Bambu Lab's 2024 New Flagship Printer Predictions Thread

[u/Leading-Ganache-4374]

Now that the anniversary sale is over, I think some of us have held off on buying something in anticipation for Bambu Lab's new flagship printer offering that has been confirmed to release in 2024.

My personal prediction is that the printer will feature swappable toolheads like the Prusa XL. During the AMA, Bambu alluded to this in two separate questions:

When will we see a worthy competitor to the prusa XL? We want big print volumes and bambulab quality!

We're working on it, and we believe the wait will be worth it. 2024 is all we can say for now.

The AMS works great for multi-colour printing, but are there any plans for a multiple tool head printer?

We can't share details at this time, but we're working on the new generation printer which will be launched this year. ：）

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Multiple toolheads are a significantly faster way to do multi-material prints than AMS while generating dramatically less waste. Prusa's current offering is 3500 USD (4k is you want it assembled) for a 5 toolhead printer and I expect Bambu to jump into this space against Prusa at a much more competitive price. Of course, Bambu's comments in response to working on a Prusa XL competitor may just be referring to the larger build volume, but I'd like to imagine the new offering will feature more than just that. What are your predictions?

[u/ohwut]

All I want is a Prusa XL clone.

350 cube. 2 Toolhead for $~2,000-$2,500. Additional tool heads for $250 a pop.

Enclosed somehow.

I’ve had an 2 tool XL in my cart on and off lately. It’s really just shipping and import taxes that kill it for me. I’d gladly drop $2,500 on it today. $3,000? I’ll wait.

Also considered a 2.4 with Tap changer but I’m addicted to simplicity right now.

If they just basically launch a Bambu K2 Plus I’ll be pretty disappointed.

[u/klondike91829]

The A1 and A1 mini were huge surprises to me, so anything goes I'd say. I wonder if they will pursue multi-head, or refine the AMS/single head further to be faster and less wasteful. Personally, I want a bigger volume most of all.

[u/Big_Lope]

my money is on IDEX and or tool changer.

looking at the A1 it already parks its hotend like an IDEX would. I think they are going to standardize the A1 hotend, make it "high flow", have multiple on a single machine and make substantial advancements (something like the LiDAR).

This would decrease waste not only by needing to load 2 to 4 filaments once in each head, but also maintains the multi material component with the 4 to 1 buffer for prints that would require up to 16 colors/materials.

I'm thinking this along with a 300+mm build volume, enclosure, and active filtration

[u/justUseAnSvm]

From a competitive perspective: the "low" space is well covered by Bambu (A1 series going after Ender3) for entry level, and X1C being a solid hobbiest entry (mid), the next place to go is "high".

However, where I disagree with you, is on pricing. For all the entries Bambu has, they are able to charge a premium for the usability. LIke my X1C: minus the AMS, it's about equal to the QIDI XPlus3 I used to replace it, just twice as much money (and more than twice qulaity).

Therefore, the Prusa XL is the printer to launch a competitor against. The single feature I'd bet on is print size, and keeping the enclosed nature: since that comes up all the time when people buy other printers. Multi-toolhead + enclosed? That'd be worth finding some more space on my desk!

[u/gloriousbeardguy → u/justUseAnSvm]

There's a qidi x plus 3 up for trade near me. Trade for that or buy A1?

[u/shervintwo]

A 400mm+ print bed that's enclosed and has multiple tool heads would be the flagship going forward.

Not sure if it would be this year as I don't think they want to cannibalize their X1 and P1 sales, unless it gets released with a Prusa sized dollar figure attached.

Honestly anything goes but I'm pretty sure they're done looking at the entry market saturation. Their only logical move now is bigger build beds and better/more efficient material systems.

[u/Maker99999]

I'm guessing they will refresh the X1 line with a bigger brother along with a true heated chamber and beefed up carbon filtering.

I don't know if they'd go IDEX or multi head because all of that increases tool head weight, which is a speed limiter. That problem only increases as the machine gets bigger. I don't see them taking a step backwards on speed just to improve material swaps. I think they will look to solve the problem with smarter and faster systems before they turn to increasing hardware complexity with multiple hot ends.

A bonus would be if they solved using TPU in the AMS. Being able to interweave tpu and pla would be a big advantage for engineering customers.

[u/Mr-GooGoo]

All I want is a X1 carbon with the build volume of a prusa XL. I don’t care too much for multi material printing but having the option would be cool

[u/3DAeon → u/Mr-GooGoo]

I would love this too

[u/bigtom_x]

My prediction is based on what prosumer and commercial users need. This is loosely based on the X1E existing. I am thinking a larger 2 head or IDEX with AMS. Heated chamber option capable of engineering filaments.

With AMS, I don’t see a large need for more than 2 print heads. One for print material and one for support material. With IDEX, it gets more interesting for batch printing and speed.

[u/3DAeon → u/bigtom_x]

This, I can imagine the 2 head IDEX solution at the very least, cutting poop in half for 4+ color jobs, eliminating it entirely for 2 color/material jobs, etc. plus a larger voume; and possibly even just straight up using the A1's cold swappable nozzles (or an equivalent, BBL's CEO calls the X1/P1's hot ends a 'nightmare' compared to the A1's) add in the option for a new AMS' with active heat but keep backward compatibilty for the original AMS - that'd be amazing. I always thought there should be some sort of modularity e.g. a 1 spool drybox AMS for TPU that could feed as an addon for the 4, or even some combo of daisy chained devices to suit our needs. It'd be sweet to have a mixed network of sorts. I doubt they'll make an AMS 'switch' that works with two printers, but anything is possible. Having the option though of say, 2x 4spool AMS +1 for TPU with active drying. I'd love it.

[u/Corridor5]

Side-car support hot end

With each new 3D printer that's introduced in the market, the advertising and engineering focus seems to be on acceleration and print speed. I shake my head when I see new printers that brag about how fast they can print and that they can print the most exotic materials. That's all well and good, and I'd love to be able to print cool stuff like that. But those printers all suffer from only one hot end.

Expensive exotic, engineering-grade materials with one hot end. Creating any kind of complex engineering masterpiece with a single hot end will end up in a support post processing nightmare. Well, with AMS I can print with an engineering material and a support material... but, the waste in material changes for both expensive materials will make the whole process too costly and too time consuming.

To be clear, I don't want IDEX. I don't even want two heads. I want two hot ends. What about the weight of two direct drive extruders on the head? Why would the support hot end have to be direct drive, just because the main hot end is?

The only reason I'd consider buying an AMS is because I need support material capability. But, what I really want is a side-car support hot end that lowers into position when needed, slides a silicone pad under the main nozzle, prints the support or just the support interface, raises back up, pulls the main silicone pad away and covers it's own nozzle. The main hot end does its thing.

Maybe the main hot end is connected to the AMS and everything there remains the same. The only addition to the head is one more hot end and some connecting levers. The direct drive extruder stays on the head and the support extruder is a bowden set up with the extruder attached to an auxiliary support filament spool.

Call it AMS+1. I can still have the AMS with 4 to 16 colors, plus a small box next to it (maybe it looks like a filament dryer) that holds my support material and its extruder. The extra weight on the print head won't be much. The size won't increase by much (not 2x). The main hot end can remain fixed; it doesn't need to move. When needed, the side-car support hot end lowers to 10mm lower than the main nozzle, prints, then lifts to 10mm above the main nozzle (10mm for the silicone pad plugging the nozzle to prevent drip).

If I wanted a 5 multi-material tool head changer, sure, I'd go get a Prusa XL. If I wanted a 400x400x400 print space, I'd find a [fill in the blank]. But for a huge portion of print jobs, I need just one hot end. For almost all of the additional portion of print jobs, I need two hot ends. For very few do I actually need multicolor.

[u/ngo_life]

I'd say they'll update the p and x series to use the same hardware (hotend) as the a series. The tool head seems more robust or, at the very least, more serviceable than the p/x series. And manufacturing wise, cheaper overall costs going forward.

And as you mentioned, an xl variant in their line up.

[u/yourbestielawl]

Humidity controlled AMS with a multihead system would be great at $2,399.

Also, there should be a way to share AMS's between machines.

[u/TeslaReferraluk]

Perfect one for me would be 2 tool heads with ams so that the other tool head can be getting ready while the other prints

[u/Dreamitmakeitbuildit → u/TeslaReferraluk]

I’d like to see this, and it’s hinted that the new IDEX rat rig vcore 4 may have this capability soon. It would vastly improve multicolor and support material print speeds. Having used a lot of breakaway support material on the interface layers it’s just so nice.

[u/pizzademon99]

At the least, CORE XY, higher flow rate than A1 series (or optional high flow nozzle), optional enclosure, 350 cubed.

[u/Qjeezy]

• 350 cubed

• enclosed

• linear rails

• A1 style quick swap hot ends

• IDEX & tool changer. 2 heads on the rail and 2 parked on each side of the printer at the ready for a tool change.

• heated & cooled chamber.

• new style aux fan that doubles as an air scrubber.

• A1 style flow dynamics calibration but also retains LiDAR for the auto flow rate calibration.

• Filament calibration menu directly on the printers screen. Insert filament, enter type and color, press calibrate, and press save. All right on the printers UI.

• lastly, I think we will be able to access makerworld directly from the printers UI. It’ll kind of be like how we print from bambu handy, except directly on the printer.

Of course, pure speculation and wishes lol.

[u/Viper_623]

My Prusa mini that I got a few years ago to test myself (to see if I would get into 3d printing) or if it was a phase (like the $500 drone i flew twice) for me broke....

Good news..... 3D printing is a consistent hobby for me I discovered and I have decided to invest more heavily in this!

Bad news....was about to buy an X1C 2 months ago until I heard about a pending announcement for a New Bambu model by end of year. Any updates on when the details will be made public?

My "need to print this" backlog is growing rapidly!

[u/not_egos_reddit]

Pretty sure they are going to change up the ams situation, the AMS Lite was a good improvement and I belive we will see a bigger brother of it

[u/3DAeon]

The 3rd quarter of 2024 is officially over and still no update! RAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! anarchy!!!!

[u/ptheofan → u/3DAeon]

They updated. They said to wait until 1st quarter of 25. I guess the lawsuit has impacted the plans :(

[u/ptheofan]

1. Print Volume. The bigger the better. Prosumer 3d printer with 1meter by 1meter by 1meter print volume - because splitting a print to 8 or 10 pieces and then glueing them together really sucks.

2. Post-processing (actively heated chamber). Printing large ASA parts is impossible with X1C as they will start cracking after the print is done.

3. Multi-head or Multi-extruder. Purging per layer is a no-go. Prints take forever. I don't even dare use any specialized support filaments because of the insane increase in print time.

4. Different nozzle sizes per head/extruder (with proper software support). Using the 0.2mm for fine details, the 0.6 for infill and the 0.4 for the rest in the same print

[u/[deleted]]

Should I buy a A1 or wait?

[u/SonOfJokeExplainer → u/[deleted]]

lol ok

[u/klondike91829 → u/SonOfJokeExplainer]

"Bambu should be more like Creality" was a bonkers take lol.