The Future of 3D Printing is Here
We’re very happy and excited to be adding the Bambu Lab X1 Carbon 3D printer to our arsenal. This machine is simply amazing. For those of us that have been fighting the battles associated with 3D printing for years, this printer is the answer to the future. This machine shows how 3D printing is supposed to be – easy, simple, quick and reliable.
Speed
The Bambu Lab X1 Carbon has a top speed of around 500 mm/s. The incredible thing about this is that it actually achieves this speed with good results. This is not your classic 3D printer hardware sales ploy, where you’re told the machine can technically achieve such speeds only to be met with horrible surface quality at those speeds. The X1 Carbon actually achieves these speeds, and it gets incredible quality while doing so. This means you can print models in half the time, while still maintaining a .4mm nozzle and .1 – .2 mm layer heights. Most of the older FDM machines in our arsenal have been converted to .6mm nozzles just to get slightly quicker print times at 60 mm/s base speeds for PLA. This machine completely breaks that convention, yielding high quality prints at mind blowing speeds while limiting the amount of material usage required.
Take for example this Benchy test print which comes as one of the pre-loaded test models on the Bambu. On one of our other FDM printers would have taken an hour and a half to print this model. The X1 Carbon prints it in 17 minutes, and the print looks flawless.
Vibration Free
The X1 Carbon has state of the art vibration dampening technology. During calibration, the printer detects the resonance frequency of the printer and uses this information to dampen unnecessary vibrations during printing. This is how the X1 Carbon manages to achieve ultra smooth printing at such high print speeds. Artifacts such as ringing, ghosting, blobs and zits are therefore non-existent on finished parts.
Fully Enclosed
Fully enclosed, the Bambu Lab X1 Carbon is climate controllable. The chamber uses the bed heater to heat itself, and it also comes equipped with a large exhaust fan to remove excess heat and moisture from the chamber as well. This gives the X1 Carbon the ability to print environment sensitive materials such as ABS, ASA, PA, PC and more. This also allows us to use the enclosure as a filament drying oven. The X1 Carbon comes preset with a filament drying mode in the utility menu for this purpose. As said in the name, the X1 Carbon also has an activated carbon filter to remove harmful fumes and particulate from the exhaust air leaving the printer. The well built, sturdy enclosure with its large, thick glass doors also provides much sound dampening while the printer is active.
Automatic Calibration
What’s nice about the X1 Carbon is that it does all necessary calibration automatically The printer uses a force gauge and laser level sensor to probe the print bed. Upon doing so, it automatically adjusts the height of the bed using the printer’s steppers and 3 ball screws. The print head comes equipped with an active lidar sensor, which the printer uses to check the quality of the print lines it lays down while printing. This allows the onboard AI system to conduct first layer inspection.
That’s right, this printer has artificial intelligence! Using the onboard sensors the printer is able to inspect the first print layer and stop itself in the event that there is a problem. The AI is smart enough to recognize poor bed adhesion, scraping and spaghetti-like mishaps on the first layer. Auto purging and nozzle cleaning also comes standard. There’s a material waste chute located in the rear of the enclosure for filament purging.
Automatic Material Selection
To top it all off, the printer has an Automatic Material Selection system which communicates with the print head for seamless material changing. The AMS has four material slots. The user can load up to four different material color/type combos. This opens up a whole world of capabilities for multi-material and multi-color printing. This is definitely a useful tool for any maker. What’s nice about this too is the AMS can detect filament runout, filament jams, and can even automatically switch spools when one slot runs out of filament. All of this is extremely useful, and it works very well.
Conclusions
All in all, this printer earns an A-plus. It’s the perfect machine for hobbyists, makers and manufacturers alike. I’m already making plans for adding a second unit to Starter’s arsenal. It has opened up a whole new world of multi-color and complex printing capabilities for our customers. Also, the speed capabilities allows us to offer our customers more competitive lead times and prices while giving them better quality parts. It’s a win win in our book for sure.
Contact us today to discuss how we can use the Bambu Lab X1 Carbon to bring your ideas to life.
Contact UsVisit Bambu Lab’s website to learn more about the X1 Carbon.