Bambu P1P vs. Creality K1C: an ‘straightforward’ 3D printer showdown

If you happen to requested me to advocate an “straightforward” client 3D printer, I’d warn you first: regardless of numerous improvements, you continue to can’t fairly hit a button to reliably photocopy a 3D mannequin. Shopping for a 3D printer is shopping for a whole passion, one the place — in case you’re a lazy bum like me — many makes an attempt will flip into nugatory gobs of plastic.

However in case you continued, I’d let you know my one clear alternative for lazy bums: the Bambu P1P.

What, a printer from the corporate that recalled its latest mannequin and whose earlier ones as soon as went rogue? Yep — as a result of not solely did Bambu deal with these incidents with speedy apologies, investigations, transparency, and even refunds, the $599 Bambu P1P can also be completely the simplest, most dependable 3D printer I’ve used.

It makes my stalwart previous Ender 3 Professional seem like a hunk of junk. It makes its closest competitors, the $559 Creality K1C, really feel like an inferior clone. I’ve spent months testing them aspect by aspect, and I’d personally decide the Bambu each time.

Don’t get me incorrect: the K1C is the higher alternative for some tinkerers since its full enclosure, mattress, and additional fan allow you to print greater temperature plastics like ABS in addition to ones bolstered with glass or carbon fibers. (Bambu sells the $699 P1S for that.) And I did efficiently use each the P1P and a pair of Creality K1 printers to supply dozens of objects over the previous yr, together with pegboard mounts, collectible figurines for my youngsters, and these badass unofficial Nerf blasters:

With both of those printers and just a little information of what’s simply 3D-printable, I can (generally) ship a whole plate filled with components to those printers and anticipate them to all end up. 

However if you’d like fewer software program and filament complications, I’d completely level you to Bambu. And I’d advocate you keep away from the unique Creality K1 solely — I spent months battling points that had been immediately fastened once I swapped for the newer K1C mannequin.

I took supply of each the P1P and the unique K1 final summer time, and initially, I assumed I’d be evaluating each to the AnkerMake M5. They’re all a part of a current wave of printers promising an enormous enhance in velocity and smarts. 

However the Bambu P1P and Creality K1 collection stood out as probably the most reasonably priced full-size, full-featured CoreXY printers that declare you may print proper out of the field — without having to bolt collectively a printer body and even tighten belts. And when you can’t “simply begin printing the second your K1 arrives,” as Creality places it, each printers are principally prebuilt, pretuned, and able to go 20 or half-hour after you chop the packing tape. You take away a couple of security items; connect their screens, energy cables, and filament roll holders; connect with your property community for updates; after which press a button for automated setup. 

Every will robotically degree their mattress so your prints actually get off on the correct foot. They tune their motors with vibrations so intense, they shake your complete floor the printers are standing on. That’s intentional — as a result of extra motion ruins prints, and printing shortly creates extra motion, they educate themselves to keep away from frequencies that rattle too arduous. As I alluded to earlier than, they each have CoreXY kinematics techniques that present an extremely speedy, steady bead of plastic while not having to sling your mannequin forwards and backwards on a shifting mattress. 

However the subsequent step is the place the Bambu P1 and Creality K1 printers start to diverge. When it’s time to stay your fishing line of consumable plastic right into a Creality printer, you must thread the needle, pushing a pointy level of plastic right into a tube and thru the extruder in order that the recent nozzle can soften and squirt it out one tiny bead at a time. 

It’s the way in which many 3D printers have labored for years, but it surely leaves loads of room for person error. It feels imprecise: you snip your filament at an angle to get a pointy level, then largely… shove till it feels proper. Then you definitely press a button and cross your fingers that the K1C’s motorized extruder will take it from there. Or manually shove it some extra and hope the filament doesn’t break inside. Otherwise you bodily take away the filament tube, like I at all times did with my previous Ender 3, so not less than you may be positive you’re pushing straight down into the extruder with out binding. 

It might be worse! With the unique K1, the filament pathway was so jam-prone that the corporate wound up designing and transport a number of alternative components through the time I had the printer, and even then, I had some hassle. With the K1C’s utterly redesigned nozzles, I’ve principally been capable of shove filament in with out subject.

However Bambu sidesteps all of that: there’s no needlepoint with a Bambu printer in any respect! Press a couple of buttons, insert uncut, flat-ended filament till you are feeling it being pulled away out of your hand, after which, in my expertise, it does the remaining itself. The Bambu printer additionally robotically cuts off the molten bit while you’re ejecting filament, producing a pleasant clean-cut finish I can effortlessly rewind with out dragging on the printer’s inside components. And, each single print, the Bambu purges that leftover molten filament into what homeowners have affectionately dubbed the “poop chute.” 

The upshot: it took months earlier than I noticed my Bambu P1P jam for the primary time. I’ve even had good outcomes at occasions pushing previous, brittle filament into Bambu printers. With the K1 and even K1C, it’s far much less foolproof, as Creality makes you shove it via a filament runout sensor and a decent bend within the tubing earlier than the extruder can seize it. I’ve damaged the filament a few occasions within the K1C and plenty of occasions within the authentic K1.

And in case you do need to get inside that extruder to repair or change components, Bambu makes it a breeze: its magnetic cowl simply lifts off, and $35 buys you an entire modular hotend with heatsink, fan, heating aspect, and thermistor all hooked up — simply two screws and some straightforward cable pulls to swap it.

With Creality, there are 5 screws you must take away at uncomfortable angles and a silicone sleeve that requires prying, after which you must attain beneath to get at its tiny rear-facing connectors. Chances are you’ll even have to drag out a pair of pliers as a result of the Creality meeting line inexplicably glues these connectors into place.

Thoughts you, you’re not going to be doing that each day and even each month: you usually solely change a nozzle if it wears out, will get badly jammed, or if you wish to print at greater decision for extra element or at decrease decision for extra velocity. For reference, I wound up changing worn components of my Ender 3 Professional’s hotend twice in three years after a collection of messy jams. 

The final motive I feel Bambu is a better option for rookies is the print mattress floor itself: how simply components adhere and detach and the way straightforward it’s to scrub. The Creality K1 collection ships with a clean PEI construct plate that’s theoretically higher for prime temperature supplies and initially gave my components an extremely clean face. However it may be a problem to take away some components until you apply a coating of the included glue stick (the type youngsters use to stick paper collectively), and it’s straightforward so as to add too little or an excessive amount of. I wound up tearing a piece out of my construct plate after too skinny a coating. 

Additionally, with no “poop chute,” I at all times discovered the K1 and K1C dripping tiny undesirable beads of plastic that’d wind up embedded within the backside of fashions until I fastidiously cleaned the print mattress earlier than every use. 

The P1P, in the meantime, ships with a textured PEI-covered chrome steel plate that’s nearly by no means missed for me, no glue required. Usually, my components are already unfastened by the point the mattress cools. You may purchase such a plate for Creality, too, although, and nonetheless be paying lower than the P1P after you’ve each. 

Not all of Creality’s K1C selections are worse for rookies! Whereas its “AI digicam” attaches to the printer at a barely awkward angle, the timelapses it creates are a lot simpler to watch and obtain than those from Bambu’s digicam. I recognize the K1C’s easy twist-to-lock filament reel holder (Bambu makes use of screws), the USB port to load recordsdata (Bambu solely offers you microSD), extra dependable Wi-Fi, and naturally, the massive 4.3-inch shade touchscreen. It’s a lot simpler to reprint a profitable design or navigate a thumb drive when you may truly faucet an image of every design on a display screen, as an alternative of Up-Down-Left-Proper navigating via Bambu’s small text-only interface. 

I additionally like that the Creality comes with anti-vibration toes, though, out of the field, my Bambu prints had extra steady strains and regular floor textures even with out them. The Bambu P1P can also be quieter and may utterly flip off its followers when idle. I’ve typically come again to the Creality K1C after a day away and located it buzzing loudly in my storage.

Each firms have to work on their software program, however Creality’s is certainly worse. Whereas I’m having no actual main hassle with Creality’s personal Creality Print desktop app for primary 3D prints in PLA and versatile TPU plastic, I had main points printing firmer and / or clear PETG. It’s additionally lacking a great deal of options in comparison with rival slicer apps you’d use to arrange your fashions for printing. (A slicer turns a 3D form into printable horizontal layers and spits out code that tells the printer the best way to type every one.) 

You can use these rival slicers, however chances are you’ll have to tune them in your printer your self — some had even refused to assist the K1 till Creality fulfilled obligations to open supply its code. (It appears Creality has now accomplished so.) OrcaSlicer is a well-liked third-party various that does have its personal K1 profile, and it helped me print in PETG when Creality Print wouldn’t.

Creality’s cell app, in the meantime, is gamified to the purpose that I would like nothing to do with it. I simply need a approach to begin and monitor prints, not earn factors for printing fashionable junk! I even needed to flip off app notifications after I obtained bombarded with level incomes alternatives every day, although it appears the corporate’s reduce on the notifications since launch.

However whereas Bambu’s slicer is nice and its app doesn’t have the identical annoyances, I’m not solely positive I can belief the corporate’s cloud. One month after the corporate’s superb apology for its rogue printer incident, I had an analogous subject. I went out to the storage one morning to discover a mannequin I’d printed instantly from its cloud half-finished, caught to my nozzle, with a second midway printed copy of the mannequin on the ground.

I’ve tried to print a couple of different fashions from its new MakerWorld, a spot the place you may supposedly discover one-click prints validated to work on Bambu’s particular printers, no slicing or tweaks essential, however one turned an enormous hunk of nugatory plastic as a result of it truly wasn’t validated. I suppose I may at all times go together with a personal LAN-only connection to the printer as an alternative of utilizing the cloud.

It doesn’t take loads of creativeness to see from right here to an excellent simpler 3D printing future. Bambu’s new A1 collection printers now have utterly tool-less hotend swaps — simply pop the items off. The corporate’s engaged on new sensors that may detect when your filament tangles whereas it’s nonetheless on the roll, one thing that sometimes journeys up each 3D printer I’ve but used. I’ve additionally but to see a 3D printer firm ship their printers with a dry field to maintain moisture out of their filament, however Creality does promote them individually, and it’s positively one thing they might do to get us nearer to that push-button, get-object future! 

(I’m not saying you can purchase an A1: I had extra jams and lower-quality outcomes with an A1 Mini than my P1P, the filament tangle detection nonetheless doesn’t work, and plenty of issues I print are too huge for its mattress. I haven’t gotten to check the full-size A1 since its recall.)

The largest method 3D printers will earn belief, although, is that if firms like Creality and Bambu cease transport them earlier than they’re prepared. I can’t consider the horrible state the unique Creality K1 first shipped in, and in case you lurk in the correct locations on Reddit and Discord, you’ll hear veterans say that the Bambu P1P shipped with early points, too. And I’ve learn a lot of testimonials from Bambu clients who, like me with the Creality K1, had been anticipated to open up their printers to repair damaged issues as an alternative of sending them in for service. It’s a very good reminder that these are hobbyist units, not client merchandise, at the same time as these firms discuss democratizing 3D printing for everybody.   

Irrespective of which printer you’re eyeing, I strongly advocate steering away from ones which have simply launched. Watch for early adopters to iron issues out! However in case you’re itching to get printing, I’m fairly pleased with the almost two-year-old P1P. 

Images by Sean Hollister / The Verge