Bambu Lab P1S Review – The Cheaper X1 Carbon Alternative?

Bambu Lab released the brand new P1S not even a year after releasing the P1P as a cheaper alternative to the X1 Carbon with lots of compromises. The P1S is an effort to provide yet another cheap alternative to the X1 Carbon with fewer compromises. I think that Bambu Lab has looked at community projects like the Vision Enclosure, which essentially encloses the P1P to allow it to print filaments like ABS and ASA reliably, and decided to give the community what they wanted in the form of the P1S. So is the P1S a good 3D printer?

The P1S is an excellent and fast 3D printer that is more than capable enough to print PLA, ABS, ASA, and PETG. The print quality is great and the P1S is even slightly faster than the P1P thanks to the auxiliary fan. A carbon filter allows for the safe printing of ABS and ASA.

I highly recommend the P1S to any hobbyist or small business owner who is looking to print ABS or ASA reliably and fast. Almost no prior knowledge about 3D printing is required to use the P1S.

Most of the pros and cons that I mentioned above are self-explanatory but I think two of the cons require some explanation.

Bambu lab printers have proprietary parts that can not easily be changed with industry-standard 3D printer parts. For example, the nozzle of the P1S can´t be replaced with just any regular 3D printer nozzle. But the replacement parts for the Bambu Lab printers are reasonably priced at least.

The P1S uses the presets of the X1 Carbon in the Bambu Slicer. This isn´t really an issue by itself but you will get an error message that tells you that you chose the wrong presets for your printer whenever you start a print, which can get a little annoying after a while.

Specifications of the P1S:

Main Features of the P1S

The main features of the P1S are its exceptional quality prints and speed. The P1S also has an enclosure, some added cooling, and an activated carbon filter which allows it to print ABS and ASA reliably and safely. The P1S is also very easy to use and requires no 3D printing knowledge to get started.

Here are all of the features of the P1S at one glance:

• Easy to use and to setup
• Fully automatic bed leveling
• Fully automatic z-offset
• Very fast printing speeds
• Exceptionally high-quality prints
• Bambus own slicer with amazingly tuned printing presets
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
• Is fully enclosed
• Has an activated carbon filter
• Very reliable
• Compatible with the AMS (multicolor printing)

The P1S is definitely a printer that I would recommend to someone who wants a 3D printer that simply works without the need to know anything about 3D printing.

The P1S feels more like a tool than a hobby. It does what it is supposed to do without the need for any upgrades, or manual tuning. Plus it is very reliable and needs only minimal maintenance.

It is the perfect 3D printer for passionate makers and business owners alike.

Differences Between the P1P and the P1S

The main differences between the P1S and the P1P are the enclosure, the activated carbon filter, and the added cooling capabilities. All of this allows the P1S to reliably print ABS, ASA, and similar materials that require an enclosure.

The following is a table that compares all of the main features of the P1P and the P1S.

Differences Between the P1S and the X1 Carbon

The main differences between the X1C and the P1S are the hardened steel driver gears, the hardened steel nozzle, the Lidar sensor, the door sensor, and the touch screen. All of this allows the X1C to print more reliably and print abrasive materials like Nylon and carbon fiber filaments.

The following is a table that compares all of the main features of the P1S and the X1 Carbon.

Here is the official comparison page from Bambu lab that compares the P1P, the P1S, and the X1 Carbon with each other.

Upgrading the P1P to the P1S

I didn’t buy the P1S. Instead, Bambu Lab sent me their upgrade kit for the P1P. So I upgraded my P1P to a P1S.

Generally, I can recommend the P1S upgrade kit for the P1P as it is easy to assemble if you know your way around a 3D printer. It might be a little challenging for beginners but still doable thanks to the official video guide from Bambu Lab.

Here is a quick overview of the pros and the cons of the P1S upgrade-kit:

In the following, I will detail my experiences of upgrading the P1P to the P1S.

Packaging of the Upgrade Kit

The upgrade kit is well packaged and each part of the kit comes in its own package.

There is a lot of packaging material but most of it is recyclable and only some parts were packaged with plastic.

Each package was labeled which made it easy to sort the parts and assemble the kit.

There were a few packages that had non-descriptive labels on them like this package that was simply labeled “heavy”. A quick look inside revealed that it was the heavy-duty toolhead cable.

But almost all of the rest of the kit was well-labeled and didn’t cause any confusion.

Each package contained the item for one or two steps as well as all of the fasteners or screws needed to install the item.

Overall, everything was well organized, and each individual part of the kit was easy to find.

Assembly

The assembly process of the P1S kit was pretty straightforward.

First, you need to scan the QR code on one of the many packages. This will send you to the official Bambu Lab wiki.

Here you have to go to the P1S section and choose the assembly guide for the P1S upgrade kit.

This will take you to the official assembly guide where you can also find the very helpful assembly video.

The guide will take you through the assembly process in easy-to-follow steps.

Before you start the assembly process, however, you need to first print the part for the carbon filtration.

There is a warning on the very top of the assembly guide but I didn’t see it. So I had to print the part on a separate printer. If you only have one printer then you have to print that part before you start with the guide.

The part can be downloaded through a Link at the very top of the assembly guide.

Also, the P1S upgrade kit comes with a new front cover that also says “P1S” instead of “P1P”. Which I found to be a nice touch.

I was able to install all of the parts for the P1S pretty smoothly in just 40 minutes. You will need your own tools for the assembly as Bambu Lab will only provide you with the parts and the screws and not with any tools.

Not everything during the assembly was smooth sailing, however.

I had an issue where I had a hard time removing the Wi-Fi antenna PCB from the front cover. This PCB is quite fragile and it took me quite some time to remove it from the front cover.

I also had a hard time installing the new front cover. It looked to me like the front cover should be installed before the side panels and not, as shown in the guide, after the side panels.

Also, make sure that you move the hinges to the front when you install the front cover or you won’t be able to install the glass door because the hinges are stuck behind the front panel.

This happened to me and maybe Bambu Lab should have some sort of warning at this step in their guide. Just for idiots like me.

Finally, there is no step in the official instructions that shows how to install the new cable and the cable chain to the tool head. I had to figure that out by myself. And even though it wasn’t hard it would still be nice to have this step in the guide to help beginners.

All of these issues can be easily fixed by Bambu Lab, however. All they have to do is update their official assembly guide. And none of this is really a deal breaker for me.

Print Quality of the P1S

The print quality of the P1S is simply excellent. Parts are printed very fast yet no artifacts from vibrations are visible on the surface of the prints. Supports can be removed very easily without much residue and even complex organic forms with steep overhangs of up to 80° can be printed cleanly.

The bridging capabilities of the P1S are also top-notch. The printer can easily close gaps of up to 30 mm or more with some fine-tuning.

Here are two prints I did with the P1S in PLA:

Here is a print that I did with the P1S in ASA:

And finally, a print I did with the P1S in ABS:

I also printed most of the parts for my “All White” Voron with my custom-enclosed P1P. These parts turned out perfectly and would have probably been even better with the P1S.

There is no difference in print quality between the P1P and the P1S which is to be expected as the P1S is basically just an enclosed P1P with added cooling fans and a carbon filter.

Print Speed of the P1S

Generally, the P1S is slightly faster than the P1P because of the auxiliary part cooling fan that allows the P1S to spend less time at most layers than the P1P. The print speeds and the acceleration are 500 mm/s and 20 000 mm/s² on both printers.

The reason why the P1S is slightly faster than the P1P comes down to the layer cooling time. This setting can be found in the filament settings section in Bambu Studio and is the minimum time that the printer spends on one layer.

The P1S has an auxiliary part cooling fan that enhances the part cooling which means that the printer doesn’t need to stay as long at every layer. This speeds up the printing time on smaller prints significantly.

Bigger prints don’t benefit as much from this small enhancement.

The P1S is exactly as fast as the X1 Carbon.

All Bambu La printers utilize Klipper, which is a 3D printing firmware that allows for fast and reliable printing.

Klipper uses something called Input Shaping. This reduces the vibrations, that inevitably happen when printing fast, of the 3D printer by canceling its own vibrations with small, not noticeable correction moves during the printing process.

All of this allows the P1S to print at insane speeds of 300 mm/s on average and with a very respectable acceleration of up to 20000 mm/s² while still producing high-quality and accurate prints.

The P1S can theoretically move at 500 mm/s but it will usually only print at 300 mm/s to ensure a good quality.

But this is still about 4 to 5 times faster than most other 3D printers like the Ender 3 or the Ender 5, for example.

What Materials can be Printed with the P1S?

The P1S can print PLA, ABS, PETG, ASA, PVA, PET, and TPU. It can´t print glass or carbon fiber materials and it can´t print PU(Nylon) either because the P1S does not come with a hardened steel nozzle by default. It can be upgraded with one, however.

So if you want to print Nylon or carbon fiber materials then you can buy a hardened steel nozzle and a hardened steel extruder upgrade in the official Bambu Lab store and upgrade your P1S with them.

This will then allow you to print pretty much any type of filament including abrasive filaments like fiber-reinforced filaments and Nylon.

How Noisy is the P1S?

The P1S is slightly less noisy than the P1S with only 50 to 55 dB while printing at max speeds. In comparison, the P1P was at around 60 dB while printing at max speed. This reduction in noise is probably thanks to the enclosure and thanks to the added structural strength from the back plate and side panels.

To put that into perspective, a normal conversation is between 50 and 60 dB loud.

The P1S is still no desktop machine that you can simply run on your desk, it is much too loud for that.

But it also doesn’t have to be. Its main selling point is its reliability, quality, and speed.

Power Consumption of the P1S

Overall, the P1S consumes slightly more power than the P1P. This is mainly because of the added auxiliary part cooling fan, the added mainboard fan, and the active carbon filter. While printing slow the P1S consumes around 170 to 190 watts and while printing fast it will consume between 255 and 275 watts on average.

To put that power consumption into perspective, an average OLED Television needs around 150 W per hour. Depending on the size of the screen.

The power consumption depends on how fast you print and what materials you print.

Low-temperature materials like PLA don’t require as much heat to print reliably so you will generally use less power printing those.

Other materials like ABS and ASA need slightly more power because the heated bed needs to be heated up and kept at a higher temperature.

How Accurate is the P1S?

I already tested the accuracy of the P1P in my P1P review and the P1S is only an enclosed P1P with some slight alterations. So the accuracy of the P1S is pretty much the same as the accuracy of the P1P.

The P1S is very accurate to the point that you can easily print functional parts with a clearance of 0.3 mm or more. This is slightly above average when compared to the accuracy of other printers in similar price classes like the Qidi X Plus 3 which was slightly worse than that.

I also printed this calibration cube and measured the length of its sides. All of the measurements were perfectly on point.

Is the P1S Compatible with the AMS?

All of the 3D printers from Bambu Lab are compatible with the AMS (Automatic Material System) including the P1S. The AMS can be easily connected to the P1S and will be automatically detected. The AMS can then be controlled through Bambu Studio.

The AMS will allow for multicolor prints or automatic materials selection before the print.

It requires no additional software installation and only minimal hardware installation.

Just connect the AMS with your P1S and connect Bambu Studio with your printer. Bambu Studio will automatically connect with the AMS and you can start printing with up to 4 colors immediately.

Bambu Lab Studio

Bambu Lab studio is the slicer software from Bambu Lab. It is a forked version of Cura but specifically set up for their printers.

I am usually not a big fan of simple rebranded Cura copies but Bambu Studio has added their own fair share of improvements so I would not call this a simple copy of Cura.

Bambustudio has very well-tuned presets for all of their printers and all types of filaments that you could possibly print with.

They support Wi-Fi connectivity with their printers and you can control the AMS via their slicer.

You can also see the stats about the current print job, if the printer is busy, and if the AMS is connected then you will be able to see the state and the selected filament of the AMS as well.

You can also monitor your printer via the camera feed if a camera is connected. Note that the P1S and the P1P don´t come with a camera by default.

Overall, Bambu Studio is a well-tuned and very useful piece of software for all of the Bambu Lab printers including the P1S. I highly recommend using this slicer when you print with any Bambu Lab printer.

Bambu Lab App

Bambu Lab also has an app that is useful if you want to check on how your 3D printer is doing while you are not near it.

The app will display the same status screen that Bambu Lab has but you will get a push notification if a print is done or if anything went wrong during printing.

I found this surprisingly useful as I could react immediately whenever something went wrong. This feature alone saved me hours.

Bambu Lab P1S vs. Creality K1

The Bambu Lab P1S is slightly more expensive than the K1 from Creality but you also get a bigger build surface with the P1S, faster printing speeds on average, an active carbon filter, and better optimized presets for printing. The K1 doesn’t have proprietary parts and is easier to modify, however.

The print quality of the P1S is slightly better because of the better-optimized print settings in Bambu Studio. You can, however, easily get equally good prints on the K1 if you adjust some settings in their slicer.

The print speed of the P1S is faster than the K1. This is mostly because of the better-optimized slicer settings of Bambu Studio. Both machines are capable of fast printing with speeds of 600 mm/s and 20 000 mm/s² acceleration.

Both machines can reliably print PLA, ABS, TPU, and ASA. But the Creality K1 can be upgraded with a hardened steel nozzle much easier and cheaper than the P1S. This will then allow the K1 to easily print abrasive filaments like Nylon, carbon, and glass filaments.

Valentin

Hi, I am a passionate maker and professional prop maker for the entertainment industry. I use my woodworking, programming, electronics, and illustration know-how to create interactive props and puzzles for Escape Games and marketing agencies. And I share my knowledge and my experience on this blog with you so that you can become a maker yourself.

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