The business I’m researching involves hardware. This has led to a need to create prototypes of said hardware. The electronic part of that is, honestly, fairly easy given my skillset.

The enclosures the electronics go into, though? That’s a bit more challenging.

As interested as I generally am in the technology, I’ve long resisted purchasing a 3D printer. Why? Because I couldn’t figure out what I would actually print with the thing that would make it worth the investment (both in time and in dollars). Now, however, I have an excuse!

And that’s where it always starts…

The Choice

There are a tremendous number of printers on the market. There’s the Creality Ender, which has a reputation for requiring a lot of tinkering to get right; there’s the various Prusa printers that are supposed to be excellent; there are all of the random no-name printers that have popped up.

And then there’s Bambu Lab.

Everything I’ve heard about Bambu printers tells me that they’re exactly what I’m looking for. They have a reputation as the most trouble-free printers on the market. While it’s true it’s not an open design – and a lot of the parts are proprietary – it’s also true that they’re not supposed to require almost anything in the way of tinkering.

For me, that’s ideal.

I’m not currently interested in getting into the technology behind 3D printing in general – too much else to do – so I’m not looking to tinker. I just want to design some random thing, export it to STL or whatever, and print it. As near as I can tell, Bambu pretty much owns that niche.

I dislike going cheap when I buy tools that I expect to last, so I decided on the X1 Carbon combo with the AMS. It’s (by my definition) reasonably priced, and will (presuming it lives up to its reputation) do exactly what I need.

I ordered the printer along with a few extras and a dozen spools of filament. It cost more than I would have liked with sales tax figured in, but since I have a birthday coming up soon, I decided to treat myself. I don’t generally splurge all that much on hobbies in spite of appearances (or on things like vacations!), so I don’t feel all that guilty.

I HATE WAITING!

And now I have to wait.

Bambu split my order into three different shipments with two different shipping companies, coming from three different facilities in the US. The first package already arrived, hence the image above. Just a couple of filament rolls and random accessories. The printer itself and the rest of the associated goodies will supposedly be here in another day or two.

And that will open up a whole new rabbit hole for me to explore. 3D printing is a fairly deep topic, and while I’ve been reading about it since the early RepRap days, this will make me actually dig in rather than just follow the news. It should be fun!

I’ll keep you posted.