Discuss: How big of a disruption of the printer market is the H2 series printers going to be?
Personally, I almost don’t care whether it’s good.
It’s the second toolchanger by a major brand announced for this year, with the other toolchanger already below the €1000 mark. With a bit of luck this will trigger an arm’s race with affordable toolchangers becoming a real option.
The affordable tool changer wars begun they have. Thanks to Snapmaker. It does remain to be seen if a “cheap” tool changer can withstand the use and abuse of the great unwashed masses. Something we won’t really know for 6 months to a year from when they really get out.
While I’m not a customer for anyone’s tool changer, as I have 2 bed slingers I’m quite happy with, but engineering advantages are large and doable enough. And if Bambu is truly successful with it, it’s going to wreak the market.
I modded some knock-off E3D toolchanger parts onto my Ender 5 to make a terrible tool changer. The toolchanging mechanism is rock solid and will outlast everything else on the printer. But getting it to toolchange without making it a stringy blobby mess is hard.
So I’m optimistic that a toolchanger can be quite solid, physically. Not so worried about the toolchanging part.
It would be really cool if they’d be able to get a 4x (or at least 2x) toolchanger to <€500. Just waiting for Creality to catch up.
Before the Ender 3 it was considered impossible to have a good metal-frame 3D printer for <€300, and they got there and then everyone got there. Maybe they’ll be able to do that with toolchangers as well.
I like Bambulab’s idea. It sounds like one that can get to a very low manufacturing device, considering that only changing the nozzle and thermistor means they don’t have to duplicate the motors and heaters on the tools.
As an old and retired engineer, I see the wisdom of really chasing the concept. The system SHOULD be cheaper and more reliable due to fewer parts. But that doesn’t mean YOU get to see the price savings…Toss in a few patents and buyer lock-in is assured.
I totally get your point, and patents will clearly happen with this, no question about that.
But It’s not the only toolchanging setup on the market. So if it has to compete with some affordable toolchanging options, they could use that to match their prices or even undercut them.
Bambulab does have some pretty cheap and good printers and they apepar to have a long-term goal of making a platform more than just printers, so I could see them making a cheap toolchanger. Certainly not an open one, that’s not what they do.
You are probably right, but I like to hope, once in a while, in a world where hope is pretty much lost in many respects.
My personal opinion is the H2 series is going to be a real problem for other brands. While I don’t see it as a threat to cheap and simpler printers, like Soval or Crealty is in no real danger, brands like my beloved Prusa and others like Snapmaker and Qidi or are going to be in for a rough time while they try to catch up. If they can.
I wonder what printers will be cut from Bambu’s current lineup also. I think the X series is the most likely. With the A series being in no danger, Bambu needs cheap entry level machines on offer to hook consumers into the brand. And I can see the P series hanging in there too for mid-tier machine.
The only thing I see slowing down Bambu series printers is the cost. But advanced hobbyists, print farms, and other business will pay the freight. I’m not so sure the average casual user will though.
I’m thinking about getting a Bambu, especially when compared to the priciness of the Prusa printers, but the fact that they own the software on it is making me very hesitant. If I get one I’ll just iluse an SD card and forgo the camera feed.
Prusa costs more for a reason. They are built in the EU, which is frankly a far more expensive place to manufacture anything compared to China. But, Prusa will also support your printer for longer than anyone else will support their printers. And Bambu and all the rest of the China made printers still lag behind in customer service. Customer service is very expensive to offer. While Bambu’s service is better than the rest of the Chinese made machines, that’s a low bar indeed.
I have an A1 Mini combo. My opinion about Bambu is: Good hardware, as good as anyone else’s. Not so good software/firmware-- they need a lot better software engineers for sure, CS is getting more and more spotty, and everyone pretty much agrees-- questionable business practices.
I’m not trying to talk into buying one or not. Just giving you my personal experience with my one Bambu printer and one Prusa printer.
It’s a hard decision to make, so thank you. I wish the Core had a few more features, I really like some of the stuff that Bambu does re print quality, all the calibration, the lidar, spagetti detection etc, but Bambu slicer is ass and Orca really isn’t much better. I’m in decision paralysis on this one. I’m at the point where I don’t want a hobby, I just want a printer.
It is hard to decide. But at some point you need to pays your money and takes your chances. No any one machine is the perfect design. They all have faults. So, perhaps you might want to consider which faults you are willing to live with and which ones you can’t live with.
I want to see open source printer devices doing this.
I couldn’t care less about Bambu Lab, if anything they irk me because they’re driving 3D printing towards a “the magic black box just works until it doesn’t and then we throw it in a landfill and buy a brand new one.” model.
Do you think Bambu doesn’t already have patents on their nozzle swap system? Open source is already a day late and dollar short.
I would be amazed if they get it functionality working, from how i read it, they dont have a functioning prototype. It sounds of more of a expensive pipe dream, im more excited about prusa and bondtechs tool changer coming out soon
they dont have a functioning prototype
Seems incompatible with their claim that they will ship this year
My understanding is they do have prototypes that aren’t quite ready for primetime. From an engineering perspective, the system should be cheaper due to fewer expensive parts like motors, heaters, and thermistors-- fewer parts generally means better reliability too. And it’s far more compact and can even fit into a smaller printer if desired.
I do see some issues, nozzle manufacturing is going to need to be E3D quality or better. And the number of nozzles is odd. They claim 7 nozzles, but their AMS system can hold 4 spools. You can daisy chain up to 3 AMS I think for either 8 or 12 spools per machine. This means with 7 nozzles, you are either going to have 3 extra nozzles with 1 AMS or 1 or 2 extra spools with the extra AMS you can’t use with your 7 nozzles. A strange design choice if 7 is the number. It’s kind of the number of hotdogs in a pack vs the number of hotdog buns in a bag problem.
And the even more basic question-- Just how many nozzles do 3D printers really need? Can the average user make use of all those extra nozzle enough to justify the extra cost? Now, print farms and companies that do a lot of prototyping and perhaps some limited on-site manufacturing can benefit, can regularly take advantage. But Geoffrey or Maybeline? Perhaps less so. Maybe even a whole lot less so based on price sensitivity. To use another real world example, Shaving razors. Just how many blades does it take to shave with? 1 or 100 at a time. 1 blade will work, 2 might get you an improvement, but are you really getting enough improvement with dragging 6 blades across your face at one time vs the extra cost? Does the cost of the poop out weight the cost of the extra nozzles for the majority of user needs?
I really have no clue.
It looks like a cool system, but I also think they might be rushing it to have a reply to the U1.
Will it work well from the get go?
How long does it take to change filament and hotend?
Will mis-alignment stop prints often, as things get worn?They also cannot possibly price it lower that the H2D, as it is the same printer with more tech.
Prusa has also more or less confirmed to be releasing the INDX-system soon, which seems like a smarter system to me.If it turns out as polished as Bambu often do and not to expensive (sub 3k), then it will demolish the competition. I’m happy we all get to be a part of the insane development race going on these days.
Also: if Prusa wants to compete, they have to offer a heated chamber and decent camera as standard. I still can’t fathom how they dared to release the Core One without.
I’m willing to pay quite a bit more for European made, but not if it feels like a complete rip-off.Prusa also needs to fix their x-y build volume even if it breaks upgradeability. The standard has changed and it is hard to go smaller once you are used to the larger size.
