Hello Robert, I wanted to clarify a few things. The bugfix you're referring to was actually implemented quite some time ago (9+ months), the MK4S wasn’t even in development back then. Honestly, it’s so long ago I did not even remember it. I guess it highlights that we do bugfix our slicer 🤷♂ It seems that the focus on overhang performance in your preview and this video might give the impression that it's the primary feature of the MK4S, which might lead to some misunderstandings. While we’re really proud of the excellent overhang performance everywhere inside the build area, it's just one part of what makes the MK4S special. Features like the high-flow nozzle, which enables MK4S to run laps around most other machines, and the fastest/least wasteful single nozzle multicolor printing, are also key strengths that I’m excited people will explore further. I’m looking forward to seeing your thoughts on these aspects in the future. Thanks for all the work you do!
> A 3D printer is not just hardware, it has software (firmware and slicer). In fact, Prusa sells the combo : hardware + software. Even this is still missing 1/3 of the reality... a 3D Printer is not just hardware and software, it also has consumables. @thejosefprusa's company sells the full combo. @RobertCowanDIY pretty clearly shows that in this video where the change from Prusament to Overture had a very obvious impact in the output quality.
@@ChrisAbbey had an impact on the Prusa. The overhangs, with that filament, on the Bambu looked great. Just like Apple, there are definite advantages to a closed ecosystem. And no doubt the MK4S is a decent printer. It's also worth pointing out that there are any number of slicers other than Bambu Slicer, that can be used with the X1C. You can even use PrusaSlicer with it...
24-26mm^3/s with a 0.4mm nozzle in my opinion is still a bit too low to be called "high flow". It should at least reach 30mm^3/s, 24 is reachable with a cheap bambu clone hotend and 60W heater
This kind of revelead another issue. Bambu cloned PrusaSlicer, but they do not keep up with the recent developments. And the printer is as much software as it is hardware. With Prusa, you get the whole deal, from premium filament, to the software, profiles, and hardware. If you neglige any single part, you get significantly worse performance.
Mikolas, you're absolutely right. But I don't think the campaign is all that good if it really was just a software error that you used for marketing. You shouldn't stoop to this level, not even against the green competitor. Even if it's difficult the way they behave. Of course I ordered the update for the MK 4 because it definitely improves the performance of the MK4. And the print quality has nothing to hide from Bambulab.
I think cloning is not an apt representation. The base code is similar but they are not the same. And Bambu Studio has other features not found in Prusa Slicer. (and vice versa) Both brands have hardware software and firmware advantages. On the software front SVG file type handling is different Multi build plate is non existent in PS Mesh Boolean isn't in PS. Project tab can have build/print instructions, notes and other relevant info about the model Hardware side Lidar can auto calculate flowrate , k values of individual filament if you have an X1C CoreXY for stable prints at tall heights. X1/P1SEnclosed without needing to build it. Consumer friendly multi filament setup. 1 cable and ptfe tube install. A1 series with the eddy sensor for live auto filament flow adjustments This particular overhang issue(bug) so niche that Prusa needed to use it as a marketing/influencer talking point but not explain why like Robert has pointed out and provided a solution. You guys noticed a bug and leaned into it as a selling point for the mk4s but again it is so specific it flew under the radar for BS and OS. You guys have closed the gap and at least embraced *SPEED* as a consumer want. Just know your competition is not standing still. I cant wait to see what else you are working on.
@@herr_rossi69 Exactly, it kinda shows as petty. Bambu and Orca must not be copying you directly if their software didnt correct an obvious bug that was corrected last year. Robert showed an easy fix but ironically it may not even be an issue if people arent complaining about it as 70 degree overhangs is an extreme rarity in most prints.
@@herr_rossi69 We tested MK4S against all most popular 3D printers on the market. We really do not have the time to dig through all of their profiles, and look for mistakes they made, and correct it for them for comparison. We had no idea, they had such a flaw in their profiles, when we were testing the MK4S. And it is imo 100% fair comparison, still today, default profile vs default profile, which is what 99% of users will use.
@@TheMikolasZuza That is correct. I also almost exclusively use the original profiles for my MK4. They simply work. Even if I don't use a Prusament, as an exception.😉 I'm definitely looking forward to the MK4S update.
Awesome video and I hope you do more content on this printer, it's enjoyable to see how you test out how it really ticks. I'm still gonna buy a MK4S mainly to test it since I plan on having a printfarm and I don't think this video invalidates the printer. I've tried Bambu's A1 lineup and after 850 hours it already started showing it's print quality issues even after I recalibrate,clean and swap nozzles. Hoping that the marketing on Prusa's reliabilty stands up to scrutiny.
In Orca, this issue can be fixed by hitting "Slow down for curled perimeters". Also, still in Orca, pay attention to the note associated with the external bridge speed you changed: "This is the speed for bridges and 100% overhang walls" (by hovering your mouse over the box). So not exactly a bug but 2 settings mixed together...
Well, the bug is not correctly identifying bridges versus overhangs. It's SHOWN as an overhang, but applying the speed for a wall. Even though orcaslicer understands the actual overhang percentage (and overlap), it's still applying the speed it would for a bridge rather than an overhang. I'd have to try the 'slow down for curled perimeters', but with the OTHER model Prusa provided, it's fairly sharp, so I'm not sure that would work properly. In short, the two models at least SEEM to be exploiting these nuances.
@@RobertCowanDIY Maybe its because the walls are completely unsupported on the underneath, making the slicer think its a bridge vs an overhang. At steep overhangs, nothing is underneath the external walls.
@@ThisisDD Nice. So it seems strange that this would be a 'selling point' for Prusa when it's easily overcome. Sure, they figured it out in the slicer, but still...
@@ichisaur Correct, but you can see that the slicer DOES think it's an overhang, but treats the speed like a bridge. It should at least be consistent. And as noted, it's been 'fixed' so it's something others are seeing as incorrect behavior as well.
And thats thee reason why we need a competetive market. One puts out something good, and the others have to follow up. The consumer will be happy in the end.
Exactly, just compare what we were doing 5 years ago. To be honest, it's almost getting boring. When I use reasonably good filament on my MK4, I get really good results with the standard profile. I can start the print and come back 2 hours later to have a look. No waiting to see if the first layer is good and still have to make some adjustments. It just works. And we have a huge selection and everyone can buy what they want. But instead of being happy about what a great printer the other one has, there's a petty war going on. It's slowly becoming no fun anymore.
Except the battle between bambu and prusa is more like clown fighting, while true innovation is in some discord server you don't know about. Can't wait for some random company claim they invented inverted belt/live shaft/double shear in a few years when they inevitably become the norm.
@@riba2233 why so nasty? Of course are there some great innovations out there which are not from any company. And no. I don't think that bambu is "the best". That is BS. They are a normal manufacturer and they are not better (technically) or worse then others. They are just a bad company in my opinion. I like prusa way more because they are open source and hackable while bambu still trys to hide their crappy software that spies on you. I mean if bambu would be so good they would implement a bed mesh visualization or 3 z motors to take advantage of the trident style bed, but they only like to patent the 3 z axis. For me that makes the worst printer ever.
Dear Robert, thanks for your great work. I've only recently discovered your channel and I have to say I'm very impressed with your reporting. Factual, objective and at the highest technical level. Looking forward to your next videos.👍🏻
Out of curiosity did you try slowing down bridges on the MK4S as well? Slowing down bridges may have an overall affect on the print quality. edit: I downloaded the model and lowering the bridging speed to 10mm/s in PrusaSlicer to match what you used on the Orca prints will definitely have an impact on the final print quality of the MK4S
That would be indeed a interesting test! X1C vs MK4S on same speed/time on each type of deposition (infill, walls and so on). According the notes on the pieces the X1C took about 25% longer (2 h against 2,5 h)
@@MartinKoistinen I think he meant in the video that the corresponding extra time was spent on the bridges on the top side, which would then have no influence on the print quality on the bottom side
@@MartinKoistinenIt doesn't make a difference. Im currently testing this scenario now, and although theyre not quite finished, the MK4 overhangs are noticeably worse than the X1C. I don't have the "S" kit for the MK4 to test though.
Bambu studio just released an update that appears to be addressing this and adding a smoothing coefficient (no idea what this means yet really). Just thought you might be curious.
@@RobertCowanDIY Would love an update video from you, with a test of the new Bambu Studio settings to see how it behaves in your tests, aka close the loop. (Would also be interesting to see if the defaults they have it optimal right out of the box, or if it needs adjustment for these "niche" overhangs) PS: Anyway... subscribed, love your level-headed approach to testing - let the chips fall where they may.
Yeah, I don't think this invalidates anything in my last video, other than the overhang performance isn't quite as advertised. But it still prints nicely.
@@RobertCowanDIY To be honest, it will influence my decision on buying an MK4S. If the hardware updates don't actually adress any of the advertised problemes, then why should I buy it? Additionally, I don't admire being mislead in that way buy a company.
That doesn't make the MK4s any worse. One printer or another will always be a little better or worse with different filaments or print objects. The MK4 is a very good printer that will give you pleasure for a long time. I am sure that it will continue to be refined. I believe that everything is exaggerated in marketing across all brands. For me, for example, the Lidar sensor on the X1c is another one of those things. Does that make it a worse printer?
@@OmarAdel19i don't think they were intentionally misleading. It still does perform better than the mk4, and since Bambu slicer is just a forked prusa slicer they could be behaving the same but this just looks like a bug that went unnoticed for a long time, that only prusa caught. I wonder how would the print from mk4s look if it's bridge speed was also set to 10, maybe it would look a lot more like the x1c if it had the extra 30 minutes. Though I gotta say I thought the overhangs would look a bit better than they do, they still hang a bit. They do look better than the mk4 but still
If the overhang performance mainly due to a silcer update introduced more than a year ago (2.6.0 vs. 2.8.0 now), how come we are only seeing the effects now with the MK4S?
Orca has had lots of annoying problems with bridges. I'm so frustrated with it. You can't control the internal bridge direction, you can't control the density of bridge placement. This is a nightmare especially since I been working on prototype parts made of PETG which happen to have big flat planes. The bridging logic (I checked the code) wants to align with longest distance with most support points, and spread from there... Not bad right? We... PETG doesn't like that kind of bridging at all. What I'd want is series of short bridges. I really like Orca, and it has Flashforge profile (I happen to use 5MP, hoping to get these parts worth a damn so I can get a Prusa and multimaterial printing). I'm actually very happy with 5MP, it's a good machine...Only problem is that Orca seems to be only with good actual support for it. I'm not counting flashprint.
I would state it differently: At this moment the MK4S has the best overhang performance as a printer's performance is a combination of hardware and software. But this can change if Bambu fixes their software. It is a rat race in which the customer profits in the end, so let the battle continue🥳
@@zackj997 Most people use what they are given right out of the box and will never see this video. For all those people the MK4S will deliver the best overhangs until Bambu fixes the software.
@@zackj997 except that changing that setting will make models print much slower overall. This will probably be fixed soon, but until then, it's tradeoffs either way.
With all due respect Robert... you mean that incorrectly applied speeds on bambuslicer and orcaslicer (having received a warning 9 months ago by Prusa) invalidates the claims on the mk4s performance? I would rather reconsider the machine Im using if I see that the slicer has that level of neglect with such a relatively new product. If that happens when the competition is warning you and giving you the source code... what kind of support and updates can you expect in another 3 years? IMHO that's the spin.
I think every printer performs different with different filament. Could this be a good match with the Bamboo and a bad match with the Prusa? That needs to be tested first and tweaked in the slicer profiles. Never the less, a bug is a bug
Without reading all other comments, I hope you would make Bambu / Orca aware of the bug, or remind them in case they know, so all users of these slicers can also benefit from this being fixed. :)
@@902Boots probably so. Not that we are not landing with a better product than the one before, but it is just marketing it in a way that makes their product look better than the competitors' due to fundemental hardware aspects, which is not accurate.
I was **this** close to getting a MK4S over the Bambu just because of that one feature. Nah, I'm firmly back in X1C territory for my next printer now. It's a shame. I really wanted this to be my next daily driver over the X1. But Prusa have got to get their house in order before I'm back using their machines.
Both are great options, though I’m a BBL convert, my opinion can only be seen as biased but acknowledging what I had having it’s pros and cons doesn’t detract from the user experience of owning an X1C. My summary of being an X1C owner remains the same as the rationale that made me choose it in the first place: I’d rather have the capability and not need it than need it and not have it. The closest equivalent to the X1C is the Prusa XL + the enclosure add on, so nearly triple the cost but not triple the benefits unless larger format is the goal.
@@aeonjoey3d I'm not aligned with either faction; I just want a machine which is a tool and not a project beyond initial assembly. Both printers would accomplish this. But, given I want to print enclosed from day one, the X1C/P1S just is the better deal of the bunch.
Ha, yeah. Once 3d printing became accessible to the masses, it started to turn into any other hobby. There didn't used to be 'fandom', it was people just happy to have successful prints. Oh well, here we are.
I always wonder what the right thing is to do when it comes to reviewing printers on model quality: Do you use the same slicer for all printers? And thus manually create any missing profiles/settings. Or do you use the slicer that comes with the printer? And thus lose out on a "purely hardware" focused review... In other words: do you review a printer based on the package as a whole, or only the hardware? In this case, the Prusa printer was reviewed in the "package as a whole" flavor, and came out on top. That is one of Prusa's big selling points: "It just works"
This is a great video. Thanks so much for doing this. What are the chances you have Prusa and Bambu filament on hand? Could you run the test with Prusa filament in the MK4S and Bambu filament in the X1C and see how they do with their own materials?
I COULD do this, but it just simply shows that their own filaments are tuned to the printers. I did this in my last test with the bambu performing similarly to the MK4S when their own respective filament was used and the bambu was slowed way down.
It was about 30 minutes slower. BUT, that's because it was printing bridges at 10mm/sec, and the layer above the infill is treated as a bridge, so it was VERY slow, as shown in the video. If this behavior was fixed, they'd be very similar.
I'm comparing what a user would see. Open box, install filament, load up a model, slice it with standard settings and hit go. With one setting changed on the Bambu, it changes things quite a bit. That's the test. Without the change, the Prusa wins, but with the change, Bambu wins. So it comes down to a simple slicer setting, which will most likely get fixed.
Prusa got caught adding some spin here, which I think is fair (and not the first time they have done that). It doesn't change my view of BBL as far as which one is the more nefarious and questionable company. Worth knowing where these printers are made, who is playing the patent game, who believes and contributes more to open source vs who isn't contributing back, etc. etc. Flip-side one company has dramatically lowered the cost of entry while raising the bar on quality in spite of lawyering up and getting stuck into a lawsuit over patents. The overall situation isn't black and white but a mishmash of random colored PLA filament recylced together into a doodoo brown color. Among those pros and cons, for me there is a clear winner given I do not want to go back to the patent winter that was 3D printing where we could have had desktop 3D printers 20 years ago. I'll continue to generally vote with my wallet by going with Voron and Prusa where each as applicable to what my current needs. That's my choice of course and while I have deep concerns about Bambu, folks may not share those. I think the conclusion is the same which Robert well emphasizes - one should do thorough research when evaluating printers, as one should do for buying really anything.
Who has Bambu sued and bullied with patents? I haven't heard of any court case, can you point me to one? Which court was it filed in? What docket #. Who is the party bambu is suing? Bambu is open with the Prusa slicer fork Bambu studio is that not enough open for you?Orca is a direct fork of Bambu studio. CoreXY is already open. Do you think they should give away the R&D with the AMS/ams lite? Are you upset Prusa has not open sourced everything too?
I can't tell you exactly, but Bambulab is said to have 78 patents at the moment. Multiple buildplates in the slicer is one of them, for example. Somewhere on Reddit someone once listed them all.
@@herr_rossi69 Hmm the build plates in the slicer wouldnt work as the code is derived from open source Prusa slicer AND orca is a fork of Bambu studio. I'll keep looking but Bambu is getting sued(by Stratasys) but I havent been able to see if they sued anyone.
Do you think she collects the patents just to wallpaper the wall in Dr. Tao's office? Taking everything from others, but patenting her own development like the Sicer improvement? That's not the smart thing to do and one reason why I don't like the company. Stratasys also waited so long until it was really worthwhile. Seems to be common with such things.
I will stick with the one made by the company that builds their machines outside of China, open sources their hardware & software, and pays their employees a living wage.
What are the wages for bambu employees? I keep seeing this talking point but no one every wants to say that that number is? I assume since the Bambu employees arent paid a "living wage" how exactly do they live, eat, survive? Kinda hard to run a company when the employees are starving and homeless right?
@personwomanmancameratelevision It's all sino phobia and nationalism for the EU imo. Bambu uses a lot of automation for their manufacturing so their biggest employee count is with production engineers who, if anyone has followed Chinese wages at all, have started to get paid a lot more than they used to be. I wouldn't be surprised if now high skill roles like that weren't that different from most western countries. Basically, I think it's an argument based on feelings rather than reason. We've no reason to believe it.
If you ever have to print this again, I suggest turning off top layers. They aren't relevant to the test (other than marking the one that points front, which will still be obvious) and that will avoid the time penalty you mention at about 4:35.
Ah, that's a good point. I wasn't so much concerned about the time aspect though, they are roughly similar in the amount of time they take as both printers need to pretty equally slow down for those overhangs and that's the majority of the print. But great idea.
Bambu lab only waits for prusa to fix things before they swoop in and copy and claim it as their "fix" Remember when bambu lab copied a bunch of features from orca slicer and labeled it as "their own creations" while also removing all attributes from the orca slicer team.
Haha, sorry. Whenever I do, my views drop to nothing. I'm not necessarily running the channel just for views, but it's sad when I work on a video only to see it perform 1/10th as well as everything else.
What hideen trick/wrinkle did you apply to make the Bambu look the best in overhang performance? Was the filament for the Prusa also dried as for the Bambu? Enclosure? Same temperatures? Bambu slicer is based on Prusa slicer. Bambu is not developping the Bambu slicer at all - they only integrate spy- and comercial functions. But Bambu is waiting until Prusa or Orca integrate new features and functions in their slicers and then Bambu is going to copy and claim as their own new development. The same did Bambu with their printers - they copied from several companies.
Same roll of filament for each printer, everything was sliced using default settings and generic PLA profiles. I only changed the speed setting on bridges. You're looking for a smoking gun, and there isn't one. Sure, Bambu Studio was forked from Prusa Slicer, but Orca, BS, and PS have ALL made significant changes/updates since that happened.
I call BS. In the previous video the MK4S prints were perfect, somehow they have gotten worse suddenly. How convenient for Bambo. While you strived to improve the Bambo through the slicer, you make no attempts to improve the MK4 slicer, huh… okay.
The only difference for Prusa was the filament. He printed the same model with the same filament. If Prusa can only print well with prusament but bambu can do it with any filament once you get beyond the bug that doesnt look good for the mk4s.
@@No0o0o0o0o0 different filament with the same gcode doesnt work. temps of prusament are usually 5-10C higher than others, sometimes even more. no wonder
Check at 4:09, I explain what I did. The Prusas get sliced with Prusaslicer and the Bambu gets sliced with Bambu Studio (with the bridging speed changed).
Everyone who adds to slicers gives away fixes too. You have to. That's the license. Bambu has added, orca has added, Even ultimaker has if not directly.
Wow, you went trough all this trouble to make this video and don’t even know this bug was fixed 9 months ago. Stop making videos about what you don’t know pls, specially when you go after a company saying they were taking advantage of this bug lol 😆😆😆😆 Also, good luck on hitting the claimed flowrates of the bambu, creality, qidi etc printers. Unless you bump up the temp way higher you won’t be hitting no where close. While the MK4s can actually do it and with normal temps. Edit: apparently bambu slicer still has this issue but that’s all on bambus fault because they actively use code from Prusa and orca slicer wich both of them have this bug fixed.
You seem to imply Prusa did something wrong or underhanded. Did they not release the source code per the open source license? That's all they are obligated to do. Bambu on the other hand give back nothing to the community, and rack up their list of patents.
I'm commenting on the misleading nature of their 'review guide' which was given to reviewers. It clearly states other printers are incapable of these overhangs and imply it's due to hardware.
@@RobertCowanDIY like Bambu, Prusa printers are a combination of hardware and software. This is how printers work best today - with that combination of hardware and software from the same source. If "other printers" performed poorly with the hardware/software supplied, then it is technically correct. Perhaps the implication is yours? FWIW, I own neither a Prusa or a Bambu - so no fanboiism at play in my comments here.
@@UnCoolDad I mention this in the 'Prusa Optimization' section of the video. However, software can get fixed relatively quickly. AT LAUNCH, the MK4S might demonstrate some performance gains, but this will certainly go away as software catches up. That's more what I'm trying to say. And launching the product with this one little quirk in mind isn't going to work long term.
@@RobertCowanDIY in the modern world, competitive advantage can last a minute. In the open source world, a second. As long as what they SAID (not what you seem to think they implied) was factually correct at the time of publication, I see no problem. It is called marketing. If their overhangs were better than the competition using their hardware and software combination - more power to them.
@@UnCoolDad I can see that. The wording in the press packet was a BIT misleading, claiming 'other printers can't do this' and stating it was because of the new cooling fan. That's just not true, but it was strangely worded.
I understand the flaws. Nevertheless, it should be good to test the model with the same G-code on each printer in order to determine the best for overhang.
That could be interesting. I suspect the X1C could run that gcode quite easily as it can do much faster print speeds, acceleration and flow. You'd need two sets of gcode, one optimized for the prusa and one for bambu... I suspect bambu could do both fine, but not the other way around.
Overture and Polymaker are just so-so for me. My gold standard is still Prusament or Bambu filaments. I wish I could find something cheaper that performs similarly, but I haven't had any luck yet.
@@RobertCowanDIY It is interesting for sure how experiences can differ so much. Obviously with Prusament you're buying the over the top best of the best. So comparisons can be a little hard to make I would suppose. Either way, I've personally had GREAT experience with them, but everybody is obviously different! That being said, I'm actually very surprised that the Bambu and Prusa didn't have similar finish quality with the same filaments. Makes me wonder what other tuning it is due, or what tech it's missing that the bambu is employing to achieve it's result.
I'm not sure what you mean? For the prusa printers I used Prusaslicer and for the Bambu I used Bambu Studio, all default settings and the 'generic PLA' profile for both. They're sliced and printed exactly as anyone would with standard settings at 0.2mm layer height.
I really wish Prusa fanboys could provide evidence beyond the theoretical and their paragraphs of "well askhullllyyyy..." that those machines are better. Evidence seems to overwhelmingly point to the contrary.
all the fanboys are rushing. I just see this as nice guys finish last, prusa does the innovation, open sources it, everyone else takes it and expands on it/makes it more competitive
I'm 8 hours late, and they're well and truly here. Reading some of the comments in hilarious. I'm neither a Bambu or Prusa fanboi, got a couple of other brands. If I HAD to choose which fanbase is the worse of the two.... Probably Prusa atm. They were tiresome BEFORE bambu came on the scene, but it was more warranted then.
Problem is is you wrote that it took 2.5 hours for the two panda bear printers but the European printer printed it in two hours. Slow it down to the same speed and then compare. The European look much better.
The extra half hour was due to treating the layer above the in-fill like a bridge, so it went 5 times slower than it SHOULD have gone. Does that make sense? If it printed the overhangs at 10mm/sec and THEN the top bridging at 50mm/sec, they would have been roughly the same time. So it wasn't necessarily faster, it was just a bug that prevented it from printing both aspects at the appropriate speeds.
@@902Boots and wait until they merge/upgrade their slicers? they don't even care to merge and fix simple stuff like this even when warned plenty of time ahead
As someone else pointed out, I should have just removed the top layers. It was just the top layer that slowed down the Bambu. They would have been the same time, but the top layers were being treated like overhangs, and going 1/5th their normal speed, which caused the extra time. The rest of the print was going at the same speed respective to each printer.
It's still a worthy upgrade and of course we have no idea if this was their intention or not. I wouldn't boycott the upgrade though, $100 gets you a better printer, no question.
It is just a matter of engineering doing a couple of stuff to improve the overall performance of the printer and marketing spinning these improvements in a way that skews the consumers to believe the product is better than the competitors' due to fundamental hardware differences.
@@RobertCowanDIY Why did they sue only Bambu Lab when virtually all FDM printers use the same technologies (heated beds, purge/prime towers etc). If I understood one video I watched correctly they even had patented how filament is extruded "along paths in a 3d space" or something such = every FDM 3d printer in existence.
@@RobertCowanDIY They're not required by law to defend it. Many of those patents are many years old, and they only sued Bambu, rather than all of the manufacturers. The government isn't yelling at them for suing late or only suing one business.
I still think a video from you addressing the slicer options for Bambu/Orca would be a good PSA. I loved the ABS-GF video you did, it crushed some of my previous misconceptions and served the right info I needed
Great follow-up. Regarding the idea that Prusa may have been "exploiting" this, it's kind of a perspective thing... Prusa's competition has had about 9 months to incorporate the fix (which Prusa developed at their own expense and gave freely to their competition). And the primary selling point of Prusa over their competition is the idea that they handle these sorts of things so it just works. In this specific case at this time, Prusa clearly outperforms the competition for anyone not wanting to invest years of expertise and tens of hours of time to coming up with a workaround for the bugs in their competition. I think it's great that you provided this info to us, but not sure it's fair to imply that Prusa had some responsibility to highlight that their competition may be able to pull ahead in the future if they implement a software fix.
Except they don't. We've had 4 revisions of the MMU in total, none of which worked for me until MMU3 dropped. MMU2 and 2S released with a bad mainboard 5V rail, which caused it to crash mid print at random. They *never* solved this in those versions, and instead pegged the cost onto the consumer for the next version. Stuff like this irks me about Prusa which has left me looking elsewhere for my next printer. Dang shame too, because I have loved my MK3S+
@@ellafoxoo Not being a fanboy here... Prusa isn't perfect. But we are dealing with a specific case where: - Prusa fixed a thing, - and then gave that fix to everyone else, - and then made a new product that includes that fix, - and then it was implied that they may be exploiting the fact that their competition hasn't fixed that thing to get more sales. The question is not, "did they fix their MMU too?" The question is, was that a fair implication? Does Prusa have a responsibility to disclose that their customer's hardware may be capable of beating them in certain areas if they decide in the future to do what Prusa did months ago? Or is it fair for them to simply market the thing they made, and let their competition do the same?
@@ellafoxoothe MMU has been Prusa’s albatross, and I’ve stayed away from it thus far (my MMU3 hopefully arrived today though). People have gotten it to work with a bunch of tinkering, but it clearly wasn’t ready for prime time. That’s just one case, though. I rather like their design attitude where they continuously improve their products and offer upgrades for older models. Mk4 owners can upgrade to Mk4s; it’s not free but not that expensive either, and beats buying a new printer. Same for the MMU2, that can be upgraded to version 3 as well. Though in that case I think they ought to offer the upgrade at a steep discount.
@@RobertCowanDIYit’s already fixed - enable slowdown for curled overhangs. Prusa slicer has this enabled by default and doesn’t expose it as a setting vs orca that does and it’s disabled by default. The behaviour you’re seeing is by design :)
@@igiannakas that's what makes some FOSS community so difficult: fanpeople declaring shortcomings and/or bugs as "design decision", calling it a user fault.
@@rarbiartit is by design though. I ported the curled perimeters slowdown last year to orca and there was an extensive debate on whether to use the bridge speed or overhang speed for overhang perimeters when over a 90% threshold and was decided that the best outcome would be at that time to use the bridge speed. However the slowdown for curled perimeters mode treats overhang walls the same irrespective or their overhang angle and doesn’t apply the bridge speed. So the user has freedom to choose - if the bridge speed is better, disable slowdown for curled perimeters. If it is not, enable it. Also in 2.2 we’ve got a new perimeter segmentation algorithm for overhangs that improves the efficiency of the slowdown and applies it in a more targeted manner 🎉
And this is what it took I assume for it to be fixed, though looking at their github, this hasnt actually been brought up as a bug until fairly recently.
@tbkowens I mean, Prusa slicer still doesnt have some of the features of BS so all yhings have flaws, and you have to remeber less people are likely to report relatively niche flaws like this.
Enable slowdown for curled overhangs in orca and you’ll get the identical behaviour to prusa slicer ;) Happy to explain the differences between the modes if you fancy pinging me on the orca community - classic mode, slowdown for overhangs ticked or not and classic vs Arachne all influence this. In orca if you want to mirror the prusa behaviour have classic slowdown unticked (classic is the Bambu algorithm) curled perimeters ticked (the prusa algorithm) and any perimeter generator (classic or Arachne) and it should be absolutely identical. Also in the 2.2 dev release we’ve introduced a new feature to better contain line segmentation for overhangs that prusa doesn’t have yet, which should improve overhangs further. Edit: I’ve raised a PR in the orca repo to explain the functionality better, hopefully removing some of the confusion.
Now let’s hope the bridge anchor bug is fixed as well. The ends of bridges on what I believe is interior bridging does not travel far enough to attach to anything. Appears to have appeared in 2.1.0 and still here 2.1.1.
@@joescalon541 I had that issue which was caused by the setting "Don't filter out small internal bridges (beta)". Set it to disabled. That fixed it for me.
@@Tome4kkkkfirstly the wiki is starting to be populated with tips and tricks (I’ve posted a layer height, line width and seam tuning guide in recently). Secondly, yes the tool tips are everything for these settings…
@@igiannakas BTW, with the lack of documentation what I find the most confusing is the Calibration workflow. By that I mean the relationship between BL A1 built-in calibration routines and the "manual Orca calibrations" is completely unclear to me.
On the voron team, I've been working on airflow and cooling pretty steadily for about four years. More times than I can count I've been fooled by a slicer setting difference. Thats one reason why we like the shuriken test. it is printed with 2 vertical shells, no top layers. The bulk of the print is in perimeters, and by timing the overall print we can be sure some setting change isn't responsible for our improvements. There are lots of variables with cooling, and if you want to advance you have to control for them.
I'm running Orca 2.1.1 and i don't see quite the same problem with overhang/bridges. Tested with a file that goes from 60-80 degrees. Although i DO see bridging behind the inner wall, printed with 2 walls and 0.6 bottom layer shell. Working in-between in inner shell and internal solid infill to ensure bottom layer thickness I'm running a Micro Swiss CM2 volcano nozzle and tested with Elegoo PLA @215. I have a part cooler i designed myself that runs off a 5015 0.2A blower @100% for the whole print and 6mm/s for 75-100 degree in the slicer. I have my blower hitting just under the nozzle and the air barely hitting the nozzle, as i noticed it does have an effect on cooling the outer wall of the extruded filament and direct effect on layer adhesion. It's only (educated guess) about 5 degrees at most, but with the variables of heat soak into the filament by how much time it spends in the nozzle from all the movements you will have many matte (under temp) and many glossy (good or over temp) sections on a single print, giving you inconsistent layer adhesion. So to do that i sacrificed a bit of part cooling when the nozzle comes out immediately out of the nozzle. Can't wait to try variable nozzle temps with the new stuff the open source community has been working on
I got corrected the other day saying it was only an upgrade not a new printer so maybe I should correct everyone that refers to it as a printer and not an upgrade, and I wasn't corrected by just a regular person on TH-cam it was one of the big youtubers............. This channel is definitely in my top three favorite 3D printer channels even though I don't think he considers himself a 3D printer channel lol, but The funny thing on launch I didn't see anyone upgrading their printer all I seen was people showing the old and the new printer and on launch you could not buy an upgrade that was coming later but you could buy the new printer that replaced the old printer..........
I just got the X1 and I have not pulled it out of the box. But I did generate a overhang model at 45 degrees and the overhang speed to 20 mm/sec. When I look at the settings it shows overhang speed from 10-50 mm/sec depending on the angle. I changed the angle to 60 degrees from vertical and it the speed to 10 mm/sec. I think the version I have has the bug fixed that I downloaded recently. The version is 1.9.0.18. And it just asked me if I wanted a new version. Good job as usual
That's really interesting! A weird bug for orca, but I do have bridges at 20% speed (the speed I slice with is pretty much as fast as my printer can go accelerating as much as possible, so I do this to make sure those do go slow enough), so this shouldn't affect me too much
So basically prusa is still better and soon bambu lab will do what they do best and copy prusa. Remember when bambu lab copied a bunch of features from orca slicer and labeled it as "their own creations" while also removing all attributes from the orca slicer team.
@@BeefIngot Bambu lab has done literally nothing to push 3d printing. They've made zero innovations and only copied off of other like prusa. They take open source ideas/innovations then slap proprietary labels on it while claiming its "their" innovation. They're patent trolls and are trying to kill all competition in china. 2 years later and they still have yet to contribute anything to the opensource community that they take so much from.
How is it better lol, it obviously printed worse. You are such a hopeIess fanboy that it is sad to read... Now please cope more, I know that you wasted too much 💵 on prusa so you have to justify it somehow lol.
@@LilApe rofl are you joking? They did so much for the printing market, they actually pushed the competition to do something else then release another i3 clone year after year in a race to the bottom.... How can you keep on spreading so much 💩? It is really shocking to read...
@@BeefIngot At least I have experience with both brands. You've never touched a prusa yet you try your best everyday to trash them. Prusa living rent free in your head.
A possibly dumb question.... Is it possible to import the X1C profiles into PrusaSlicer and just use the latest PrusaSlicer for both printers? If that works, it may be the best of both worlds. I don't have any Bambu printers (though I may buy an X1C soon) so I don't know if their profiles are just plain text files like the PrusaSlicer ones or if they changed that. (That was true last time I messed with PS, anyway. My Mk3s is still in a box after my last move.)
The slicers are so much better than a couple years ago. Im curios how much better they can get in the future. Probably the part will get analyzed and a custom print profile will get generated for the part is my guess.
Yep, that's more my point. If the printer relies so heavily on the slicer being slightly better at some things, give it 6 months and that will be an irrelevant argument. Go with the better hardware, assuming the software isn't acting as a detriment.
I came from an Anycubic Mega S, that I’d used for a few years before it died, to a Bambu Lab X1-C, and the first time I printed something with overhangs I was very disappointed to see how horrible the undersides of them were compared to what I was used to seeing off the Anycubic. Nearly everything else with the Bambu looked soooooo much better that I couldn’t believe how crappy these portions looked. I didn’t understand how the old, cheap Anycubic could do them so much better. Now it makes sense. Can’t wait to try this change. Nearly everything else? Not everything else? I was also surprised to see on my very first print how absolutely HUGE the seams were off the Bambu compared to the Anycubic. I haven’t looked into it, but I wonder if this is just due to the slicer, and perhaps Cura just has better seams than Bambu Studio. One of these days I’ll have to see what the Bambu spits out with Cura as the slicer to see if the seams actually look decent again.
Maybe the orca slicer is something for you. With my Prusa, I stick with the Prusa slicer because you can see that Prusa puts a lot of work into it. If I had a Bambulab, I would definitely give the orca slicer a chance.
@@herr_rossi69 I've only had the X1-C since the end of April, and have not gotten around to trying Orca Slicer yet. That is definitely another thing on my to-do list, hehe. Thanks for the reminder.
Just the top off as they recommend. For such a short print though, it won't matter much as 2 hours isn't enough time for heat to really build up and become a problem.
I was wondering if you saw this from the Bambu Studio wiki: An overhang degree of 0% means no overhang. And 100% means an overhanging wall(bridge). So please note that 10% is not included in the (10%, 25%) part, and 100% is not included in [75%, 100%) as well. So in some cases, the overhang of the inclined surface of the model may reach 100% so that the overhang speed cannot be successfully used, and instead, the bridge speed will be used to print. This is related to the model itself, line width setting, etc., which needs specific analysis.
While I think this behavior is ridiculously dumb, it seems to be intended that a 100% overhanging perimeter is printed at bridge speeds. It doesn't need to be displayed (colored) as a bridge to be printed at bridge speeds
@@RobertCowanDIY I agree that this is ridiculous behavior and should be changed asap, there's nothing logically inconsistent. The line is portrayed as a wall, but is using bridging speed. Bambu's documentation doesn't say "the line will be changed into a bridge and then use bridging speed". They only say that that perimeter will use bridging speed, and this is true. The line remains an overhanging perimeter, but uses bridge speed. Note: I am being pedantic by intention. Clarity is very important when talking about this subject. The core of your message is super important and valid, that being that this behavior should change, but clarity is necessary to avoid red herring arguments where people will be arguing about what technically is or isn't a bug
Hello Robert, I wanted to clarify a few things. The bugfix you're referring to was actually implemented quite some time ago (9+ months), the MK4S wasn’t even in development back then. Honestly, it’s so long ago I did not even remember it. I guess it highlights that we do bugfix our slicer 🤷♂
It seems that the focus on overhang performance in your preview and this video might give the impression that it's the primary feature of the MK4S, which might lead to some misunderstandings. While we’re really proud of the excellent overhang performance everywhere inside the build area, it's just one part of what makes the MK4S special. Features like the high-flow nozzle, which enables MK4S to run laps around most other machines, and the fastest/least wasteful single nozzle multicolor printing, are also key strengths that I’m excited people will explore further.
I’m looking forward to seeing your thoughts on these aspects in the future. Thanks for all the work you do!
> A 3D printer is not just hardware, it has software (firmware and slicer). In fact, Prusa sells the combo : hardware + software.
Even this is still missing 1/3 of the reality... a 3D Printer is not just hardware and software, it also has consumables. @thejosefprusa's company sells the full combo. @RobertCowanDIY pretty clearly shows that in this video where the change from Prusament to Overture had a very obvious impact in the output quality.
Gosh, what a coincidence 🙄
@@ChrisAbbey had an impact on the Prusa. The overhangs, with that filament, on the Bambu looked great. Just like Apple, there are definite advantages to a closed ecosystem. And no doubt the MK4S is a decent printer. It's also worth pointing out that there are any number of slicers other than Bambu Slicer, that can be used with the X1C. You can even use PrusaSlicer with it...
24-26mm^3/s with a 0.4mm nozzle in my opinion is still a bit too low to be called "high flow". It should at least reach 30mm^3/s, 24 is reachable with a cheap bambu clone hotend and 60W heater
@@mghumphrey Nah, bambu's overhang performance is awful. You can't defend bambu's heavy toolhead with tiny cooling fans.
This is the kind of investigate review that existing users and prospective consumers deserve 🎉
thanks!
Ditto. Great video!!
Looks like Prusa committed FRAUD with their marketing BS of the MK4S...
agree, you make us smarter, thanks
This kind of revelead another issue. Bambu cloned PrusaSlicer, but they do not keep up with the recent developments. And the printer is as much software as it is hardware. With Prusa, you get the whole deal, from premium filament, to the software, profiles, and hardware. If you neglige any single part, you get significantly worse performance.
Mikolas, you're absolutely right. But I don't think the campaign is all that good if it really was just a software error that you used for marketing.
You shouldn't stoop to this level, not even against the green competitor. Even if it's difficult the way they behave.
Of course I ordered the update for the MK 4 because it definitely improves the performance of the MK4.
And the print quality has nothing to hide from Bambulab.
I think cloning is not an apt representation. The base code is similar but they are not the same. And Bambu Studio has other features not found in Prusa Slicer. (and vice versa) Both brands have hardware software and firmware advantages.
On the software front
SVG file type handling is different
Multi build plate is non existent in PS
Mesh Boolean isn't in PS.
Project tab can have build/print instructions, notes and other relevant info about the model
Hardware side
Lidar can auto calculate flowrate , k values of individual filament if you have an X1C
CoreXY for stable prints at tall heights.
X1/P1SEnclosed without needing to build it.
Consumer friendly multi filament setup. 1 cable and ptfe tube install.
A1 series with the eddy sensor for live auto filament flow adjustments
This particular overhang issue(bug) so niche that Prusa needed to use it as a marketing/influencer talking point but not explain why like Robert has pointed out and provided a solution. You guys noticed a bug and leaned into it as a selling point for the mk4s but again it is so specific it flew under the radar for BS and OS.
You guys have closed the gap and at least embraced *SPEED* as a consumer want. Just know your competition is not standing still. I cant wait to see what else you are working on.
@@herr_rossi69 Exactly, it kinda shows as petty. Bambu and Orca must not be copying you directly if their software didnt correct an obvious bug that was corrected last year.
Robert showed an easy fix but ironically it may not even be an issue if people arent complaining about it as 70 degree overhangs is an extreme rarity in most prints.
@@herr_rossi69 We tested MK4S against all most popular 3D printers on the market. We really do not have the time to dig through all of their profiles, and look for mistakes they made, and correct it for them for comparison. We had no idea, they had such a flaw in their profiles, when we were testing the MK4S. And it is imo 100% fair comparison, still today, default profile vs default profile, which is what 99% of users will use.
@@TheMikolasZuza That is correct. I also almost exclusively use the original profiles for my MK4.
They simply work. Even if I don't use a Prusament, as an exception.😉
I'm definitely looking forward to the MK4S update.
Awesome video and I hope you do more content on this printer, it's enjoyable to see how you test out how it really ticks. I'm still gonna buy a MK4S mainly to test it since I plan on having a printfarm and I don't think this video invalidates the printer. I've tried Bambu's A1 lineup and after 850 hours it already started showing it's print quality issues even after I recalibrate,clean and swap nozzles. Hoping that the marketing on Prusa's reliabilty stands up to scrutiny.
In Orca, this issue can be fixed by hitting "Slow down for curled perimeters". Also, still in Orca, pay attention to the note associated with the external bridge speed you changed: "This is the speed for bridges and 100% overhang walls" (by hovering your mouse over the box). So not exactly a bug but 2 settings mixed together...
Well, the bug is not correctly identifying bridges versus overhangs. It's SHOWN as an overhang, but applying the speed for a wall. Even though orcaslicer understands the actual overhang percentage (and overlap), it's still applying the speed it would for a bridge rather than an overhang. I'd have to try the 'slow down for curled perimeters', but with the OTHER model Prusa provided, it's fairly sharp, so I'm not sure that would work properly. In short, the two models at least SEEM to be exploiting these nuances.
@@RobertCowanDIY Maybe its because the walls are completely unsupported on the underneath, making the slicer think its a bridge vs an overhang. At steep overhangs, nothing is underneath the external walls.
I'm printing the test right now with the option checked and it is looking amazing on the overhang now
@@ThisisDD Nice. So it seems strange that this would be a 'selling point' for Prusa when it's easily overcome. Sure, they figured it out in the slicer, but still...
@@ichisaur Correct, but you can see that the slicer DOES think it's an overhang, but treats the speed like a bridge. It should at least be consistent. And as noted, it's been 'fixed' so it's something others are seeing as incorrect behavior as well.
And thats thee reason why we need a competetive market.
One puts out something good, and the others have to follow up.
The consumer will be happy in the end.
Exactly, just compare what we were doing 5 years ago.
To be honest, it's almost getting boring.
When I use reasonably good filament on my MK4, I get really good results with the standard profile.
I can start the print and come back 2 hours later to have a look.
No waiting to see if the first layer is good and still have to make some adjustments.
It just works.
And we have a huge selection and everyone can buy what they want.
But instead of being happy about what a great printer the other one has, there's a petty war going on.
It's slowly becoming no fun anymore.
Except the battle between bambu and prusa is more like clown fighting, while true innovation is in some discord server you don't know about. Can't wait for some random company claim they invented inverted belt/live shaft/double shear in a few years when they inevitably become the norm.
But mk4s is not even a competition for bambu if we are being honest.
@@riba2233 why so nasty? Of course are there some great innovations out there which are not from any company. And no. I don't think that bambu is "the best". That is BS. They are a normal manufacturer and they are not better (technically) or worse then others. They are just a bad company in my opinion. I like prusa way more because they are open source and hackable while bambu still trys to hide their crappy software that spies on you. I mean if bambu would be so good they would implement a bed mesh visualization or 3 z motors to take advantage of the trident style bed, but they only like to patent the 3 z axis. For me that makes the worst printer ever.
@@MAKEORAMA it is far from better, it is slower (plus prints worse as we see) and much worse mechanically, while being 2-3x the price
Dear Robert, thanks for your great work. I've only recently discovered your channel and I have to say I'm very impressed with your reporting. Factual, objective and at the highest technical level. Looking forward to your next videos.👍🏻
Many thanks!
Love your work Robert, always a great thing to see when someone notices issues and puts in the effort to investigate it thoroughly.
Much appreciated!
This is really great work and a great explainer - just verified the discrepancy myself, kicking myself that I didn't see it before. Bravo!!
Out of curiosity did you try slowing down bridges on the MK4S as well? Slowing down bridges may have an overall affect on the print quality.
edit: I downloaded the model and lowering the bridging speed to 10mm/s in PrusaSlicer to match what you used on the Orca prints will definitely have an impact on the final print quality of the MK4S
That would be indeed a interesting test! X1C vs MK4S on same speed/time on each type of deposition (infill, walls and so on). According the notes on the pieces the X1C took about 25% longer (2 h against 2,5 h)
@@sphxdr Yes, this shouldn't be dismissed. Extra time spent bridging over infill elsewhere means more time to cool the previous layer.
@@MartinKoistinen I think he meant in the video that the corresponding extra time was spent on the bridges on the top side, which would then have no influence on the print quality on the bottom side
@@WilliDurpel think about it harder.
@@MartinKoistinenIt doesn't make a difference. Im currently testing this scenario now, and although theyre not quite finished, the MK4 overhangs are noticeably worse than the X1C. I don't have the "S" kit for the MK4 to test though.
Amazing. Thank you Rob! This is exactly what we need more in the world, not just the 3d printing community! Sub well earned!
Fantastic video! Thanks for following up on this - hopefully this will get it fixed in the other slicers!
Bambu studio just released an update that appears to be addressing this and adding a smoothing coefficient (no idea what this means yet really). Just thought you might be curious.
I saw that! I was actually in contact with them, they moved fast!
@@RobertCowanDIY Would love an update video from you, with a test of the new Bambu Studio settings to see how it behaves in your tests, aka close the loop. (Would also be interesting to see if the defaults they have it optimal right out of the box, or if it needs adjustment for these "niche" overhangs)
PS: Anyway... subscribed, love your level-headed approach to testing - let the chips fall where they may.
@@JacoGr This is an old comment, but I ended up making that video ;-)
@@RobertCowanDIY I saw it as soon as it popped up. Thank you for that :)
Did you do mk4s test in an enclosure?
You don't want enclosure for PLA.
@@stratos7755 It was enclosed in x1c
@@elchavode6479 Yes, but that's a negative for PLA.
Thanks. Still going to get a MK4S
Yeah, I don't think this invalidates anything in my last video, other than the overhang performance isn't quite as advertised. But it still prints nicely.
@@RobertCowanDIY To be honest, it will influence my decision on buying an MK4S.
If the hardware updates don't actually adress any of the advertised problemes, then why should I buy it? Additionally, I don't admire being mislead in that way buy a company.
That doesn't make the MK4s any worse. One printer or another will always be a little better or worse with different filaments or print objects.
The MK4 is a very good printer that will give you pleasure for a long time.
I am sure that it will continue to be refined.
I believe that everything is exaggerated in marketing across all brands.
For me, for example, the Lidar sensor on the X1c is another one of those things. Does that make it a worse printer?
@@OmarAdel19i don't think they were intentionally misleading. It still does perform better than the mk4, and since Bambu slicer is just a forked prusa slicer they could be behaving the same but this just looks like a bug that went unnoticed for a long time, that only prusa caught. I wonder how would the print from mk4s look if it's bridge speed was also set to 10, maybe it would look a lot more like the x1c if it had the extra 30 minutes.
Though I gotta say I thought the overhangs would look a bit better than they do, they still hang a bit. They do look better than the mk4 but still
Why lol? It is an inferior competition to the A1 model...
Great work!
How come the overhang test result for the MK4S turned out worse this time than in the previous video, though?
Filament change. First video was prusament. This is a middle of the road filament. Prusa’s works awesome with their own filament.
@@c0mputer you mean they work bedt with good decent filaments not with cheap stuff, as most printers do
@@ripmax333 That’s not what I meant but yes I would think they do work better with decent filament rather than cheap stuff.
He printed it in the enclosure lol
What an amazing community we have in 3D printing Great video Robert
Thanks!
If the overhang performance mainly due to a silcer update introduced more than a year ago (2.6.0 vs. 2.8.0 now), how come we are only seeing the effects now with the MK4S?
I'd say because the hardware has been improved with the MK4S (cooling, in particular). I just hope they do something similar for the XL.
Cooling performance improvement was the other half of the equation.
Thanks to be so straight and always transparent in your comments 👍🏻
You're welcome!
Orca has had lots of annoying problems with bridges. I'm so frustrated with it. You can't control the internal bridge direction, you can't control the density of bridge placement. This is a nightmare especially since I been working on prototype parts made of PETG which happen to have big flat planes. The bridging logic (I checked the code) wants to align with longest distance with most support points, and spread from there... Not bad right? We... PETG doesn't like that kind of bridging at all. What I'd want is series of short bridges.
I really like Orca, and it has Flashforge profile (I happen to use 5MP, hoping to get these parts worth a damn so I can get a Prusa and multimaterial printing). I'm actually very happy with 5MP, it's a good machine...Only problem is that Orca seems to be only with good actual support for it. I'm not counting flashprint.
where can i download the file?
i want the stl for this model
me too 🙂
I would state it differently: At this moment the MK4S has the best overhang performance as a printer's performance is a combination of hardware and software. But this can change if Bambu fixes their software. It is a rat race in which the customer profits in the end, so let the battle continue🥳
Yeah, I'd agree with that.
Did you not watch the video? X1C is clearly better, it’s just a setting change you can do today.
@@zackj997 Most people use what they are given right out of the box and will never see this video. For all those people the MK4S will deliver the best overhangs until Bambu fixes the software.
@@zackj997if only dislikes still worked
@@zackj997 except that changing that setting will make models print much slower overall. This will probably be fixed soon, but until then, it's tradeoffs either way.
Good fault finding
Thanks for sharing your expirences with all of us 🙂
subscribed. smart reviewer and you give a good fix on bambu studio slicer :D
Thanks for the sub!
I think Bambu Lab watching your video and they just release overhang/bridge improvement in their 1.9.4 release just now
@@kudakudi-jx1ke yep, I just saw that. Now it's an equal playing field
@@kudakudi-jx1ke Yeah, I was talking with them. They did see the video. They were aware of the bug, but it got missed.
With all due respect Robert... you mean that incorrectly applied speeds on bambuslicer and orcaslicer (having received a warning 9 months ago by Prusa) invalidates the claims on the mk4s performance? I would rather reconsider the machine Im using if I see that the slicer has that level of neglect with such a relatively new product. If that happens when the competition is warning you and giving you the source code... what kind of support and updates can you expect in another 3 years? IMHO that's the spin.
I think every printer performs different with different filament. Could this be a good match with the Bamboo and a bad match with the Prusa? That needs to be tested first and tweaked in the slicer profiles. Never the less, a bug is a bug
Is that exact 8 limb overhang test model available anywhere?
Great catch Mr Holmes!
Without reading all other comments, I hope you would make Bambu / Orca aware of the bug, or remind them in case they know, so all users of these slicers can also benefit from this being fixed. :)
Orca know and they have a solution
Another amazing video and honest review I like how you investigate and make sure all the allegations are true. Thank you very much for the review
My pleasure!
Did you use the same slicer for each printer for the final test? I didn't see that stated in the video anywhere.
I'm not sure what you mean? I used Bambu Studio for the X1C (with the 'bridges' slowed down) and Prusaslicer for both MK4 and MK4s.
I assumed the fan was more so to compliment the high flow nozzles not so much for overhang performance
The 'review guide' would disagree with you ;-)
@@RobertCowanDIY probably a classic case of engineering doing one thing and marketing spinning their own angle
@@902Boots probably so. Not that we are not landing with a better product than the one before, but it is just marketing it in a way that makes their product look better than the competitors' due to fundemental hardware aspects, which is not accurate.
I was **this** close to getting a MK4S over the Bambu just because of that one feature. Nah, I'm firmly back in X1C territory for my next printer now. It's a shame. I really wanted this to be my next daily driver over the X1. But Prusa have got to get their house in order before I'm back using their machines.
Both are great options, though I’m a BBL convert, my opinion can only be seen as biased but acknowledging what I had having it’s pros and cons doesn’t detract from the user experience of owning an X1C. My summary of being an X1C owner remains the same as the rationale that made me choose it in the first place: I’d rather have the capability and not need it than need it and not have it. The closest equivalent to the X1C is the Prusa XL + the enclosure add on, so nearly triple the cost but not triple the benefits unless larger format is the goal.
Why x1, p1 is much cheaper and basically the same thing.
@@riba2233 Yeah I realised I said X1C but was actually after the P1S. I can live without a lidar and use my eyes to calibrate pressure advance :P
@@aeonjoey3d I'm not aligned with either faction; I just want a machine which is a tool and not a project beyond initial assembly. Both printers would accomplish this. But, given I want to print enclosed from day one, the X1C/P1S just is the better deal of the bunch.
@@ellafoxoo yeah it is a total non issue :)
As a complete casual watching this, there really are crazy fanboys in every community huh? These comments are nuts. I gotta stop reading them.
Ha, yeah. Once 3d printing became accessible to the masses, it started to turn into any other hobby. There didn't used to be 'fandom', it was people just happy to have successful prints. Oh well, here we are.
I always wonder what the right thing is to do when it comes to reviewing printers on model quality:
Do you use the same slicer for all printers? And thus manually create any missing profiles/settings.
Or do you use the slicer that comes with the printer? And thus lose out on a "purely hardware" focused review...
In other words: do you review a printer based on the package as a whole, or only the hardware?
In this case, the Prusa printer was reviewed in the "package as a whole" flavor, and came out on top. That is one of Prusa's big selling points: "It just works"
RobertCowanDIY the coffeezilla of the 3D printing community 🙏
Ha, I wish. Crossing my fingers for the first lawsuit!
This is a great video. Thanks so much for doing this.
What are the chances you have Prusa and Bambu filament on hand? Could you run the test with Prusa filament in the MK4S and Bambu filament in the X1C and see how they do with their own materials?
That is completely irrelevant
I COULD do this, but it just simply shows that their own filaments are tuned to the printers. I did this in my last test with the bambu performing similarly to the MK4S when their own respective filament was used and the bambu was slowed way down.
5:25, probably bottom one looks best, right one looks worst and left one in between.
how much slower did the bambu print get from adjusting the settings? You said by default all three slicers created a similar print time.
It was about 30 minutes slower. BUT, that's because it was printing bridges at 10mm/sec, and the layer above the infill is treated as a bridge, so it was VERY slow, as shown in the video. If this behavior was fixed, they'd be very similar.
Just so that I understand what was being compared here. Is the "Generic PLA" profile in Prusa Slicer and Bambu/Orca Studio the same?
I'm comparing what a user would see. Open box, install filament, load up a model, slice it with standard settings and hit go. With one setting changed on the Bambu, it changes things quite a bit. That's the test. Without the change, the Prusa wins, but with the change, Bambu wins. So it comes down to a simple slicer setting, which will most likely get fixed.
Prusa got caught adding some spin here, which I think is fair (and not the first time they have done that). It doesn't change my view of BBL as far as which one is the more nefarious and questionable company. Worth knowing where these printers are made, who is playing the patent game, who believes and contributes more to open source vs who isn't contributing back, etc. etc. Flip-side one company has dramatically lowered the cost of entry while raising the bar on quality in spite of lawyering up and getting stuck into a lawsuit over patents. The overall situation isn't black and white but a mishmash of random colored PLA filament recylced together into a doodoo brown color.
Among those pros and cons, for me there is a clear winner given I do not want to go back to the patent winter that was 3D printing where we could have had desktop 3D printers 20 years ago. I'll continue to generally vote with my wallet by going with Voron and Prusa where each as applicable to what my current needs. That's my choice of course and while I have deep concerns about Bambu, folks may not share those. I think the conclusion is the same which Robert well emphasizes - one should do thorough research when evaluating printers, as one should do for buying really anything.
Who has Bambu sued and bullied with patents? I haven't heard of any court case, can you point me to one? Which court was it filed in? What docket #. Who is the party bambu is suing?
Bambu is open with the Prusa slicer fork Bambu studio is that not enough open for you?Orca is a direct fork of Bambu studio. CoreXY is already open.
Do you think they should give away the R&D with the AMS/ams lite?
Are you upset Prusa has not open sourced everything too?
I can't tell you exactly, but Bambulab is said to have 78 patents at the moment. Multiple buildplates in the slicer is one of them, for example.
Somewhere on Reddit someone once listed them all.
@@herr_rossi69 Hmm the build plates in the slicer wouldnt work as the code is derived from open source Prusa slicer AND orca is a fork of Bambu studio. I'll keep looking but Bambu is getting sued(by Stratasys) but I havent been able to see if they sued anyone.
Do you think she collects the patents just to wallpaper the wall in Dr. Tao's office?
Taking everything from others, but patenting her own development like the Sicer improvement?
That's not the smart thing to do and one reason why I don't like the company.
Stratasys also waited so long until it was really worthwhile. Seems to be common with such things.
Why do so many people believe wild conspiracy theories with Bambulab. It's absurd.
I will stick with the one made by the company that builds their machines outside of China, open sources their hardware & software, and pays their employees a living wage.
What are the wages for bambu employees? I keep seeing this talking point but no one every wants to say that that number is? I assume since the Bambu employees arent paid a "living wage" how exactly do they live, eat, survive?
Kinda hard to run a company when the employees are starving and homeless right?
@personwomanmancameratelevision It's all sino phobia and nationalism for the EU imo.
Bambu uses a lot of automation for their manufacturing so their biggest employee count is with production engineers who, if anyone has followed Chinese wages at all, have started to get paid a lot more than they used to be.
I wouldn't be surprised if now high skill roles like that weren't that different from most western countries.
Basically, I think it's an argument based on feelings rather than reason. We've no reason to believe it.
Can you post Bambu employee wages?
Haha here you go with the same stupld argument again lol...
Holy Virtue Signaling Batman!!!
If you ever have to print this again, I suggest turning off top layers. They aren't relevant to the test (other than marking the one that points front, which will still be obvious) and that will avoid the time penalty you mention at about 4:35.
Ah, that's a good point. I wasn't so much concerned about the time aspect though, they are roughly similar in the amount of time they take as both printers need to pretty equally slow down for those overhangs and that's the majority of the print. But great idea.
So why didn't Bambu catch this? They can't read release notes? They wait a few months before updating Bambu slicer? What's the deal?
Bambu lab only waits for prusa to fix things before they swoop in and copy and claim it as their "fix"
Remember when bambu lab copied a bunch of features from orca slicer and labeled it as "their own creations" while also removing all attributes from the orca slicer team.
@@LilApe and they will call it the X1CS 🤣
@@LilApeyou just spread falsehoods everywhere don't you
@@BeefIngot Go cry in your corner like you always do.
Drop some combat robots content too
Haha, sorry. Whenever I do, my views drop to nothing. I'm not necessarily running the channel just for views, but it's sad when I work on a video only to see it perform 1/10th as well as everything else.
What hideen trick/wrinkle did you apply to make the Bambu look the best in overhang performance? Was the filament for the Prusa also dried as for the Bambu? Enclosure? Same temperatures?
Bambu slicer is based on Prusa slicer. Bambu is not developping the Bambu slicer at all - they only integrate spy- and comercial functions. But Bambu is waiting until Prusa or Orca integrate new features and functions in their slicers and then Bambu is going to copy and claim as their own new development. The same did Bambu with their printers - they copied from several companies.
Same roll of filament for each printer, everything was sliced using default settings and generic PLA profiles. I only changed the speed setting on bridges. You're looking for a smoking gun, and there isn't one. Sure, Bambu Studio was forked from Prusa Slicer, but Orca, BS, and PS have ALL made significant changes/updates since that happened.
And thank you very much for another great video
Glad you enjoyed it
I call BS. In the previous video the MK4S prints were perfect, somehow they have gotten worse suddenly. How convenient for Bambo. While you strived to improve the Bambo through the slicer, you make no attempts to improve the MK4 slicer, huh… okay.
The only difference for Prusa was the filament. He printed the same model with the same filament. If Prusa can only print well with prusament but bambu can do it with any filament once you get beyond the bug that doesnt look good for the mk4s.
@@No0o0o0o0o0 different filament with the same gcode doesnt work. temps of prusament are usually 5-10C higher than others, sometimes even more. no wonder
Seems like a no-brainer to do a test where you slice on prusa and print on bamboo, no? Or am I missing something glaringly obvious?
Check at 4:09, I explain what I did. The Prusas get sliced with Prusaslicer and the Bambu gets sliced with Bambu Studio (with the bridging speed changed).
@@RobertCowanDIY Yea, but it's all just gcode. Swap the slicers. Ya know, for science. :)
@@GeorgeGraves Not a bad idea.
@@RobertCowanDIY Are you kidding me? All my idea are good. I'm a good idea factory. I even poop good ideas.
@@GeorgeGraves HAHA. I'm sure there will be some issues with the 'start gcode' though, the bambu probably has some routines it runs.
Prusa is too nice giving away these fixes for free at their expense
Everyone who adds to slicers gives away fixes too. You have to. That's the license.
Bambu has added, orca has added, Even ultimaker has if not directly.
Wow, you went trough all this trouble to make this video and don’t even know this bug was fixed 9 months ago. Stop making videos about what you don’t know pls, specially when you go after a company saying they were taking advantage of this bug lol 😆😆😆😆
Also, good luck on hitting the claimed flowrates of the bambu, creality, qidi etc printers. Unless you bump up the temp way higher you won’t be hitting no where close. While the MK4s can actually do it and with normal temps.
Edit: apparently bambu slicer still has this issue but that’s all on bambus fault because they actively use code from Prusa and orca slicer wich both of them have this bug fixed.
Cringe comment
You seem to imply Prusa did something wrong or underhanded. Did they not release the source code per the open source license? That's all they are obligated to do. Bambu on the other hand give back nothing to the community, and rack up their list of patents.
I'm commenting on the misleading nature of their 'review guide' which was given to reviewers. It clearly states other printers are incapable of these overhangs and imply it's due to hardware.
@@RobertCowanDIY like Bambu, Prusa printers are a combination of hardware and software. This is how printers work best today - with that combination of hardware and software from the same source. If "other printers" performed poorly with the hardware/software supplied, then it is technically correct. Perhaps the implication is yours? FWIW, I own neither a Prusa or a Bambu - so no fanboiism at play in my comments here.
@@UnCoolDad I mention this in the 'Prusa Optimization' section of the video. However, software can get fixed relatively quickly. AT LAUNCH, the MK4S might demonstrate some performance gains, but this will certainly go away as software catches up. That's more what I'm trying to say. And launching the product with this one little quirk in mind isn't going to work long term.
@@RobertCowanDIY in the modern world, competitive advantage can last a minute. In the open source world, a second. As long as what they SAID (not what you seem to think they implied) was factually correct at the time of publication, I see no problem. It is called marketing. If their overhangs were better than the competition using their hardware and software combination - more power to them.
@@UnCoolDad I can see that. The wording in the press packet was a BIT misleading, claiming 'other printers can't do this' and stating it was because of the new cooling fan. That's just not true, but it was strangely worded.
I understand the flaws. Nevertheless, it should be good to test the model with the same G-code on each printer in order to determine the best for overhang.
That could be interesting. I suspect the X1C could run that gcode quite easily as it can do much faster print speeds, acceleration and flow. You'd need two sets of gcode, one optimized for the prusa and one for bambu... I suspect bambu could do both fine, but not the other way around.
So confused about calling overture mediocre... they're basically just another brand of Polymaker
Overture and Polymaker are just so-so for me. My gold standard is still Prusament or Bambu filaments. I wish I could find something cheaper that performs similarly, but I haven't had any luck yet.
@@RobertCowanDIY It is interesting for sure how experiences can differ so much. Obviously with Prusament you're buying the over the top best of the best. So comparisons can be a little hard to make I would suppose. Either way, I've personally had GREAT experience with them, but everybody is obviously different!
That being said, I'm actually very surprised that the Bambu and Prusa didn't have similar finish quality with the same filaments. Makes me wonder what other tuning it is due, or what tech it's missing that the bambu is employing to achieve it's result.
I will not agree here become you didn't show what slicer you used in the video.
I'm not sure what you mean? For the prusa printers I used Prusaslicer and for the Bambu I used Bambu Studio, all default settings and the 'generic PLA' profile for both. They're sliced and printed exactly as anyone would with standard settings at 0.2mm layer height.
I really wish Prusa fanboys could provide evidence beyond the theoretical and their paragraphs of "well askhullllyyyy..." that those machines are better. Evidence seems to overwhelmingly point to the contrary.
Just waiting for the prusa fanboys to rush in...
or bambu fanboy like you.
@@Neo1983m I own both, both are great. Sounding like a prusa fanboy, too.
all the fanboys are rushing.
I just see this as nice guys finish last, prusa does the innovation, open sources it, everyone else takes it and expands on it/makes it more competitive
I'm 8 hours late, and they're well and truly here. Reading some of the comments in hilarious.
I'm neither a Bambu or Prusa fanboi, got a couple of other brands. If I HAD to choose which fanbase is the worse of the two.... Probably Prusa atm. They were tiresome BEFORE bambu came on the scene, but it was more warranted then.
Problem is is you wrote that it took 2.5 hours for the two panda bear printers but the European printer printed it in two hours. Slow it down to the same speed and then compare. The European look much better.
The extra half hour was due to treating the layer above the in-fill like a bridge, so it went 5 times slower than it SHOULD have gone. Does that make sense? If it printed the overhangs at 10mm/sec and THEN the top bridging at 50mm/sec, they would have been roughly the same time. So it wasn't necessarily faster, it was just a bug that prevented it from printing both aspects at the appropriate speeds.
Damn. They used a software bug to get a leg up?
That's scummy.
I'm not saying they did, but there was some potential for it. But more importantly, if the bug gets fixed, the gap in performance goes away.
@@avaviel they said what their printer can do. Are they expected to check the competitors software for bugs before they make any claims? 😂
@@902Boots and wait until they merge/upgrade their slicers? they don't even care to merge and fix simple stuff like this even when warned plenty of time ahead
It would have been more accurate to slow down printing in Prusa Slicer too.
As someone else pointed out, I should have just removed the top layers. It was just the top layer that slowed down the Bambu. They would have been the same time, but the top layers were being treated like overhangs, and going 1/5th their normal speed, which caused the extra time. The rest of the print was going at the same speed respective to each printer.
This is really shady. Seems like they're getting desperate for cash. I have an MK4 for I'm not sure if I'll do the upgrade now.
It's still a worthy upgrade and of course we have no idea if this was their intention or not. I wouldn't boycott the upgrade though, $100 gets you a better printer, no question.
100 usd - great price! The upgrade is a no-brainer. 😊
@@RobertCowanDIY perhaps I was too quick to grab the pitch fork. It does appear to improve the performance of the MK4 and for fairly cheap.
@@JorgePetsas after thinking it over, I think I'll give it a go.
It is just a matter of engineering doing a couple of stuff to improve the overall performance of the printer and marketing spinning these improvements in a way that skews the consumers to believe the product is better than the competitors' due to fundamental hardware differences.
Waiting for the prusa fanboys to come defend. Even stratasys knows Prusa won’t survive for long and didn’t bother suing them.
That's not at all how lawsuits work. If the IP-holder knows their patent is being infringed, they're required by law to defend it.
@@RobertCowanDIY Why did they sue only Bambu Lab when virtually all FDM printers use the same technologies (heated beds, purge/prime towers etc). If I understood one video I watched correctly they even had patented how filament is extruded "along paths in a 3d space" or something such = every FDM 3d printer in existence.
@@RobertCowanDIY They're not required by law to defend it. Many of those patents are many years old, and they only sued Bambu, rather than all of the manufacturers. The government isn't yelling at them for suing late or only suing one business.
@@atnfn It's probably because Bambu is the only company trying to also patent a bunch of stuff. Their success probably also plays a part
Alright comrad Zack
Nicely done. I was going to make a follow-up video on this, but I don't think I need to. You pretty much covered it.
I still think a video from you addressing the slicer options for Bambu/Orca would be a good PSA. I loved the ABS-GF video you did, it crushed some of my previous misconceptions and served the right info I needed
Great follow-up. Regarding the idea that Prusa may have been "exploiting" this, it's kind of a perspective thing... Prusa's competition has had about 9 months to incorporate the fix (which Prusa developed at their own expense and gave freely to their competition). And the primary selling point of Prusa over their competition is the idea that they handle these sorts of things so it just works.
In this specific case at this time, Prusa clearly outperforms the competition for anyone not wanting to invest years of expertise and tens of hours of time to coming up with a workaround for the bugs in their competition. I think it's great that you provided this info to us, but not sure it's fair to imply that Prusa had some responsibility to highlight that their competition may be able to pull ahead in the future if they implement a software fix.
Except they don't. We've had 4 revisions of the MMU in total, none of which worked for me until MMU3 dropped. MMU2 and 2S released with a bad mainboard 5V rail, which caused it to crash mid print at random. They *never* solved this in those versions, and instead pegged the cost onto the consumer for the next version. Stuff like this irks me about Prusa which has left me looking elsewhere for my next printer. Dang shame too, because I have loved my MK3S+
@@ellafoxoo Not being a fanboy here... Prusa isn't perfect. But we are dealing with a specific case where:
- Prusa fixed a thing,
- and then gave that fix to everyone else,
- and then made a new product that includes that fix,
- and then it was implied that they may be exploiting the fact that their competition hasn't fixed that thing to get more sales.
The question is not, "did they fix their MMU too?" The question is, was that a fair implication? Does Prusa have a responsibility to disclose that their customer's hardware may be capable of beating them in certain areas if they decide in the future to do what Prusa did months ago? Or is it fair for them to simply market the thing they made, and let their competition do the same?
@@ellafoxoothe MMU has been Prusa’s albatross, and I’ve stayed away from it thus far (my MMU3 hopefully arrived today though). People have gotten it to work with a bunch of tinkering, but it clearly wasn’t ready for prime time.
That’s just one case, though. I rather like their design attitude where they continuously improve their products and offer upgrades for older models. Mk4 owners can upgrade to Mk4s; it’s not free but not that expensive either, and beats buying a new printer. Same for the MMU2, that can be upgraded to version 3 as well. Though in that case I think they ought to offer the upgrade at a steep discount.
One thing I love about Orca; the community will have this fixed ASAP. Looking forward to the revision
I would suspect it will get fixed pretty quickly!
@@RobertCowanDIYit’s already fixed - enable slowdown for curled overhangs. Prusa slicer has this enabled by default and doesn’t expose it as a setting vs orca that does and it’s disabled by default. The behaviour you’re seeing is by design :)
@@igiannakas that's what makes some FOSS community so difficult: fanpeople declaring shortcomings and/or bugs as "design decision", calling it a user fault.
@@rarbiartit is by design though. I ported the curled perimeters slowdown last year to orca and there was an extensive debate on whether to use the bridge speed or overhang speed for overhang perimeters when over a 90% threshold and was decided that the best outcome would be at that time to use the bridge speed.
However the slowdown for curled perimeters mode treats overhang walls the same irrespective or their overhang angle and doesn’t apply the bridge speed.
So the user has freedom to choose - if the bridge speed is better, disable slowdown for curled perimeters. If it is not, enable it.
Also in 2.2 we’ve got a new perimeter segmentation algorithm for overhangs that improves the efficiency of the slowdown and applies it in a more targeted manner 🎉
@@igiannakas then the default parameters for users like me are just better in Prusaslicer than in Orca. TIL.
ive been pointing this out for months in discord servers. glad someone finally made a video on it.
And this is what it took I assume for it to be fixed, though looking at their github, this hasnt actually been brought up as a bug until fairly recently.
@@BeefIngot Absolutely bonkers. Well, hopefully all of the slicers continue to get better.
@tbkowens I mean, Prusa slicer still doesnt have some of the features of BS so all yhings have flaws, and you have to remeber less people are likely to report relatively niche flaws like this.
Enable slowdown for curled overhangs in orca and you’ll get the identical behaviour to prusa slicer ;)
Happy to explain the differences between the modes if you fancy pinging me on the orca community - classic mode, slowdown for overhangs ticked or not and classic vs Arachne all influence this.
In orca if you want to mirror the prusa behaviour have classic slowdown unticked (classic is the Bambu algorithm) curled perimeters ticked (the prusa algorithm) and any perimeter generator (classic or Arachne) and it should be absolutely identical.
Also in the 2.2 dev release we’ve introduced a new feature to better contain line segmentation for overhangs that prusa doesn’t have yet, which should improve overhangs further.
Edit: I’ve raised a PR in the orca repo to explain the functionality better, hopefully removing some of the confusion.
Now let’s hope the bridge anchor bug is fixed as well. The ends of bridges on what I believe is interior bridging does not travel far enough to attach to anything. Appears to have appeared in 2.1.0 and still here 2.1.1.
@@joescalon541 I had that issue which was caused by the setting "Don't filter out small internal bridges (beta)". Set it to disabled. That fixed it for me.
Explain how? Orca has no proper wiki? Do you mean in-UI tooltips?
@@Tome4kkkkfirstly the wiki is starting to be populated with tips and tricks (I’ve posted a layer height, line width and seam tuning guide in recently). Secondly, yes the tool tips are everything for these settings…
@@igiannakas BTW, with the lack of documentation what I find the most confusing is the Calibration workflow. By that I mean the relationship between BL A1 built-in calibration routines and the "manual Orca calibrations" is completely unclear to me.
Outstanding work digging into this! Thank you. This helps explains a lot of the challenges I've had with overhangs in some of my designs.
On the voron team, I've been working on airflow and cooling pretty steadily for about four years. More times than I can count I've been fooled by a slicer setting difference.
Thats one reason why we like the shuriken test. it is printed with 2 vertical shells, no top layers. The bulk of the print is in perimeters, and by timing the overall print we can be sure some setting change isn't responsible for our improvements.
There are lots of variables with cooling, and if you want to advance you have to control for them.
I'm running Orca 2.1.1 and i don't see quite the same problem with overhang/bridges. Tested with a file that goes from 60-80 degrees. Although i DO see bridging behind the inner wall, printed with 2 walls and 0.6 bottom layer shell. Working in-between in inner shell and internal solid infill to ensure bottom layer thickness
I'm running a Micro Swiss CM2 volcano nozzle and tested with Elegoo PLA @215. I have a part cooler i designed myself that runs off a 5015 0.2A blower @100% for the whole print and 6mm/s for 75-100 degree in the slicer. I have my blower hitting just under the nozzle and the air barely hitting the nozzle, as i noticed it does have an effect on cooling the outer wall of the extruded filament and direct effect on layer adhesion. It's only (educated guess) about 5 degrees at most, but with the variables of heat soak into the filament by how much time it spends in the nozzle from all the movements you will have many matte (under temp) and many glossy (good or over temp) sections on a single print, giving you inconsistent layer adhesion. So to do that i sacrificed a bit of part cooling when the nozzle comes out immediately out of the nozzle.
Can't wait to try variable nozzle temps with the new stuff the open source community has been working on
I got corrected the other day saying it was only an upgrade not a new printer so maybe I should correct everyone that refers to it as a printer and not an upgrade, and I wasn't corrected by just a regular person on TH-cam it was one of the big youtubers............. This channel is definitely in my top three favorite 3D printer channels even though I don't think he considers himself a 3D printer channel lol, but The funny thing on launch I didn't see anyone upgrading their printer all I seen was people showing the old and the new printer and on launch you could not buy an upgrade that was coming later but you could buy the new printer that replaced the old printer..........
Thanks! Like, comment, subscribe and tell your friends!
Hello, can you add a link to the test model in the video description please ?
Thanks for the follow up video!
You bet!
Another great unbiased video - thank you!
Much appreciated!
Has anyone tried gimballing the whole printer and changing it's orientation for overhangs?
Cura gang anyone? How does Cura slice this?
is this a case of nice guys finish last?
It seems that both the X1C and the Mk4 where enclosed, not like the Mk4S. It can be a reason of the disapointing result.
Potentially, the MK4 enclosure doesn't really have a fan for venting. I did leave the doors open though. But it's not a 1:1 comparison, agreed.
So what were the relative print times?
Can you use Prusaslicer for the Bambu printer? That would be the best comparison,right?
Hum, maybe? Give Bambu a month, I bet it will get fixed.
yes you can find many profiles on printables if you'd want
@@RobertCowanDIY Right, but, to @JWF111's point, what other differences in the gcode might there be. You found one.
Does anyone know where to get the file used in this video??? Thx
Check my other video on the MK4S, there's a google drive link to the models.
Great finding 👏🏻 most probably this will lead to better slicers in the near future
I just got the X1 and I have not pulled it out of the box. But I did generate a overhang model at 45 degrees and the overhang speed to 20 mm/sec. When I look at the settings it shows overhang speed from 10-50 mm/sec depending on the angle. I changed the angle to 60 degrees from vertical and it the speed to 10 mm/sec. I think the version I have has the bug fixed that I downloaded recently. The version is 1.9.0.18. And it just asked me if I wanted a new version.
Good job as usual
That's really interesting!
A weird bug for orca, but I do have bridges at 20% speed (the speed I slice with is pretty much as fast as my printer can go accelerating as much as possible, so I do this to make sure those do go slow enough), so this shouldn't affect me too much
I am surprised by the thorough investigation into the bridge speeds with different slicers, very well done.
Hi Robert, where is the stl for this test located?? I would like to try it myself!!! Thx
👍👍👍👍👍👍 thank you Robert for this very insightful update.
Great work! appreciate you doing the experiments and sharing the info!
So basically prusa is still better and soon bambu lab will do what they do best and copy prusa.
Remember when bambu lab copied a bunch of features from orca slicer and labeled it as "their own creations" while also removing all attributes from the orca slicer team.
You spread so many baseless falsehoods about a company that has done a lot for 3d printing. I've never gotten the hate
@@BeefIngot Bambu lab has done literally nothing to push 3d printing. They've made zero innovations and only copied off of other like prusa. They take open source ideas/innovations then slap proprietary labels on it while claiming its "their" innovation. They're patent trolls and are trying to kill all competition in china.
2 years later and they still have yet to contribute anything to the opensource community that they take so much from.
How is it better lol, it obviously printed worse. You are such a hopeIess fanboy that it is sad to read... Now please cope more, I know that you wasted too much 💵 on prusa so you have to justify it somehow lol.
@@LilApe rofl are you joking? They did so much for the printing market, they actually pushed the competition to do something else then release another i3 clone year after year in a race to the bottom.... How can you keep on spreading so much 💩? It is really shocking to read...
@@BeefIngot At least I have experience with both brands. You've never touched a prusa yet you try your best everyday to trash them. Prusa living rent free in your head.
This is a fantastic investigation thank you!!
A possibly dumb question.... Is it possible to import the X1C profiles into PrusaSlicer and just use the latest PrusaSlicer for both printers? If that works, it may be the best of both worlds.
I don't have any Bambu printers (though I may buy an X1C soon) so I don't know if their profiles are just plain text files like the PrusaSlicer ones or if they changed that. (That was true last time I messed with PS, anyway. My Mk3s is still in a box after my last move.)
i've done it before but it definitely feels a bit janky
haha good catch.
The slicers are so much better than a couple years ago. Im curios how much better they can get in the future.
Probably the part will get analyzed and a custom print profile will get generated for the part is my guess.
Yep, that's more my point. If the printer relies so heavily on the slicer being slightly better at some things, give it 6 months and that will be an irrelevant argument. Go with the better hardware, assuming the software isn't acting as a detriment.
Excellent info, thanks for posting!
I came from an Anycubic Mega S, that I’d used for a few years before it died, to a Bambu Lab X1-C, and the first time I printed something with overhangs I was very disappointed to see how horrible the undersides of them were compared to what I was used to seeing off the Anycubic. Nearly everything else with the Bambu looked soooooo much better that I couldn’t believe how crappy these portions looked. I didn’t understand how the old, cheap Anycubic could do them so much better. Now it makes sense. Can’t wait to try this change.
Nearly everything else? Not everything else? I was also surprised to see on my very first print how absolutely HUGE the seams were off the Bambu compared to the Anycubic. I haven’t looked into it, but I wonder if this is just due to the slicer, and perhaps Cura just has better seams than Bambu Studio. One of these days I’ll have to see what the Bambu spits out with Cura as the slicer to see if the seams actually look decent again.
Maybe the orca slicer is something for you.
With my Prusa, I stick with the Prusa slicer because you can see that Prusa puts a lot of work into it.
If I had a Bambulab, I would definitely give the orca slicer a chance.
@@herr_rossi69 I've only had the X1-C since the end of April, and have not gotten around to trying Orca Slicer yet. That is definitely another thing on my to-do list, hehe. Thanks for the reminder.
Very good job 👍
Door and top open on the X1C?
Just the top off as they recommend. For such a short print though, it won't matter much as 2 hours isn't enough time for heat to really build up and become a problem.
I was wondering if you saw this from the Bambu Studio wiki:
An overhang degree of 0% means no overhang. And 100% means an overhanging wall(bridge). So please note that 10% is not included in the (10%, 25%) part, and 100% is not included in [75%, 100%) as well.
So in some cases, the overhang of the inclined surface of the model may reach 100% so that the overhang speed cannot be successfully used, and instead, the bridge speed will be used to print. This is related to the model itself, line width setting, etc., which needs specific analysis.
While I think this behavior is ridiculously dumb, it seems to be intended that a 100% overhanging perimeter is printed at bridge speeds. It doesn't need to be displayed (colored) as a bridge to be printed at bridge speeds
Understood, but it shows the feature type as an overhang, but applies the speed for a bridge. It's either a bridge or an overhang, it can't be both.
@@RobertCowanDIY I agree that this is ridiculous behavior and should be changed asap, there's nothing logically inconsistent. The line is portrayed as a wall, but is using bridging speed. Bambu's documentation doesn't say "the line will be changed into a bridge and then use bridging speed". They only say that that perimeter will use bridging speed, and this is true. The line remains an overhanging perimeter, but uses bridge speed.
Note: I am being pedantic by intention. Clarity is very important when talking about this subject. The core of your message is super important and valid, that being that this behavior should change, but clarity is necessary to avoid red herring arguments where people will be arguing about what technically is or isn't a bug
How did this video go from analyzing slicers to accusing prusa of fraud
I don't think fraud is the correct term. Maybe misleading?
I placed my order today for the S upgrade
Neat. I just needed to adjust a simple slicer settings. We all win. 😀
@@AwwwSnapperz fwiw, a bigger fan is a bigger fan