3w ago

Any Thoughts, Ideas or Theories of the Bambu H2D that they have been teasing?

Even with all the Controversy that rightfully surrounds them, I still think that this could be well worth Discussing given thier Track Record.

While it is likely just Marketing Jumbo, the Whole "Rethink Personal Manufacturing" stuff does make me think that this double extrusion stuff is more than just 2 Lossless Filament changers. What do you folks think? What will be the Killer Feature of the H2D?

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They have showed their hand. i would be VERY unlikely to extend my trust to Bambu again. To be clear, I don't necessarily regret my purchase of an X1C, but I'm now running in "local" mode with my machine blocked from WAN access and I don't intend to let Bambu back in.

I think this kind of sums up everything. "Well, they are actively trying to lock down the ecosystem and make everything worse but shiny ad!"
As for the industry as a whole: Multi-filament setups have always been a marketing tool. They are useful in lab environments where you want users to be able to switch from prototyping to production filament without ever touching the bowden tube. Actual multi-material prints are INCREDIBLY finicky due to temperature needs and multicolor prints are a novelty that people use for social media clout but stop when they realize it can increase print times by an order of magnitude.
But multi-tool? That DOES start to make (some) multi-material prints viable as you can balance ambient temperature between the filaments and keep both strands near enough to temperature that you can still bond the layers. And multi-color is even easier.
That said? Having both filament in the same printhead/tool is going to have a large impact on what kinds of multi-material prints you can do because it is two differently hot things in the same box. Which is why most existing multi-tool setups are closer to a "real" CNC mill where said tools (think "printheads") are kept on a shelf in the back of the chamber and the arm swaps them. Both (Will Smith's Tested's) Adam Savage and Shane from Stuff Made Here have done great videos demonstrating these and why are so awesome.
I dunno. I am pretty certain that the big thing for 2025/2026 (if chips and supply chains hold) will be multi-tool setups. In large part because CNC Kitchen and a few other channels have been doing deep dives on multi-filament versus multi-tool setups and it is pretty known that Stefan has a lot of industry contacts. I assume it will basically be the same as it was for the multi-filament era: Bambu is early/first to product for a consumer friendly version and all of their poor decisions (massive amounts of filament waste) become industry standard as everyone copies them. But they will have a drastically reduced social media presence this time since most of the major FDM influencers either have ethics or realize they can just get a bigger sack of cash from Prusa and Qidi.
So... I assume that means linus media group are going to do a massive collaboration with Bambu, heh.
- For those unfamiliar with Tested, he's a different, cool Will Smith.

I have bought an AMS, but not to print multiple colours. It's to load and unload the filament for me. It's really great and I would not want to go back.
I have read about cricut like capabilities. It looks interesting but prone to catastrophic failure.

The price. It's going to be noticeably more expensive and probably more locked down than the X1C. You will be able to buy a Qidi IDEX system or Prusa Core 1 with their MMU for less money.
I have heard that there will be a laser and vinyl cutter attachments for the H2D also. That won't end well for Bambu. The added complexity and rather useless power and size constraints for those add ons will make them a nearly useless cost for users and support headaches for Bambu.
Though I do give Bambu large credit for using the A1 series hot ends. They are inexpensive and fast to change out, (provided they don't stick to the extruder making them a pain to remove).
Unless there is something they aren't telling yet, I don't see this as a popular money making product for Bambu.
- Wait, they're adding vinyl cutting to the extruder? What in the mad science hell?
  I can't see a world where that works well unless the cutter is on a different part. I'd imagine that a vinyl cutting head has entirely different design considerations and constraints than a 3D filament extruder.
  
  That is the rumor so far. Since the heads are going to be swapped out, it's not difficult at that point. Vinyl cutters are pretty simple 2D machines. All you need is a knife, some rollers to feed the stock, and a couple of stepper motors to move the stock rollers and turn the knife. They can be quite large or small enough to sit on a desktop like a paper printer. I don't see being able to make stickers as something a lot of people who are interested 3D printing are all that interested in. But maybe I'm wrong about that.
  One thing I do know is history has a good number of examples of companies that thought they could make a multi-purpose machine of some kind. And that they would sell like hotcakes. None of them proved to worth the hassle of the setup time or turned out to be particularly good at any one thing. And they all proved in the end, to not be very popular with their customer base either.

Having multiple extruders is extremely good as u have significantly less material waste. Its especially good for using different support materials.

I doubt that it'll really have killer features.
You'll most likely be able to exchange the 2 Hotend-Toolhead for a Laser-Hotend, it'll have a heated AMS, it may have a vinyl-cutter head.
I don't really think I'd want to Laser on my heated bed, or cut on it either. The Fumes from lasering will impact durability of anything in the printer, without really lots of ventilation it will produce lots of dust (well, ash).
Cutting on the same head is weird, as a cutter needs to resist a bit or cutting force.
The dual-nozzle-design is interesting, but I think it's still vastly inferior to multiple toolheads, with anything over 2 materials there is still cutting required. Depending on how they solved the issue with feeding the two hotends, I'm not sure how there won't be quite a bit of added complexity for loading the AMS, where you have to think which head needs which filament.
Using a single extruder gear for both hotends also increases chances and risk of cross-contamination. I've never had a printer who didn't occasionally chew filament.
Moving the Hotends on linear rails, having a mechanical drop-stopper on the hotend all increase complexity, I'm not sure how bad blob of dooms will get here.
If they use their touted servo-design actually on the corexy kinematics, that will be interesting, because conventional wisdom says it doesn't really improve 3d-printing performance. At least not until you get to ridiculous builds (think minuteman)
Cost will be interesting, as apparently the H2D was touted to "be above current X1 line", if that were to include X1E and the $2500 price tag it would be... rather expensive.
But even when it's "just" more expensive than the X1C at $1200/$1450, coming to... idk, $1500 in it's bare configuration, that's rather big chunk of change for a hobbyist. And they will (hopefully) have lost lots of enthusiasts with their firmware-stunt.
Something kinda cool that could theoretically be done would be print smoothing with the laser. Print it, change the tool, laser (at least) the stairstepping on top away.

why is it called the “H2D” anyways? What does the H mean? What’s the D for? It can’t mean 3D, because the number before it is 2, not a 3.

I don’t understand the difference of models. Is the laser just an add on and it’s a 3D printer and laser cutter? 2-1?

Pricing will be interesting. My bet is on $5k. Trying to position it against machines like the BCN3D sigmax or Ultimaker Factor S4.
what i expect:
IDEX
nozzle is raised and lowered
single extruder motor that is switched between both filament paths
A1 mini style hotend/nozzle
some other modules that will be useless. The laser module will be interesting as this converts a 3D-printer to a laser class 4 system(*).

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