Hey folks! Wordy as I ever am, I hope this message finds you all safe, warm, and well. The wind is HOWLING out here in the high desert of Northern Nevada, and today I’m helping the wife with honey-do’s instead of working in the shop like I should be. I took a little break to flip through Facebook and saw Bambu Lab’s pending Black Friday Sale (which is starting next week), and the H2D I’ve been eyeballing for months now is quite fairly priced. I think the time for me to upgrade has finally arrived…
So, why am I posting about this on the Langmuir forum!? Well, as rare as I poke my head up around here, I am quite fond of you all. And suffice to say, you folks “get” my use case better than most.
I’m really excited to add functional multi-material capability to my repertoire, especially integrated TPU gaskets on nylon and PET-CF parts, and complex support geometry without dying the slow and painful death of a thousand AMS filament purge cycles. I’m also beyond eager for the added build volume, a properly heated chamber, and some actual air scrubbing.
Now, there’s a little part of me that’s saying, “but wait…the H2C is just about to drop”. But is it actually going to be ANY better for a light industrial power-user such as myself!?
I’m looking for a little nudge. One way or the other. From my oldest Internet forum friends. And maybe some new ones. So cheers to the holidays. And melted plastic! And the $240 worth of MakerWorld points I’ve amassed from my “Zip-Tie Buddy”, too!
@MrHaNkBoT & @Sticks , what are you both seeing as the primary benefit of the H2C? Is the multi-COLOR aspect a big selling feature for you both? I’m much more interested in multi-material, and I guess what I’m wondering is how often I’ll really need a third or fourth material. I could see having an accent color AND a support material in the AMS for a CF filament that I had loaded on the external input. And I have thought about the ability to switch nozzle size throughout a print, but I’m unsure if that will even be supported without major slicer advancements. Most of the engineering type filaments I use are not AMS supported in the first place, so, the ability to switch between those would be extremely limited.
I’m also wondering, as I haven’t explored the H2D enough yet, whether the H2C build volume would be lessened by the inclusion of the Vortek system. I’m not exactly sure where they’re putting the nozzle changing rack, but it looks like it will be on the right side of the printer. Or maybe in the back…
Maybe @ChelanJim can chime in on WHERE it would fit in the existing H2D chamber!?
And then, to sum up my thoughts, I guess. Given my trepidation over what the H2C actually IS, the upgrade path for the H2D makes me less concerned about FOMO than I might otherwise be…
I really am happy with it. I probably print equal amounts of things in both printers but there have been three times in the last month where I started to set up a print in the X1C and it was just a bit too large.
So, I just need to wait for the print to finish in the H2D and I am off and running.
I absolutely love the High Flow Hot ends: at least a 20% reduction in time with large prints that have lots of infill. And, using two different filaments on the same print only increases the time fractionally compared with the X1C. Printing with ABS is a dream with the heated chamber. ASA prints like it is PLA in that heated chamber.
Like I have said before about the size: I really don’t have the space that I was willing to give up for anything larger than the X1C. So I am very satisfied with it
While I’m really excited about the H2C and what it means for the evolution of these consumer-grade additive manufacturing machines, I’m not sure I “need it”…
But I would love a larger volume, faster printing, and the ability to do multi-material more easily.
Multi-material and multi-colored prints are both things I want to work better and faster than my X1 Carbons do. I mostly use multi colored prints when making parts with markings, I don’t print many “asthetic” parts or trinkets. Multi-material for combining dissimilar materials for supports, or integrated parts.
Not sharing nozzles is potentially a big deal. Purging between materials can be less than thorough unless you purge a lot of material to lower the chance of a chunk of high temp material sticking around when switching to a low temp material.
I am wondering how my favorite High Flow hot ends would fare with a complete purge. I share Casey’s trust that Bambu has tested all these factors but I would expect they are a bit tougher to clear every speck of a previous filament.
When they show the laminar flow of the filament during the purge, the predominant effect is starting in the center with the new filament and gradually clears out the sides. Sort of like flooding solvent over a glob of grease. It might take awhile to get those layers to surrender.
@CrazyCasey good to hear from you. I flew over your part of Nevada a couple weeks ago and thought about you… I even thought I saw your bronco. Now to your question… The only right answer here is to buy both of them… now go spend your money.
@ChelanJim im on a flight headed your way this week… not going to make it far enough north tho.
And thanks for thinking of me, Erik. You know, depending upon your flight path, you probably did fly right over. We flew out to Ohio in the Summer and I was able to spot our place from the sky. Of course we weren’t quite at cruising altitude yet…
If you noticed a heavily excavated mountain, basically missing its top and most of one face, then you were right there.
Yeah, you went right over then. I sit out there and watch the planes in that flight path while I drink my coffee some mornings. That mountain in my OP is pretty easy to spot from the air, and you’ll see it just past VC; I’m right at the base of it.
Now to your question… The only right answer here is to buy both of them… now go spend your money. 
