Looking to finally make the jump from my old Ender 3 to a better printer, I’ve upgraded the Ender quite a lot but have run into multiple problems over the years with custom firmwares. During my last move, I snapped the SD card slot off the main board and have had issues getting the new one back up and running. With all of that said I’m ready to just buy once, cry once, and get back to printing.

The options I’m looking at are either the X1C or the P1S. I wanted to get opinions here, as from what I’ve found so far, the P1S seems to have the same print speed/quality, just minus the AI, and upgraded steel components. How capable is the P1S stock, and what upgrades, if any, would be recommended?

From what I’ve found, the AMS 2 seems to be the ideal choice over the OG AMS due to the drying function and more user-friendly design. It’s $120 more for the AMS 2 combo than the AMS combo, so for those of you who have these setups, is the AMS 2 worth it?

Other than the printer selection, what are your go-to filaments and brands? I’ve seen PPA-CF, PA6-CF, and PAHT-CF mentioned, but don’t really understand the pros and cons of each.

I was a long-time lurker on the Fosscad sub, but I am hoping to contribute moving forward.

  • PhilMeGroin
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    3 days ago

    P1S for me: all I did was swap to a hardened steel nozzle+gears, installed voxelpla detached motion feet instead of the solid rubber pads, switched to lan mode, and got a couple build plates from darkmoon(satin/cfx). I have a separate hs nozzle I wired a 33ohm resistor in-line to up nozzle temps as well, just haven’t installed it yet. I print from a polydryer with the printed 5% air exchanger mod+mesh plastic upgraded to SS window screen on the dryer, so I cant speak for the ams/2. Fiberon pa6/pet/pps

    • RenegadeSCOP
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      3 days ago

      Any recommendations on the nozzle and gears? Also, is there a reason to get both the satin and cfx build plates if the cfx can handle the long range of filament types?

      • PhilMeGroin
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        3 days ago

        I got bambu parts for mine, eventually I’d like a resistance modded black diamond hotend. Satin just gives a smooth effect on the surface that’s appealing for some parts, cfx is the grippiest shit I’ve ever seen with nylons so I use it for precarious angles or no warp allowed situations. I’ve taken to tree support cradle printing as well, so I smear some vision miner on the cfx to extra insurance. Pretty certain it’s just pva glue suspended in IPA

  • Cecilsteadman420
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    2 days ago

    Neither. Get a centauri carbon or anycubic Kobra s1. Bambu labs ain’t bambu-ing like it used to for the money they ask

    • RenegadeSCOP
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      2 days ago

      How does the print quality compare between them, speeds, and how well do they handle CF Nylon and other engineering filaments?

  • ItsBildoM
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    2 days ago

    Elegoo Centauri Carbon, it’s half the price of p1s, can print nylon out of the box as it comes with a hardened hotend, and has an enclosure for $299.99

  • OhN0N0tAgain256
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    3 days ago

    P1S has everything you need! Just upgrade to the hardened nozzles and your golden

    • RenegadeSCOP
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      3 days ago

      Do you have a link to some of those prints? Im still leaning towards the P1S with AMS 2. What nozzle size are people tending to use with PA6-CF, 0.6mm? What brands of filament tend to work best? My knowledge up to this on the ender 3 was just PLA and PETG as I never had an enclosure to try nylon.

      • OhN0N0tAgain256
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        2 days ago

        We started with the V3 SE because my son wanted to get into the hobby (12yo) after all the tinkering and trying to just get it to print switching to the Bambu was an insane upgrade! I couldn’t justify the price point of the x1c or H2D and the upgrades for nozzles were so cheap it offered flex money for filament and other things! Makerworld is super user friendly, the app is hard to pass up as well, being able to check in on prints it’s night and day difference from the Ender line up imo.

  • Aproxie
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    3 days ago

    Look for the micro Swiss diamond nozzle upgrade. You can get a p1s producing better output than a stock x1c. And I’ve got 2 X1C’s saying this

    • RenegadeSCOP
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      3 days ago

      So is the micro Swiss the better option? The hardened steel options from Bambu labs seem to be the cheapest, followed by BTT with theirs that is quick change, with the micro Swiss being the most expensive with the diamond tips.

  • The ShittinatorMA
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    3 days ago

    I’m actually in the position of having used both an X1C and a P1S.

    The TL;DR:

    • The P1S has a 1Hz(!) refresh rate camera whereas the X1C does 24 or 30 or whatever
    • The X1C does automatic flow rate calibration via the LIDAR sensor not present on the P1S
    • The X1C can have x1plus flashed to it, which allows finer control over the printer and, more importantly, optimizes its pre-print calibration sequence down to about half the usual time. There is no equivalent for the P1S.

    Are those differences worth like $400? Up to you.

    • RenegadeSCOP
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      3 days ago

      With X1plus, do you gain any noticeable improvement in print quality from the increased control? Cutting pre-print calibration in half sounds nice, but isn’t something alone I could justify the $$$ for. Do you have any recommendations for the AMS or AMS 2, or are you running a different dryer?

      Also, as I see the name mentioned often, what are 300blkfde’s print settings? I see him mentioned all of the time, but his account, and I’m assuming a backup 300blkfde_New have both been nuked.

      • The ShittinatorMA
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        3 days ago

        No increase in quality, but no decrease either.

        No opinion on the AMS vs AMS2 – haven’t tried the latter. My Nylon setup involves a $60 food dehydrator and a $60 SUNLU filament “dryer” that doesn’t go above 70C but can be printed from. I would advise not running CF filament through the AMS for the sake of its longevity, but if the AMS2 has hardened gears or something then you can probably send it.

        300blkFDE has an Odysee presence – his settings can be found here: https://guncadindex.com/detail/300blkFDE-Filled-Nylon-Settings:c

        • RenegadeSCOP
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          3 days ago

          Appreciate the info, I guess I’ll look more into the AMS and see if it’s worth getting the combo or saving money with the bare printer and going another route with drying.

    • DocHolliday
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      3 days ago

      I just got an x1c this last week, what should I do? Been using it and liking it. I plan to get a longer cable for the ams, maybe get some filtration setup but what I mean is whats a good setup that also is privacy focused. I have it in Lan mode atm. Can I connect it to orca slicer while preserving privacy. Is it possible to view the IP cam on my phone in a privacy centered setup? I was thinking about trying the custom firmware route for sure just haven’t got around to it yet.

      • The ShittinatorMA
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        3 days ago

        LAN mode is fine, but I don’t think there’s a way to get Bambu Handy to play nicely with it, no. But in LAN mode, it should be safe to connect to it via Orca – that traffic doesn’t leave your LAN, last someone sniffed it with wireshark.

        It’s not an entry-level setup by any fucking means, but what I’ve got is my Bambu hooked up to HomeAssistant, which proxies the webcam and lets me view it from my phone along with all of its instrumentation. That plus some HA automations to message me on Matrix when the printer starts, stops, has an error, etc.

        x1plus is good. I don’t use any of its niche features, just like the peace of mind and the quicker pre-print calibration.

        • DocHolliday
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          3 days ago

          Thanks for the quick reply. I planned to have a home assistant setup sometime anyway so I’ll def have to look into that for sure and the quicker print start feature alone would be amazing so I’ll probably be getting that setup too.

  • sparrow0914
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    3 days ago

    X1C owner with original AMS and a separate filament dryer. Realistically, from what I’ve heard from other P1S is probably better bang for the buck. Depending on material, hardened nozzle and extruded gears would be first upgrade. AMS2 does dry, but you cannot dry and print at the same time, or at least I haven’t been able to figure it out.