Should I just wait another year or two?
Should I just wait another year or two?
I've wanted to get into 3d printing for a while now and have been checking out the prusa mk4 and the bambu lab x1.
The bambu looks amazing in all aspects besides repairability and offline printing, with the latter one looking like a real deal breaker. It seems like all the more advanced features need a connection to the cloud, which I really don't like.
On the other hand we have the prusa which seems to be running really rushed software still missing a lot of features that the hardware should be able to support and the price looks like way worse value compared to the stuff you get with the bambu. At least it's repairable and no cloud bullshit.
Should I just come back in a year and hope that the mk4 software has gotten better or the bambu doesn't require internet for all the cool stuff?
Edit: Just woke up and I want to thank everyone in this thread for the quality replies! I'll look into 3d modeling first and if the prusa doesn't anymore have janky alpha input shaping 2-3 months from now I'll go with that, otherwise I'll have to look for alternatives. Since I'd be running prints throughout the day while I'm not at home, I'd want something more reliable than an ender 3.
Edit 2: I just found out about the Bambu p1s, I might just get that one.
If I waited until printers were completely fool-proof, I would never have gotten one. Instead I jumped in 6yrs ago and I've printed so many useful things and a lot of toys. Most rooms in my house have at least one printed item in them because of how useful it is.
Yes I've had my share of failures and have had to rebuild a printer a ton of times while learning how it worked, but I also learned a lot of new skills.
- Soldering used to be scary and now it's no big deal.
- I can de-pin connectors and build new adapters instead of spending $8-10 for someone to ship me one from Amazon.
- With TinkerCAD I can knock out roughly designed parts that are ready to go in a few hours instead of waiting days/weeks
From learning all of those skills I've swapped the motherboard and rewired my first printer to have bed levelling and be whisper quiet, 3d printed an RC car, designed parts for my vehicles, completely overhauled my sim racing setup, the list goes on.
If you want to get in to it and have the money to get started, go for it. I started with something like an Ender 3 and still use it today. You don't need an expensive machine if you want to learn how to maintain it. It all depends on what your goal is with 3d printing.
3D printers are far from bleeding edge anymore.
If you have a need for a printer, then just get one. It's really that simple.
I put off getting a 3d printer for years because I didn't want to dive into that rabbit hole and learn it. I wish I hadn't waited.
I think it comes down to whether you mind waiting a year or not to print your first print. I'd personally just jump in and buy something even if it's not exactly what you want.
Much like computers, printers are always advancing and waiting a year might mean you wind up seeing some other new feature on the horizon a year from now and then have to wait an additional year.
We've been getting by without proprietary hardware or multifilament printers for years, so it's not as if either of these printers are the only way to get into the hobby.
Are you the kind of person who enjoys tinkering with things and learning? Or does that frustrate you and you want something that "just works"?
If you are in the first category, just buy something like an ender 3 or a sovol sv06. They are cheap, open platforms, capable of great prints, and are a fantastic learning platform. If you buy one of the cheaper options to get your feet wet, then you can always spend more on a high end machine later if you decide you need it. The more locked-down systems like the Bambu might be nice for the "just work" crowd, but personally I have no interest in closed ecosystems and vendor lock-in.
I do not expect that the Mk4 will have caught up to the Bambu in 1 year since it's missing physical hardware that seems necessary to do so. Here are some examples:
Input shaping calibration for a specific machine benefits from having an accelerometer. The Mk4 needs a module that can attach to the extruder and the bed. The current beta firmware with input shaping only allows for Prusa's universal preset setting instead of allowing you to measure the frequency responses of your own machine. Critical reviews of the current input shaping implementation show subpar performance with excessive smoothing and high frequency artifacts. I expect that comes down to inability to calibrate your specific machine and environment.
When you print with a new filament, especially a new manufacturer, you usually need to tune a filament profile to get better printing results. With the Mk4 this is a manual process, and this is where many new to 3d printing quickly get frustrated with failed or poor quality prints. The lidar system on the X1 has been fantastic for automatic pressure advance and flow calibration right out of the box and I've found I largely do not need to maintain custom filament profiles for the Bambu.
Webcam support and failed print detection are absent from the Mk4. The closest feature the Nextruder assembly supports is crash detection via its load cell sensor and I'm not entirely sure if the Mk4 even has that enabled. If you attach a webcam to the frame and run octoprint / something else standalone, you've again thrown off the preset input shaping calibration.
It's an i3 style printer or "bed slinger," which is fine on it's own, but it will never reach the same speeds as core-xy because it's physically moving the mass of your printed object sitting on the bed. Printing speeds aside, you'll potentially run into taller objects wobbling slightly as they are moved.
I really like Prusa's open source commitment, and I'm still in line to purchase a multitool Prusa XL, but I cannot recommend waiting for the Mk4 to improve and reach parity with the Bambu if that's your expectation. If it doesn't do what you want it to do today, I'm not sure it ever will.
As for cloud connectivity on the Bambu, you'll really have to consider just how important that is to you given the significant tradeoffs. Minimally you can print from the sd card or use lan mode. It looks like you currently lose the camera and mobile app connectivity with lan mode, but I haven't tried this myself and these are at least software aspects that could easily improve.
Thank you for the detailed reply. What do you think about the new Bambu P1S? Looks like the main difference to the carbon is no lidar and a worse screen and with the ams addon it's 1000€ vs 1500€ for the carbon. I'm seriously considering getting the P1S.
The P1S does seem like a good value overall.
I've heard the screen is quite primitive with the P1 printers, and I expect that will become your primary interface with the printer if you are not using the cloud print functionality.
You will also not get the benefit of the automatic calibration features.
For myself that makes it less desirable. However, there is also some value in understanding the manual filament tuning and printer calibration process as it helps you troubleshoot when things go wrong.
If the P1S existed when I was getting into 3D printing, I likely would have purchased it. It's at a similar price point without the AMS to the Ender 3 S1 Pro (which is what I learned on) and the P1 has many more capabilities.
I've got the P1P (and am waiting for the P1S upgrade kit) and I've got to say I absolutely love it.
I know it's not popular on here because it's proprietary, and a lot of people in this hobby don't like the "It just works" mentality as opposed to the "I custom built this from scratch" outlook, but I got into 3d printing because I want to print things, not because I want to spend loads of time fiddling with my printer. I spend plenty of time fiddling with my various creations and custom models, I just want a printer that I know will reliably print what I'm asking for and use my time and energy on creating things.
I also went back and forth over the X1C over the P1P (The P1S didn't exist when I ordered mine), but from what I understand the differences between the X1C and the P1(P/S) are very incremental. The lidar is nice, and does improve print quality, but having looked at some comparisons, the end-result difference is very minuscule. As for the screen, I honestly don't see why people are so fussed about the smaller screen - I use Bambu Studio for kicking off all my prints, so the only thing I really use the build it screen for is checking up on print times when I don't feel like going up to my PC, or changing filament, and it works fine for those purposes.
Especially now that the P1S offers a high quality enclosure, I think the value add for the X1C doesn't make a ton of sense, You can literally buy 2 P1P's for the cost of a single X1C, and I don't personally feel that the improvements to the X1C justify that price difference unless you really need the absolute highest possible print quality.
Repair-ability is the usual issue most people take with Bambu printers, because it's proprietary - but their replacement parts are super affordable, and I've yet to hear actual testimonial from a Bambu printer owner who had their printer die on them and was unable to get it fixed. The proprietary nature also makes people worried about "what if Bambu goes out of business in a few years", which is valid - but given that they're one of the biggest players in the consumer 3d printing industry after only a short time in the market, I really don't see them going anywhere any time soon
tl;dr - The p1p was my first entry into 3d printing, and the only complaint I've got so far is that the P1S upgrade kit is backordered to August. Otherwise it's been a practically flawless entry into 3d printing
The good old fashioned PC building quandary meets 3D printers.
“Should I buy x or wait a couple years?” waits a couple years “Should I buy x or wait a couple years” “Just wait a couple more years man something better will be out” *waits a couple years” “Should I buy-“
Rinse repeat forever.
Years ago I was discussing a 3d printer with my best friend. His suggestion was to start making a list. A list of 10 things that I wanted to create with the 3d printer that also were not things just downloaded from the internet. When I got to 10 then it was ok to make a purchase. So I made the list, and slowly it got to the 10th item. Once I got to 10, I went ahead and bought a printer. It was then that I realized one thing. I should have bought the damn thing when I got to number 2.... If you have things you want to print out, jump in there. You are never going to find a 'perfect' printer, and will most likely have to do some tinkering, but that's part of the fun. I have printed so many cool things with my printer and years later I am still happy that I got it when I did.
Decide what you want from a machine, and if all of your needs are met...buy. It's getting much harder to recommend the Prusa as the baseline for quality has changed substantially. With many machines adopting input shaping and higher-end parts, you get a lot of bang for your buck.
I don't own one, simply because I build most of my machines from scratch...but it would be hard to recommend anything other than a P1P for someone with the money in their budget for it. If I were building a new printer factory of 50 machines running 24/7 then MAYBE I would consider the serviceability of a Prusa to be a time investment. Outside of those conditions, Bambu is the clear choice in the price bracket.
FYI At that new $599 price, even the P1P can print from sdcard, so from a "cloud" perspective, I don't think that's an issue. The cloud connection is for sending files remotely, and I also believe it has a local network mode(unsure). $599 P1P vs minimum $799 for a MK4 kit, I would go P1P in a heartbeat. I understand that the AMS is also significantly easier to use than the Prusa MMU. The P1S is an attractive replacement for my HEAVILY Frankensteined old Flashforge Creator Pro, which I only used for parts requiring high-temp enclosed printing. I will add one to my environment at some point in the future, as it's the only thing to come along in years that looks worthy.
I'm pretty sure that the P1P has local network printing. But, my dad uses his in SD Card mode so much that he cba to try the Lan Printing.
Can you model stuff in 3D?
If not. Hold off and learn 3D modelling first.
If so, jump in now. Nothing is coming down the pipeline in the next year or two that will be game-changing on the 3D Printing side of things.
Don't buy any printer that's not a CoreXY style, everything else is sub-optimal. At least FDM printers that is.
I have Prusa I3 MK3S+s at work that are great, but I just bought a Sovol SV06 for home use. I got it for $229. It was $200 during prime days. Auto bed-leveling. Prints well out of the box after short, easy assembly. Far, far less troubleshooting than my old Ender 3 V2. It comes with a branded Cura slicer, but I use Prusaslicer instead. I'm recommending the SV06 to the makers that come into my makerspace if they want to get into 3D printing at a low price point and not have the headaches of older machines that lack the more modern features.
I wanted to get a Sovol S6, and I nearly did, but I decided to splurge on a Creality K1.
The K1 put out amazing prints for a week, then it started throwing an error (key:2507 not heating as expected) and I'm having to jump through the hoops with Creality tech support so I can get the parts to fix it.
I could have almost bought two Sovol S6's instead.
I'm not sure what amazing feature you can’t live without that the MK4 doesn’t have.
Repairability is kinda a big deal, because 3D printer break a lot due to having so many mechanical parts. I have access to a MK2.5 in a shared space, and it’s down about once a month due to needing repairs and/or recalibration.
From what I've read so far, the mk4 could support path shaping but it just isn't implemented in the software yet and so the Bambu prints roughly twice as fast.
Mate I dont own any of them, but open source is easy life. Prusa uses marlin afaik which is awesome and you can always change to klipper which is even better imo. Im in this hoby for 10+ years and prusa was always recommended by users. Bamboo looks amazing, but I wouldnt go for baby company with properary crap over big and famous prusa, the inventor of this kind of printers.
Also dont wait, just buy one. They didnt change that much hardware wise after adding heated bed. In my opinnion 3D printers are much better now compared to 10y ago, but 90% because of the community. Hardware is better, software is much much better, but community is what makes it rly good for new people. It means you can buy any popular device and you will get better support than any company can even imagine. Even better if you go open source route.
Whatever you chosey there are plenty of resources online including Lemmy, arm yourself with patience and enjoy the ride
Btw whats weong with mk4 software?
idk if it's still the case, as I heard recently that they were close to merging it - but it shipped without input shaping, which was supposed to be a key feature of the mk4. Without it, it's forced to run slower than it could otherwise. The good news though is that it's definetely coming, so if you buy one today, you may just have to deal with slightly slower print times for a month or two before it's out
I still use a virtually antique ultimaker 2, it does most things a modern printer does, just a bit slower.
If you get an open source printer[0] like voron, jubilee, or ender 3 then they can always be upgraded if/when new stuff comes out anyway.
[0] the prusa i3 mk3 is open source, but I think the i3 Mk4 is closed source unfortunately.
I do not believe the mk4 is closed source.
I still haven't gotten into 3d printing, so take this with a grain of salt, but,
The technology is always improving. Waiting will always get you something more advanced, but if you have something you want to do with a 3D printer, just get one. Eventually you'll get a better one either way. If you'll have fun with it now and you have the time, jump in. :)
What features are locked behind the cloud for the X1? We have several at work and they've been fantastic. Repairs are easy enough, they have decent documentation. While the parts are proprietary, they are pretty affordable.
The Camera livestream and even the ‘lan Mode’ seem to be locked behind cloud. I can not get this thing to work without internet access, tried it several times. Also the mobile app does not work in lan mode.
It is really frustrating to want to start a print on a 2k€ machine in lan mode without internet connection, when the slicer is unable to connect to the printer and you have to rely on a sdcard. I’ll absolutely sell my X1 carbon combo kickstarter version for a prusa xl, for the pure sake of cloud hate.
I just have a heavily upgraded ender 3. Prints at 100mms with the latest firmware update I did.
Replying to Edit2: the P1 is a great compromise! By the way there are some 3rd party companies making Bambu replacement parts. Also the slicer is open source and you can use OrcaSlicer instead of the default one to get more options out of it. @monerobull
I've also seen that bambu sells fairly priced replacement parts themselves and them offering upgrade kits for the P1P gives them some street cred as well. I was mostly worried because I heard that bambu printers upload all models into the cloud first and lose a ton of functionality without it (and the RFID spool thing could be used for DRM filament) but it looks like you can always print from SD card.
Why not just get an Ender 6? They do off-line printing, have a ton of aftermarket options, and generally print really great quality very quickly once properly tuned.
I really want automatic bed-leveling and multi-color printing.
You can add those things to an Ender. Granted, a Frankenprinter isn't everyone's cup of tea.
Lemme propose an alternative. Build a Voron. You’ll get just as good print with all the faetures , and when you are done you will UNDERSTAND 3D printing at a level neither of the the two options will provide.
Don’t get me wrong, prusa and bambu printers are incredible, but Vorons are every bit as good, fully open source and nothing is gonna make you understand the hobby as much as building one
To be fair, I think most opt for Prusa's kits rather than prebuilts, but I don't deny that the Voron is probably harder to build (and you have to buy your own Haribo gummy bears).
Oh totally, but just think by the time you are done building a Voron you have a kick ass printer and you should pretty much understand everything
Ive had this x1c for a grand total of 4 weeks and i have made a ton of prints already. However, i am starting to get clogging issues and it was much harder to diagnose/deal with than my older printers.
If you just want to get your feet wet, get the prusa.
That doesn't sound too promising 😓