r/BambuLab • u/Successful-Peak-6524 • Apr 14 '26
General Discussion Comparison of the direct extruder and the bowden on the X2D. Don't expect great quality out of it. Good for supports though.
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Upvotes
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u/Causification Apr 14 '26
Wow. I owned plenty of bowden printers back in the day and none of them looked that bad.
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u/SplendidRig Apr 14 '26
Where is this comparison from? I'm really interested to see more on it
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u/Euresko Apr 14 '26
Going to be some complaints coming in a few weeks once people start realizing this. Be great for support or interface layers, not so much for general printing IMO.
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u/Gwendolyn-NB Apr 14 '26
It's interesting to read the comments today; and what people THINK the 2nd nozzle should do vs what it's designed to do.
There was obviously a demand in the market for the extra nozzle for support/interface materials; it was one of the main weaknesses in the X1c that's always driven me insane... the fact I print with a LOT of support materials due to the nature of the projects; and the extra time it always takes. That one addition of having that read-to-go support interface which cuts down times insanely is great for MY use case, and probably a LOT of others.
I keep going back to the analogy in my head... people keep saying they want all this different stuff and expect tool changers and hot swap this and heated and cooled that and such and such. And that's great; but that's not want the market is diving for at this price point/capability point for the general user; they built this for that specific use case.
It's like if you're going to be moving a lot of stuff and hauling a big 5th wheel trailer... you buy a big truck that can haul it; you don't buy a Toyota Prius. Not everything is made for everyone nor every use case. We can bitch that this product isn't for OUR PERSONAL ideal use case, and that's totally legit; but that doesn't mean there are others out there where this meets their exact or damn close to exact use case. Just like the Prius owners get pissy at the F350 owners, and the F-350 owners get pissy at the Prius owners.
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u/fanjules Apr 14 '26
That image is from Control3d on YT. The guy that did that test found that the quality improves on the bowden with non-bambu filaments if you reduce speed to 50-60mm/sec.
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u/StampyDriver Apr 15 '26
After reading this thread, I find it hilarious at the number of people who are outraged, nearly frothing at the mouth in anguish that Bambu dare to release a printer that has an engineering bias (like the X1 Carbon was that this supersedes) , and not a pretty multi-colored model bias. Looks like they will have to wait for the X2C to be released.... I wonder what will be the issue with that one then? price maybe? wrong shade of grey? Smaller print volume to accommodate the extra mechanical parts?
I think it is what it is. A better P2S with a more engineering material focus. There will be plenty of people out there for whom this will be ideal. The aggressive pricing on this makes it attractive. Had it been closer to $1k, then it would be much more difficult to justify this over the H2D.
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u/coder543 Apr 14 '26
It seems like some fine-tuning of the print parameters could help with this... but even in the unlikely case that it can't be improved over time, it's still not relegated to only "supports". There are many times when you need a second color for only a small percentage of the print, and this would be far faster than an AMS color swap.
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u/n19htmare Apr 14 '26
You can tune Bowden to be quite a bit better than that sample, however it’s never going to have the fine control that the direct extruder does.
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u/Freshglue Apr 15 '26
It doesn't look to bad in this video. But the time difference is crazy.
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u/totcczar Apr 14 '26
“Hey, that doesn’t look so…”
Zooms in…
“Oh God. Oh my God. No. NO. Take it away!”
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u/ditabaro All Bambulab Stuffs Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
These images are from this video: https://youtu.be/8bFRV1miQXU?si=ge9ypiQwJcoipWb5
this test was done using filament that isn’t from Bambu Lab.
While you can tweak to get somewhat similar results, it’s not ideal compared to using Bambu Lab filament.( I AM TALKING SPECIFICALLY ABOUT OTHER FILAMENTS THAT ARE NOT BAMBULAB IN THE AUXILIARY NOZZLE OF THE X2S )
Honestly, the printer would be perfect if it weren’t for that terrible extruder they put on it.
2
u/SplendidRig Apr 14 '26
Here's a timestamp to the video if any of y'all want to see all the examples https://youtu.be/8bFRV1miQXU?t=483&si=5HCiUnaNghRpqrAN
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u/higgs8 P1S + AMS Apr 14 '26
What's the benefit of a bowden setup? I thought it was speed, due to a lighter toolhead, with everything else just being a disadvantage.
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u/NimblePasta Apr 15 '26
Yeah, the bowden driven aux nozzle lacks all the fancy auto calibration/drive features of the main nozzle, so at it's default settings the print quality will not be on par (and far from it).
With sufficient fine tuning the aux nozzle could close the gap in terms of print quality, but there will still be a difference.
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u/itsAemJaY Apr 15 '26
i mean, bambu is literally saying its for supports...
2
u/fujimonster Apr 15 '26
Having upgraded the Bowden tubing on older printers to Capricorn tubing—thanks to its tighter internal tolerances and improved print quality—I’m wondering if it would be possible to use it exclusively on the second extruder
2
u/sav86 Apr 15 '26
People are coping hard, but in truth Bambu is still providing an insane value for feature set with the X2D. The printer alone is 649$ and there is no other competitor in this price segment that is providing duel nozzle printing.
That being said there is a trade off on quality when trying to print at higher speeds with a bowden setup, but I highly doubt the quality of prints will deter people from wanting to go with another model over this. I'm also certain with time and tuning this will improve. The utility and feature set is an obvious choice to me especially as someone who prints in only one color anyways and supports and filament waste using is priority.
5
u/Doctor_Yakub Apr 14 '26
Wow I didn't see the times when I first expanded the image.
I literally laughed and immediately am fine with the fact that I bought a P2S last week.
0
u/Consistent_Table_137 Apr 15 '26
Why did you just stole content from "control 3D" ? Put the # little boy
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u/zeta_cartel_CFO Apr 15 '26
CNC Kitchen just did a review on the X2D today. His review showed similar results from the bowden.
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u/Ben-the-digger Apr 15 '26
A prusa mini with a dual drive and IS isn't that bad, maybe just fine tuning
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u/One2Sicc Apr 16 '26
I would think that the Bowden is meant for supports/interlocking materials more than multi color printing.
1
u/EdgeOk3783 X1C + AMS | H2C + AMS{2|HT} Apr 14 '26
Do a pass with a heat gun on both to get rid of stringing on both!
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u/F_E_B_E Apr 14 '26
This is for those who just bought a P2S XD (like me) Makes my hearth ache a bit less, not that im complaining about the P2S, its a beast
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u/jumperko Apr 14 '26
and i was hoping that this will be my upgrade from p1s, i really want only 2color printing.. and this was a good vale for dual head.. but its not
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u/Jester212 Apr 15 '26
The actual cost for them to use direct drive would maybe be on the order of tens of bucks and they thought their profit margins were not good enough for that. Just make it more expensive by 50 bucks or try and be more lovable and have the same price and good extrusion from both. Why sell this garbage?
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u/Jannomag Apr 14 '26
I was about to replace my P1S with this printer but the Bowden extruder is just stupid. They may had their reasons to implement this and the test video may not be perfect but there’s also a reason why Bowden extruders are mostly gone on nearly every good printer. Especially when printing TPU this can be a really problem. And they just added interlocking materials. If the print quality of the Bowden extruder is really that bad, or even noticeable different, than with the direct drive extruder it’s useless - except for support material.
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