BambuLab P1S
Pros/Cons-
Pros:
-Fast printing capability
-High quality prints right out of the box
-Fairly easy to use and set up
-Multi color and material capable
-Capable of printing with more exotic materials
Cons:
-Too closed source for some peoples liking
-Chamber is not actively heated and cooled
-Can be waste heavy when using multi material or multi color prints.
Review-
The BambuLab P1S is a printer that I can best describe as an appliance. That is not to say that there is not some of the normal 3D printing tinkering that needs to take place, but it is a printer that is an easy entry point for people who want higher quality prints than what can be gotten of of a bed slinger type and want an almost click and print type of printer.
I have had the BambuLab P1S for a little over 1 year now and have done a significant amount of hours printing(and tinkering) with it. When I first opened the printer, I was amazed by the ease of set up and how nicely the first prints seemed to just work. Even as I delved into multicolor 3D prints, I found this to be a capable all be it wasteful machine. For those of you who are not familiar, this printer can print in multi color and multi material at the cost of purging a bit of material in between every change of color or material. This may not seem like such a big deal at first, but once you factor in that your multi color or material print will need to switch once or more per layer that has the different materials on it, your scrap material heap may be significantly bigger than you initially thought. Thankfully, the slicer software is great at calculating how much waste there will be and if you are not willing to recycle it or throw it away, the community has some great ideas on how to use the scraps or “poops”.
Outside of the multi color and material options this printer gives, it is all around a very capable machine with a simple user interface on the printer, a great slicer and even a camera to watch and upload time lapses of prints. With this printer, I was able to easily print more exotic filaments like ABS and ASA and have very little worry about the outcome usually. Even though the chamber is not actively heated, the bed seemed to give off enough heat to be able to get most filaments I used to print without issue.
When I was first researching the printer, I was curious, but skeptical about how closed sourced the system was. I was pleasantly surprised to find a decent amount of 3rd party options for the print bed, screens, hot ends, extruders and lighting. There is even a company that makes a stand to organize parts and have the scraps drop into an easy to clean drawer! While I do still have my worries about how closed source the system is and how the company Bambu Lab is continuing to make their systems, it does not seem like they are going anywhere anytime soon and seem to be listening diligently to their audience and working to add functions that are being asked for. I was even surprised to find something as small as a color request option on their website so that they can poll and add most wanted colors to their in house filament.
The keen eyed among you may have noticed that I used the word “usually” earlier. Because I am in the SoCal area, and we have had swings of humidity, the fact that the chamber was not actively heated and controlled led to problems with bed adhesion and in rare instances the dreaded blob at the end of the hot end. Thankfully with some tricks in the room that it was in and a healthy amount of desiccant, the humidity issues were resolved, but definitely something to consider as you continue on your 3D printing journey.
Overall, I would recommend this printer to anyone wanting to step up from a bed slinger type printer, wants to dip their toes in to multi color or material prints or wants to work with more exotic materials. Oh! I forgot to mention one of the best parts. This printer with the multi material system is $749 at the time of writing, is routinely on sale for around this cost and is supposed to be updated soon.
Buy:
