Bambu Lab has retired the venerable P1P 3D printer.
The P1P was quite popular for a time, as it was the lowest-price option in the P series. Essentially a P1S without the enclosure, the machine provided terrific print quality and was widely adopted.
Now Bambu Lab announced this week that this machine would be officially discontinued:
”Bambu Lab P1P – one of the most popular desktop 3D printers of recent years – is coming to the end of its three-year journey.”
There are enormous numbers of P1Ps out there in the 3D print world that are still working, so what happens to them? They can keep working, of course, but Bambu Lab will simply no longer sell new P1Ps in their store, nor do they plan on making any new P1Ps.
However, Bambu Lab also said they plan on continuing to support existing P1Ps by providing parts and service for “the next five years, until 2031”. Bambu Lab listed the key dates:
- End of manufacturing and active sales = 2026-02-10
- Software & firmware bug fixes and feature updates = 2027-11-14
- Software & firmware security patches = 2029-11-14
- Continuous supply of spare parts = February 2031
- Uninterrupted support = February 2031
- End of spare parts supply and support = February 2031
They also note that some accessories for the P1P may run out before those expiry dates, and they don’t intend on making more.
That’s a surprisingly long period for support. Consider winding the clock back five years from today and think about the desktop 3D print scene at that time: the leading machine would have been the Prusa MK3, Creality Ender-3, Anycubic i3 Mega, Monoprice Select Mini, and similar machines, all of which are pretty primitive as compared to today’s machines. It’s likely the P1P would be viewed in a similar light in 2031.
What about the P1S? That model is still being built and sold by Bambu Lab for the “foreseeable future”. That’s likely because it has been selling extremely well in past months due to a massive price drop after the P2S was introduced.
As time passes, equipment becomes gradually obsolete, and that’s the path of not only the P1P, but all 3D printers. It’s just that today we know the expiry date of the P1P.
Via Bambu Lab
