Is Bambu Lab about to announce a new 3D printer?
I’ve seen increasing speculation about a hypothetical “X2D” 3D printer in online discussions and videos, some even with indications that such a machine is about to be revealed by Bambu Lab this month.
But would this make sense? Let’s take a deeper look at the situation.
The X1 series was just discontinued by Bambu Lab, so you might think that the natural next step would be the “X2” series.
However, I’m not sure that makes sense. Back a year ago, the company had three lines of equipment:
- X1 Series with all the bells and whistles for professionals
- P1 Series, mostly a stripped-down X series for personal use
- A1 Series for hobbyists
There were notable differences between the P1 and X1 series, making the X1 worthwhile for those that required the extra features.
But then a few months ago, Bambu Lab introduced the P2S system, which we recently reviewed. The P2S offers virtually the same basic features as the X1 series, effectively replacing it.
The P1 series was still offered, and Bambu Lab sold many of those machines at discounted prices — because the P2S was so much better. It’s likely the P1 series will be retired as well, once sales start to dip.
So why would Bambu Lab launch an X2D when the P2S is such a good machine? One clue might be in that “D” part of the name. This has been used on other Bambu Lab equipment to indicate “dual” extruders. That’s a feature the P2S does not have.
But a P2D certainly could. That would be a relatively straightforward change for the company, since the hardware components already exist in the H2D machine.
There’s another possibility: Vortek. That’s the new filament switching technology introduced by the company some months ago. Basically, it involves swapping hot ends in and out instead of swapping filament. This saves a considerable amount of wasted filament, which can be quite expensive.
Vortek was introduced because operators are now realizing that traditional filament swapping is fundamentally wasteful. It wastes time, material, and money. That’s why Snapmaker’s U1 campaign was so successful: people don’t want the hassle and cost of filament swappers. Bambu Lab’s strategy is to use Vortek technology, while Prusa Research has its INDX approach.
It’s very clear that the future is not filament swapping due to the demand for waste-free solutions, so each of these companies, including Bambu Lab, will likely lean hard into their waste-free solutions.
To me, this suggests a more interesting new machine from Bambu Lab would be a P2C — with Vortek technology. That would provide the system with the ability to print waste-free in multiple materials, whereas an X2D would print waste-free in only two materials.
The hypothetical X2D would basically be an H2D with a smaller build volume. Why would one buy that when you can get a Snapmaker U1 with the same volume and run multiple materials waste-free, and possibly at a lower cost?
Where I’m going here is that Bambu Lab’s next machine has to compete against other equipment, and the leading competitors are going waste-free. That tells me that Bambu Lab’s future is more “C” than “D”.
Will we see an X2D? I’m guessing no, but who knows, maybe they will release one because they’ve been working on it while the world shifted towards waste-free solutions.
