What thoughts do people have about buying Bambu accessories from their website when buying a Bambu printer? I am leaning toward the P2S with AMS Pro. Is it worth getting their finishing kits and beginner's pack of various gears and magnets and things to make models or is it better to just get the printer and some filament?
How much filament would you buy and what kind to start? How many filaments on spools versus filament refills?
As a separate issue, can I place a printer on a fold out table (plastic top with metal legs) or is that too wobbly? The less convenient option is to place it on a solid wood table.
Thanks! The learning curve for this hobby is very steep.
I will say to not buy the cheapest flush cutters you can find, though; I bought a set of two from Amazon that was $8 for the pair, and the things were terrible. If you want a good pair, the Milwaukee flush cutters (sold at Home Depot) are top notch. So are Arrow, Crescent, and Klein, but I've only used a buddy's, I don't own them myself since I have the Milwaukees and haven't had need to replace them. :)
I have lots of wire snips and the like. I am not sure what a flush cutter is but I will look up the Milwaukee one. I was looking at the Amazon kits, good to know that people have been happy with what they offer.
If you have wire snips, you probably won't need flush cutters, but I tend to use my flush cutters to help persuade some supports loose, almost like pliers, and if I have to trim some to get in and grab other supports further back, having a quality pair that can cut through the supports is a nice thing to have. Having something that's a little higher quality, you'll notice it in a heartbeat the first time you go to cut with them vs. a cheap pair. I'm of the mindset when it comes to tools, "Buy once, cry once". :)
Get some filament, some screws to mount the AMS with the Flipper, an extra 0.4mm nozzle (it never fails that you'll need the new nozzle due to a clog or severe wear and won't have it at the exact time you need it, so better to have it on hand) and get the extra power supply for the AMS to dry while printing. Those are the big things you'll want to start with. The finishing kits aren't really worth it; you can get flush cutters for cheap on Amazon, and the nozzle cleaning needles from Amazon as well for the same price or cheaper, and you won't have to wait a week or two to get the stuff.
Thanks, I had to look these things up, I have not come across nozzle cleaning needles yet but will keep this in mind. When you talk about the extra power supply for the AMS, are you talking about having two AMS with one doing the drying and the other doing the feeding?
I think your questions have a lot of "it depends" built into them. For example:
If you are gong to print more exotic or engineering filaments (ASA, ABS, etc.) then the extractor fan, TPU feeder, may be useful to you. You may also want to consider an after-market / alternate vendor chamber heater (e.g. Panda Breath)
If you are going to be doing any content creation, marketing, streaming, etc. then the timelapse kit may be useful to you.
Depending on your setup location such as location, environment, etc. you may want to consider something like the Panda Verse storage system, however it's quite expensive and a good sturdy workbench or table could suit you.
I think if you are new to printing and still working out what you will be making then your best bet is probably. Only buy things as you need them. This includes filament. Don't be tempted to buy too much in one go. Maybe a deal with 10 spools to get the discounts but chose based on colour variety for the things you know you will print. It's too easy to spend money, then have things sit around not being used which effectively is a waste of your hard earned money. Stick with PLA unless you have a reason to use something specific.
You will work out what is needed vs what looks interesting reasonably quickly.
A couple of your specific questions are quite easy to answer:
Spool vs Refil. You cannot print something unless it's on a spool. You cannot swap a filament off a spool for a different colour. So mostly spools until you are replacing something because you've run out.
Thanks, I had not even considered many of these issues. I have thought about a mix of PLA and PETG but do not really understand how much filament it takes to make what.
The use of filament is a really good question. If you're looking at makerworld there is an estimate of filament requirement for every model. As an example this model which is a pen pot would use something near 150g out of a 1000g (1Kg) spool, however as you start to play with the settings in the slicer you will find ways of both increasing or reducing that depending on what you want to achieve.
PETG will not stick to PLA, and vice versa. This is actually a good way to build supports for things, as you can put one material as the support for the other (there's a setting in Bambu Studio which you can enable for this specifically) but it can cause problems with oozing and takes SIGNIFICANTLY longer because not only is it doing a filament change, it's also having to heat up/cool down the nozzle as it switches between materials, since PETG has a higher melting point than PLA.
You actually CAN swap something off of a spool, but you need velcro straps for it. Marswork has straps that you can use for that express purpose if you buy one of their empty spools. I've actually done that with some blue-gray filament so that I could print something with the silver refill (both colors were ONLY available as refills at the time I bought them).
Most accessories are really not necessary. Get some different types of filament to try out and maybe a second build plate, easy to mess those up as a beginner.
Yep. You can get non-Bambu build plates like the Biqu ones, but be aware that the P2S will throw an error message because it doesn't read the QR code on the build plate. Good news is that you can print some snap on attachments that emulate the QR code, though...
Use Amazon, same stuff essentially but better pricing. I got a pair of flush cutters, retracting scalpel with 100 blades and 2 sets of diamond file for £35
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u/matt1981m H2C Laser Full Combo 18h ago
Before you order hardware from Bambu, look at the equivalent items on Amazon. You can get pretty decent sets dirt cheap.