Hi,
At the London Hackspace we have recently had a donation of a Bambu Labs P1S 3d Printer. I was wondering what approach SLMS had chosen to using their Bambu in the space. Are you using the standard Bambu setup, or lan only mode? Their slicer or another?
Evening Jonathan,
We opted of a SD only use on our X1 carbons. though this has come with its own problems in the long term as the sd card slots are not the hardest wearing ports. (We are going to implement some SD card extenders soon so the failure point of the machine isn’t in the expensive screen. We mainly decided on this route to avoid people being able to remote into the machine, start and stop prints remotely etc. We do have an account logged into the machine but this is only used by the area technicians for diagnostics, maintenance notifications and firmware updates.
We also do not allow overnight/ unattended printing - the user must be in the general space at all times. Users are also only allowed to book a single machine in advance and any additional printing is limited in length as long as there are no booking conflicts. We also have our machines on a tool control system, I’m not sure if you have visited the space and seen this in action but it controls power deliverty to the machines depending on user privilege (obtained by induction.)
As for slicers - We induct bambu studio for these. though they may not have quite as many options as something like orca slicer, the nice and easy presets and direct download and ope from Maker world makes it just as easier of new and advanced users to use.
In terms of filament, we do recommend Bambu filament and lots of members do bulk buys. Our rule is if it is bambu branded and bambu say you can use it on the machine, go for it as long as you read their filament guide. You can use any 3rd party filament as long as it is a common material and is compatible with the AMS. For anything we deem experimental, think lost wax casting filament, super flexible or 3rd party filled filaments, you must get prior approval of a tech.
All in all with these all in place we have a very good uptime on the machines we have and they are some of the most used tools in the space. More or less all the maintenance we have had to do is common wear and tear and I’ve only had to replace one snapped hot end. Think the machines are totalling well over 3,000 on hours with about one we ve had for since Jul 2023 and the other March 2024.
Have fun with it!
Thanks.
So far I have to say I’m not bowled over by the P1S. Despite the hype about Bambu printers just working I’ve had various connectivity issues (and seem to have to redo the connection every time, including having to type the access code, IP address AND serial number) and I’m struggling to get a decent print out of it. My one PLA print warped, and with ASA I’ve had two decent prints and a lot of failures (just using bambu studio defaults for now).
On the plus side it’s really quick and the bits of the prints that have been good have been very good. I think it can be a very good printer, but it is far from the magic bullet that many claim bambus are.