There may be further developments in the Bambu Lab A1 cable issue.
I reported Bambu Lab’s announcement a few days ago in which they identified potential issues in the heat bed cable on their A1 desktop 3D printers. Evidently, if this cable is bent it could cause a short inside. That’s not good, especially when you realize there’s a lot of volts going through the cable to generate heat.
Bambu Lab made recommendations for all A1 operators to inspect this cable, which is located at the rear of the machine and links the heat bed to the base. If unusual bumps are seen near the base, then Bambu Lab considers the cable damaged and strongly recommends not using the unit further. It seems anyone with verified damage will receive a replacement printer or replacement parts from Bambu Lab.
Those with working cables are advised to print a strain relief guard for attachment to the cable, allowing printing to continue.
In my observation, Bambu Lab, unlike most 3D printer manufacturers, readily acknowledged the problem and provided a feasible solution.
Following this, I’ve perused numerous forums where the situation is being debated, and it appears confusion is building among users. Idle chatter indicates that NO A1 machines are applicable, which is not a claim made by Bambu Lab.
Additional gossip implies that Bambu Lab should be planning a “total recall” of all A1 units, again, this is not expressly stated by the company. There exist screenshots of emails from Bambu Lab to the impacted operators, however, somehow, this information is being misconstrued into a universal cease and desist/recall.
Some sources have indicated that the A1 has been removed from store shelves. However, at the time of penning this piece, I am still able to view and purchase an A1 from the online store of Bambu Lab.
Additionally, there are talks that certain content creators have been asked to stop utilizing the A1, essentially being requested to halt the creation of public content. Some have inferred from this that all usage of A1 should be discontinued.
For many, this has caused confusion as they’ve read explanations from Bambu Lab that contradict these speculations. For instance, Reddit user victoroos commented:
“Stop printing? Even though I’ve implemented the cable protector? I haven’t received this email yet.”
They probably did not get the email because they are not affected.
It would probably be a good idea for Bambu Lab to publicly clarify things even more than they’ve already done.
That said, this is a serious issue. The cable, when bent, can definitely produce short circuits. At those voltage levels, bad things can happen. Above we have an image from Mustangboy of a cable that had a pretty bad short, and it apparently caught fire.
Short circuit in the A1 heat bed cable caused a small fire [Source: Reddit / MustangBoy]
There are also images of cable damage beyond the ends, and that makes sense: if you bend the cable anywhere you’ll have a problem. I suspect the fix here is not only better strain relief but a more robust cable.
As far as I can see, Bambu Lab made a design mistake, and they are taking appropriate actions to rectify the situation. However, situations such as this are highly visible and the company needs to provide better expectation management among customers, or else rumors will rule the day.
Via
Reddit and
“Why did the 3D printer go to therapy? Because it had too many layers of unresolved issues!”
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