Just buy the X1 Carbon with AMS.
I could, frankly, just end the review there. Honestly, I don't even have a Bambu myself. But I preordered this 3D printer back in June of 2024, got it at the end of November, played with it a little, then left it during the holidays, and now I've come back to the printer and... it's a mess.
I'll explain.
What's going on?
The header image for this blog post is the K2 doing a full self-check on first boot. I've seen this screen a lot. As of writing this review, this 3D printer is not capable of printing anything from the CFS – the Creality Filament System – at all. Not the Hyper PLA with the fancy RFID tags that came with the printer itself, nor the similarly Creality-branded CR-PETG I've printed plenty of stuff successfully with on my other K1.
And that's what led me to buy the K2 Plus kit in the first place. The K1, beyond the initial extruder problems, has been absolute workhorse for me. I replaced the extruder, a fairly easy repair, all things considered, and then ensured the run_current reduced in Klipper. I've probably printed 6 or 7 full rolls of filament on that thing since with no problems. Including a new fan duct for my Prusa MK3S+, which I have also upgraded to a MK3.5.
All that to say, I feel like I've had a decent level of experience with these machines, most of it positive, which is why this K2 Plus unit with the CFS is so frustrating.
Errors, errors, errors
The first of the errors came when I tried to print from the included spool holder. It's slightly more involved than the CFS was, which, for the most part, was "plug and play"; as in, when I first got the printer, the 485 cables plugged in without a problem, the CFS lit up, I put the four included spools of filament in, and it Just Worked.
So, then I added the spool holder. A few screws on the back to attach it, then pop the Bowden tube from the CFS off the back of the printer, pop the Bowden tube from the spool holder into the back of the printer, select the "Spool Holder" on the printer, configure the filament settings, feed it through to the extruder, and then click "Extrude" on the printer.
Easy enough, right? But then, once you try to print from the spool holder:
I'm sorry, what? How could the filament in the CFS possibly be in use if the Bowden tube from it is physically disconnected from the printer?
The filament I'm trying to print here, again, is the Creality-branded CR-PETG. It has official settings on this printer. Not that it matters, because it refuses to print from the spool. So, the solution would be to just load the filament into the printer, right?
Oh, dear reader, I regret to inform you, it was not so simple.
Because – as I alluded to before – I cannot print anything from the CFS. In fact, I can't even load anything into the CFS. This, too, is plagued with a different error.
At this point, I'm just trying to load filament. The interesting thing is, the CFS used to automatically load the filament. Now, on the latest firmware versions, which for posterity, I will list below:
- K2 Plus: 1.1.1.7
- CFS: 1.1.2
At least, I presume these to be the latest, because the printer does not prompt for an update. These are what are displayed under the System tab for me.
But now, the CFS will not automatically grab the filament. There are levers one can use to get filament loaded in manually, and it's a bit of a trick since you have to push the button on the bottom of the CFS to let the filament load all the way through. But even once you load it all the way through, and the slot shows loaded in the CFS, if you select it and click "Extrude", the CFS will actually fully retract the filament. So, there's obviously something going on there. A few posts in various places online show that I'm not necessarily alone on this, so I don't believe my unit is comparatively defective to others.
Final thoughts
The printer does work if you just completely disconnect the CMS (as in removing the 485 connectors from the printer, which should only be done while it is powered off) and run it from the spool holder, but this obviously kind of sucks to have a multi-filament system you can't actually use.
But beyond that, I've had quite a few print failures. Such as:
This is a brand new printer they're trying to command a $1500 premium for.
So, yeah. Just get the Bambu.