Hello, 3D Printing Friends! This 3D printer can crank out a custom sliced Benchy in
about 20 minutes. And slicing it yourself using the standard settings in the slicer,
it'll do it in a little over 30 minutes. But how's the print quality? And is the
printer itself any good? Well stick around,
because that's what we're going to find out. I'm Bryan, and you... are watching BV3D!
Hi, welcome back! Okay, so today we're taking a look at the new Bambu Lab P1S 3D printer. And
this is the combo with the four slot AMS unit, so you can print with up to four materials at
once. But we'll talk about that in a little bit. The P1S is the newest printer from Bambu Lab. And
thanks to Bambu Lab for sending this to me free of charge, so I could show it to you.
It follows the X1, and the X1 Carbon, and the P1P. Now let's look at where
the P1S fits in the Bambu Lab product lineup. At the top, there's the X1 Carbon, retailing
for $1,200. It has a metal and glass enclosure, a color touch screen, a hardened steel nozzle,
an auxiliary parts cooling blower, Micro-LiDAR for filament flow rate calibration, an HD print
chamber camera, and AI print failure monitoring. And at the bottom, there's the P1P, retailing for
$600. It's the bare bones, open frame model with no enclosure, a monochrome screen with control
buttons, a standard steel nozzle, a low data rate camera, and no print failure monitoring.
So now, there's the P1S that retails for $700. It takes a lot of the desirable features of
the X1 series and brings them to the P1 series. Features like a full enclosure, the big auxiliary
parts cooling blower, an activated carbon chamber air filter, a fan to regulate the
print chamber temperature, and a few other things. And so it's in the middle of the product lineup,
although at the price it's a lot closer to the P1P than it is to the X1 Carbon.
Like all current Bambu Lab printers, you can add the AMS unit later for an extra 350 bucks,
or get it as a combo for a little less when you buy the printer. Oh, side note about the AMS unit.
You can actually connect four of them to a single printer through a device called the AMS Hub,
which gives you access to a whopping 16 colors or materials for a single print.
So, let's look a bit more closely at the P1S. The printer ships fully assembled, and if you get it
as a combo with the AMS, the AMS unit is packed inside the printer so it doesn't take up any
extra room in the box. Bambu Lab says it'll only take you about 15 minutes to unbox the printer,
set it up, and start printing. I think if you've done it a few times already, you could hit that
number, but realistically you're probably looking at more like 30 minutes from cutting the tape on
the box to printing something. Particularly if the AMS is in the mix now. That's not to
say it's difficult to set up the AMS, it's just a couple of extra steps and that takes extra time.
So. Details! The P1S is an enclosed printer with a welded steel frame and a
full enclosure made of glass and plastic, in this deliciously sinister space gray color.
It has a 256mm x 256mm x 256mm build volume. It has a camera inside the print chamber that can
record time lapse videos of your prints and let you see what's happening live inside the print
chamber by using the Bambu Studio software or the Bambu Handy mobile app. The screen is the same one
that Bambu Lab uses on the P1P. It's a control panel with a monochrome screen and buttons for
making selections and navigating the menus. It's not as fancy as a screen on the X1 series, but it
gets the job done. It uses a CoreXY motion system for fast movement. It can move the tool head a
maximum of 500mm/s with a maximum acceleration of 20,000mm/s^2. Now, the actual printing speed is
controlled by the Bambu Studio slicer software, which you'll use to prepare models for printing,
and it's generally between 200 and 300mm/s. It's got an all metal hot end with a direct drive
extruder, and a stainless steel nozzle that can reach temperatures up to 300˚C. Now this enables
you to print higher temperature materials. And it's got a filament runout sensor, so it can
let you know when you need to run out and get more. It's perfectly happy printing PLA, PETG,
TPU, PVA, PET, ABS and ASA filament. So that's a lot of material types you can choose from.
The printer has several cooling fans, some for the electronics and some to cool the model being
printed. It's got a control board fan, and a fan to regulate the temperature inside the print
chamber when you're printing materials that need a warmer printing environment. There's a small parts
cooling blower on the tool head, and an auxiliary parts cooling blower, and that's this big monster
on the left inside the chamber. That one helps provide overall cooling of the model, which is
important when you're printing fast. And it's got an activated carbon air filter, for air that gets
exhausted out the back of the printer. The P1S features a textured PEI-coated spring steel print
surface for easy removal of models after printing. It also has automatic bed leveling, using the
nozzle itself to probe the bed surface. And it has vibration compensation and pressure advance,
to help ensure accurate printing at high speeds. The printer can connect to a Wi-Fi network to make
use of Bambu Labs cloud service, or you can go old school, keep the printer off your network
entirely, and save files from the Bambu Studio slicer to a Micro SD card. Then plug the card
into the printer, and print that way. The Bambu Studio software allows you to monitor and control
the printer, view the camera feed, and send print jobs. But the printer either needs to be in
communication with the Bambu Lab cloud service, or in LAN Only mode for those features to work. LAN
Only mode is where the printer is connected to your Wi-Fi network, but specifically NOT
communicating with the Bambu Lab cloud service. Bambu Lab also has a mobile app, Bambu Handy,
that lets you monitor and control the printer the same way that Bambu Studio does. But as of
this video, the printer needs to be talking to the Bambu Lab cloud service to make use of that app.
Let's talk a little bit about the Automatic Material System, or AMS. It holds four spools
of filament, and the printer can request (and automatically load) any one of them at a time.
So the printer, with its single nozzle, can print with up to four different filaments
during a print job. And with an AMS Hub, you can connect up to four AMS units, giving you up to
16 different filaments in one print. So that's definitely a benefit. The AMS unit has an RFID
tag reader in each filament slot, and filament from Bambu Lab has RFID tags on the spool hubs.
So if you're using Bambu Lab filament, the AMS can automatically detect the type and color,
because that information is tied to the tag's ID. But that doesn't mean you're limited to
only using filament from Bambu Lab. You can load filament from any manufacturer,
as long as the spool fits in the AMS unit. You'll just have to tell the Bambu Studio slicer software
about the filament. And that's where you'd specify the type and the color. Even when
you're just printing with a single material, it's great to be able to pick the one you want to use
for your next print job from the spools that are already in the AMS, without having to get up and
manually unload and load a spool of filament. The printer takes care of that for you, automatically.
Loading the AMS is a matter of opening the lid, putting the spool in the slot,
and inserting the filament into that slot's feeder. Press the loading lever down a bit,
push the filament in, and the AMS takes care of the rest. It rolls the spool back and forth a
few times, looking for an RFID tag to read. If it finds one, it knows what's loaded. If it doesn't,
you'll need to set that up in the slicer. Speaking of the slicer, Bambu Studio lets
you easily assign filaments to different parts of a model that was designed to print in multiple
colors or materials. And if the model that you want to print wasn't designed that way,
Bambu Studio has a relatively easy to use "painting" system that allows
you to apply color to the model. And now, let's address the filament
in the room... I mean, the elephant in the room. There's a major drawback to printing a model using
multiple filaments with a single nozzle printer. And this isn't exclusive to the AMS. It applies
generally across similar systems. And the drawback is filament waste. Every time the printer swaps
filament, it has to purge out the old filament by pushing the new filament through the nozzle
until all traces of the previous filament color are gone. And the amount of that purge varies.
When switching from a light color to a dark color, it doesn't take as much filament as it does when
switching from a dark color to a light color. If you go from a deep blue filament to a bright white
filament, the system will need to purge and purge and purge until all traces of the blue filament
are gone, and you're only left with white. And the printer can't automatically detect this,
either. But the slicer can make educated guesses, if you've set the filament colors correctly. It
knows it needs to purge more when switching to a light color from a dark one. Also, the filament
swaps take time. The more purging, the longer it takes. If you're adding a little spot of color
on a print, like maybe painting the eyes in on a figure, that's not so bad. But if there are
filament swaps on every single layer, that can significantly increase the print time compared
to a single color print. For one particular model I printed, it increased the print time by a factor
of about eight. And oh boy, was there a lot of purge waste! Now, there are ways to reduce the
waste on a per model basis and I'll cover that in a future video. But the result was pretty cool.
Now, don't think I'm hating on the AMS, I'm not. I just wanted you to know what to
expect if you're going to be doing a lot of multi-color or multi-material prints.
And speaking of prints, let's take a look at some of the things that I printed on the P1S!
This is the pre-sliced Benchy that comes on the printer's MicroSD card. Including bed heating,
filament loading, and bed probing at the beginning of the print, its total print time is about 25
minutes. If you start counting the print time from when the printer actually starts to print the
model, it's only about 20 minutes. The quality on it is really, really good. I don't see any ringing
or stringing. This black filament is PolyMaker's PolyTerra Dark Charcoal PLA, which has a matte
finish instead of being glossy. Now, I do see a change in print surface quality about halfway up
the model, where the deck starts to get printed. Below that point, it's a little bit glossier, but
above that, it's more matte. Once the deck gets printed, the geometry gets a little more complex,
and the layers take a little bit longer. So I think this is a result of the speed differences
on those parts of the print. Slicing a benching myself, using the standard 0.2mm layer Heights
and default speed settings, it took 37 minutes to print this Benchy. Again, excellent print quality,
and no ringing or stringing that I can see. But there's still that surface quality difference I
noticed on the pre-sliced one, where it goes from a glossier finish to a more matte finish. It's a
bit more pronounced with this filament. But it's also still a really good print.
I also printed a print-in-place Folding Travel Clothes Hanger. It took about two
hours to print. The hinges are built into the print, so once it's done,
you just take it off the printer and unfold it, and you've got yourself a travel clothes hanger.
The P1S had no trouble printing the interlocking parts. The hinges weren't stuck or fused,
and it just worked the first time I tried to unfold it. It's a pretty clever design,
so if you travel a lot, you can give it a try and see if it works for you.
And I printed a handful of these Chip Clip models, and they're great we're keeping larger chip and
snack bags closed. They didn't take long at all to print, and the surface finish on them
is really smooth. The green and orange ones are printed in Bambu Lab filament, and the red one is
printed in a Creality matte PLA. It didn't seem to matter what filament brand I printed them in,
the P1S did a great job with all of them. No stringing, just a great smooth print.
I also printed this Dragon Bust by designer Heino, from printables. It prints in two parts, the
base and the dragon itself. Now, the dragon needs supports for the long horns that protrude from the
back of its head, and for a couple of the spiky bits down the back of its neck. The surface gets
a little rough where the supports were touching the model, but that's actually a common thing.
I printed this in a silk PLA. It's a co-extrusion filament, where half of it is silk blue and the
other half is silk silver. So the color looks different depending on the viewing angle.
It looks so impressive at regular size that I wanted to print it a bit bigger.
So I did! At 200% scale, it just barely fits on the P1S, but the result is spectacular!
Shiny metallic blue on one side, and shiny metallic silver on the other. It's gorgeous!
Now, so far everything I've shown you has been a single material print. This
can print multiple colors, and I didn't want to disappoint. So I printed this Herringbone
Planetary Gear in four colors. Now this wasn't originally designed for multi-material printing,
but the Bambu Studio slicer software has a feature that allows you to split a model into
separate objects. So I did that, and then assigned different filaments from the AMS to the gears.
Then I sent the print job to the P1S. And it took EIGHT HOURS! For this one model!
Why so long? Because I'm using all four filament slots on the AMS, and I'm using
all four filaments on each layer of the print. Each swap can take up to a minute to complete,
so all those filament swaps add time to the print. But when it was done, I popped it off the print
bed and it spun easily. None of the gears had stuck to each other, like sometimes happens,
and I didn't have to mess with it at all. Then, just to show that the P1S can print
this model quickly, I printed it as a single color model, and that only took
an hour. And this one spun easily after it was done printing, too. And just to give you
an idea of the normal speed of the P1S, if you printed this on a basic printer like an Ender 3,
it could take close to three hours to print. So that's about it for the prints.
We're getting close to the end, so let's start wrapping things up. Now from what I can tell,
the P1S is every bit as fast as the X1 Carbon. It doesn't have all the advanced features of the X1
Carbon, like the Micro-LiDAR, the hardened steel nozzle, and the color touch screen, and the good
print chamber camera... But I think if your use case doesn't involve abrasive filaments, and you
don't need print failure detection, I'd recommend the P1S over the X1 Carbon. You get most of the
same functionality at almost half the price. The print quality is great too, and it doesn't seem
any louder than the X1 Carbon. Of course, neither of them are quiet machines. With great speed comes
great decibels. They're not obnoxious, but you definitely know when they're printing something.
Comparing multi-material to single material, specifically the herringbone planetary gear,
I could print eight of these as a single color model in the time that it takes to print one four
color model. And there's a lot of filament waste when doing all those color swaps. This is a couple
of weeks worth of printing purge. Now I also want to mention that I had some weirdness with the AMS
on one of my first prints with it. The unit seemed to be having a hard time rewinding the
filament back onto its spool, so the printer would pause, and I'd get a notification on my phone,
and I'd have to manually intervene to get the filament to rewind. I think the problem was just
that one particular spool with filament, because when I swapped it out for the Proto-pasta filament
to print the four color Herringbone Gear, the AMS worked fine for the entire eight hour print.
Oh, one other thing. I had an opportunity to test the power loss recovery feature, and it worked.
I started this double-sized Dragon print before leaving for work, and about an hour
later the power went out in our neighborhood. I came home at lunch and resumed the print,
and I can't tell by looking at this that the power had ever gone out. But I know that it happened
within the first 10 millimeters of the print. Now The eagle-eyed observers among you may have
noticed that this particular example seems to be somewhat incomplete,
and that is due to a failure of the supports. They snapped in half on one side of the dragon,
after it started printing one of the long curving horns. And since I had no way to get the supports
back where they needed to be, I had to cancel the print, lest I end up with MOST of a dragon and a
side order of spaghetti inside the printer. Re-slicing with a slightly different type
of supports solved the problem, and I ended up with this glorious specimen.
So that's the new Bambu Lab P1S. Thanks to Bambu Lab for sending this over free of charge so I
could show it to you. Links for everything that I printed are down in the description,
along with a link to Bambu Lab for the P1S if you want to check it out.
Big thanks to everyone who supports the channel, whether with channel memberships,
or by using the links in the description. If you liked this episode, give it a thumbs up, and maybe
consider subscribing so you don't miss future episodes. Well, 3D Printing Friends, that's about
all the time we have for this one. And now that we're at the end, let's go print something cool!