, and built-in it into each Studio – the desktop software program – and the Bambu Useful cell app.
This mounted one of many drawbacks I’d have talked about in any other case: the lack to browse for one thing to print and ship it to the printer all throughout the apps.
Each apps present the digicam feed and print progress together with any issues or errors that may want your consideration.
Jim Martin / Foundry
One oddity with the P1S is that if you print from both of the apps, it doesn’t retailer these fashions on the microSD card that should be inserted into the slot on high of the printer itself for distant printing to work. It is attainable to print from a choice of pre-sliced fashions, however if you wish to re-print something you’ll need to look within the Print Historical past within the apps.
Worth & availability
The Bambu P1S prices $699 / £639, or $949 / £869 for the Combo model. You should buy a P1S instantly from Bambu’s web site.
If you have already got the P1S or need greater than 4 colors you should purchase the AMS individually for $349 / £309. Simply notice that you just additionally want the AMS Hub to attach a couple of AMS to the P1S.
For different choices, see our roundup of the most effective 3D printers.
Ought to I purchase the Bambu P1S?
Bambu has an enviable status for wonderful print high quality, and P1S definitely lived as much as the hype in my testing, besting each different printer I’ve reviewed.
Nevertheless, even for those who don’t go for the Combo, it’s costlier than some rivals. It’s $100 greater than the Creality K1, and lacks the X1 Carbon’s touchscreen, which the K1 has.
Whereas it does have a helpful built-in digicam for monitoring prints, it doesn’t have AI monitoring that might warn you to a failed print, somewhat than discovering solely later that one object (or your complete print) hasn’t labored. Relying on the place you retain the printer, this stuff could or is probably not an issue.
Finally, it’s solely the display that basically lets the P1S down, however as I stated already, you’ll be able to largely keep away from it through the use of the desktop or cell apps. And, lastly, having made full use of the Creality K1 Max’s giant construct quantity simply earlier than reviewing the P1S Combo, it’s a disgrace that there’s no related providing in Bambu’s vary. As long as you received’t typically have to print objects greater than 256x256x256mm, although, the P1S actually is a superb alternative and, even with that primitive display, it’s simple to advocate.
