Jerry: Welcome to another episode of the Co-Extrusion Podcast. How you doing, JJ? Good. Of course, she's being a nuisance as always. So when we were in Boston at Rapid, Bamboo Lab unveiled, released and unveiled at all at once the X2D. Now we're late to the ballgame here, but... ⁓ JJ Shankles: Hey, doing good. I you got Evie there. As always. Yeah. Jerry: Everyone's all everyone's probably searching x2d for the next month and a half anyway ⁓ So we are a little late however I felt like it might be a little bit appropriate to discuss it because there's some there's a lot of changes and ⁓ I'm curious What your take might be on some of those changes because a of my viewers have been a little bit Vocal about the changes being bad JJ Shankles: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I feel like I've seen a lot of negat- very vocal negativity around this printer. ⁓ and I feel like it's unwarranted. The negativity. I don't think the negativity should be there when it's just a minor upgrade to the P2S and it's only hundred bucks more. Like, people being like, ⁓ the second nozzle- so this is the two nozzle printer, but the second nozzle is a Bowden extruder. and it's not as good as the Direct Drive. The print quality results people have shown has been like, yeah, it's a little bit less in quality, but you don't have to use it. And if you really don't want this, just buy the P2S, because that's an incredible printer, and save $100. Yeah. Jerry: Yeah, and cheaper. It's, it's interesting, because I also think that ⁓ so I haven't looked at the fine details of the P2S versus X2D comparison. So probably, you know, I'm probably talking in places that I should talk less, but the fine detail work that we're seeing the difference, like, how JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry: How much worse is it actually? Because you can get really good quality prints with a Bowden extruder. It's possible. And also there's a trade-off there, right? Maybe, let's just say in a theoretical world where it is physically and entirely impossible to get similar quality, you have less weight in this tool head. You have less weight and it can print faster. So... JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jerry: There is a trade off. You are printing a little bit faster. Is it worth it? JJ Shankles: And cost savings, and the cost savings as well, of like, to mount a more complex tool switcher, like the H2D hotend is a really mechanical complexity and making everything small and lightweight and compact in there is like, is expensive to do, versus this, they're trying to balance cost versus performance versus abilities. And so this is kind of where they landed on this one to be as cheap as possible, I think, to make this one kind of the like, it's just a little bit more expensive than the P2S, but the second nozzle is going to be a kind of auxiliary nozzle. They call it the auxiliary nozzle and the primary nozzle because your second one is, and seeing the results online of people showing what things printed on the primary or the auxiliary nozzle. And it's like, yeah, it's fine. It's not like it's a bad print out of the auxiliary nozzle, but it's not bamboo lap good. Comparing to their normal nozzle, it's like, yeah. Jerry: That's fair. It's it's an interesting it's a segue into dual nozzle, right? It's a segue into dual nozzle. Do you want to spend I mean, what is the edge to do? Is it is it $1,900 1800? it's do you want to spend the you know, let me get up now. The JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm, yeah. HD Standard is, yeah, 2000 for the combo. Jerry: 2000, the H2S, that is 1250. The DH2, they have, there's so many different models now. I'm always, I'm. JJ Shankles: Yeah. The H2S is their single nozzle big printer. H2D is the dual nozzle. H2C is the, like, huge tool changer. Jerry: At some point, at some point there was a rumor and this was when the HD first came out. The two was rumored to be two. I couldn't get, I couldn't get that wrapped around my head. Yeah. So I mean, it's, it's an entry into, into two nozzles, right? Are you, are you willing to sacrifice a little bit of, a little bit of quality and honestly let them, let them like churn on, on the X two D for a few months. I bet the quality will probably go up. mean, bamboo has. JJ Shankles: Yeah Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. Jerry: They if they've proven anything, they've proven that they'll figure out how to make it better. Right. Like when the H2D first came out, it was loud. And then they, you know, months a year down the line, they they came up with the motor compensation to reduce the volume and give it a few months or whatever. And they might even make the quality better in the auxiliary nozzle. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're a company that really does like continue to update the software and thus the hardware gets better. Like, yeah. Jerry: Yeah. It's well, so all that to say, let's just say it stays the way it is now. There's slightly reduced quality. It's not possibly going to get better with with with calibration of the settings and firmware and blah, blah, blah. OK, does it really does it really merit the hate? Because I posted multiple videos about this machine. Of course, I'm I'm I'm I'm JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Because right now, because. Jerry: I'm showing my second screen to myself. But every video that I posted about it, someone was like, oh, wow, yeah, it's only $100 more. And last time it was only $100 more. And what's it going to be next time? And they're just going to keep raising, you know, moving the goalposts and prices are going to keep going up. And this time they don't even have direct drive. And not every printer, in my opinion, has to be an immediate upgrade. It can be a lateral JJ Shankles: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Jerry: shift right like a lateral shift or maybe a lateral shift with a very slight advantage in some cases like different product for different buyer JJ Shankles: And I think this is a massive upgrade over the X1. Like, this is the X2, and it's a huge upgrade over the original X1, and it's way cheaper. So the whole like, ⁓ it's a sidegrade or a downgrade. It's like, no, no, it's definitely a lot better than your X1 carbon, and cheaper. So, like, what are you complaining about? Yeah. Jerry: If I don't ever want to use the secondary nozzle, I can never use the secondary nozzle. Use the primary nozzle and I get the same quality because it's a direct drive as well as ⁓ other benefits, right? There's the enhanced, there's the upgraded fan for cooling and whatever else is... ⁓ I'm on the page now trying to... JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. and incredible. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, the... Yeah. Jerry: piece together every fine detail. mean, it was... The upgrades were definitely not extreme. It's not like you're going... It's not like you're moving, you know, three generations, but... ⁓ JJ Shankles: Yes, yeah. Mm-hmm. And it is one where if we are comparing purely the P2S versus the X2D, I do think there are $100 worth of upgrades, not even including the nozzle, of like there's a heater, there's a HEPA filter, there's the closed-loop servo motor... no, wait, the extruder is the same. But like the fan... Okay, if there's closed-loop for the X and Y, I don't think the P2S has those. Jerry: The closed loop motors are for X and Y. JJ Shankles: You know, and like all these like little things of purely just like adding a heater, adding HEPA filter. ⁓ Jerry: You know what I like about it? I like that the nozzle clogger thingy-ma-bobber for when you're swapping from the primary to the auxiliary is mechanical. You know why I like that? Because when mechanical things break, they're easier to fix, right? If it's driven by electronics, there's another board or there's another wire, things can go wrong. And I'm not claiming that those are JJ Shankles: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jerry: difficult to fix. However, if it's mechanical, it is easier. Yeah, it might not be hard. Actually, I think I misspoke. It might not be hard to fix. But mechanical is usually easy. So JJ Shankles: little bit easier. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because my X2D has been amazing. Like, the filament changing has never messed up. But at Rapid, talking to other people who worked at repair shops and saying when someone would come in with the H2D messed up, it's like, this is going to be expensive and difficult to fix because it's so hard to get the right parts. It's just a complex system to work on. ⁓ So it's amazing for people who have it and it works. It's amazing, but if you do have any issues, it becomes a big pain. Jerry: you Yeah, well, that's interesting to consider, right? a lot of us are that that's a that's a that's a good thread to talk on. A lot of us that get these machines and have been in the 30 printing game for eight, 10 years. We are engineers because when we started 30 printing, you can't you you couldn't just buy a printer just to print. had to actually kind of understand how how the engine like cranked, if you will. Now, it's. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry: Especially with bamboo you don't have to you don't have to have that repair-it-yourself DIY mindset because the printer just works But when it doesn't just work someone has to be there to fix it. So you talk about repair shops How how much do you value your time, right? When I send my car in for repair the mechanic is paid between 90 and 150 dollars an hour the repair shop JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry: probably makes 25 to $50 an hour. So that means on an hourly rate, you're paying $200 to get your car repaired. I'm not saying repairing a 3D printer is gonna, I'm not gonna charge $200 an hour for repair, but like, yeah, being able to repair machines kind of easier to, easy, making it easier to repair is actually kind of valuable for people because when your printer breaks and you have to send it in, now it's only an hour rather than, JJ Shankles: Yeah. Yeah. Jerry: Two and a half. JJ Shankles: Yes, yeah. That quickly makes it much cheaper to be repaired and keep it working. And the sample size for a lot of us for these printers is one of like, I only have one H2D. And if I was going to say every H2D is amazing, because I maybe got lucky. Everyone who has a printer has only one probably of each kind. Even Bamboo Lab printers, have four. Jerry: Yeah, yeah. JJ Shankles: and it's like, yeah, cool, all those five have been good, but they sell millions of printers, so like. Jerry: The number, yeah, so the number of printers that get sold every year, those of you that like you think of a number in your head and I don't even have the right number, but it is literally millions. And you're like, who's buying these printers? So just because you've had good luck doesn't mean everyone is going to have good luck. And the person that gets bad luck and it's in the wrong hands, someone that can't fix it themselves or or maybe that person is the one. JJ Shankles: Yeah, it's so many. Yeah. Jerry: that typically doesn't fix things themselves, but it's easy to fix. They find a video online and it's easy to follow and then they can repair it themselves rather than, you know, if it was an H2D, maybe not a chance. So, yeah. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's like, well, you have to buy this part. You have to put it together in this way, following these instructions. ⁓ Jerry: It's all, it's all, you know, you got to look at a product with a different mindset. Also, what about this? What if you weren't in the market for a new printer? Like, why do you have this? Why do you have such strong opinions about the product you weren't even going to buy it to begin with, regardless? JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I just don't really get to understand the hate around it when it's like... I don't know, I feel like it fits in really well in their lineup. And yeah, might not. If I was purely... If I had no printers and I was buying one, maybe people wanted more from this, but more would include a higher price. And I... I love a good deal. I'm a cheapskate. So I would love a lower feature, cheaper printer that still has good things. know, like it is still an upgrade over the P2S. And I think the P2S is an incredible... It's kind of my benchmark. I haven't made the video on the P2S yet, but the video is going to be called, is My Benchmark Printer. Like this is the single nozzle. This is what every single nozzle printer should strive to be for. Like this is the benchmark. Jerry: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And there's sensors in this machine that are not in other machines. So they have that sensor at the nozzle level, ⁓ which it went to. So I know it left after the X1 carbon. I don't know if it came. Do you have a sensor on your nozzle like the one that jumps off the side for your H2D? Yeah. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. No, I really don't think that's in there. Jerry: So I know that that is a new sensor that came back and I don't think it is a camera. So I don't think it's doing camera sensing stuff, but it is a sensor. And point is there that any sensor, whether it's a camera or something else, it has the ability to detect something, right? Maybe it's detecting clogs. Maybe it is an RGB camera and it's detecting clogs at the nozzle lab. Don't know, but so there are things that you're getting on this machine that are new, new capabilities that that went away and came back or who knows. So. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of it H2D I don't actually understand or don't know the features there. I'm like, maybe it's got a lot of weird sensors in there. Jerry: on H2D. It's interesting because actually, let's let's talk about sensors for a minute, right? Okay, so on the Corality Ender 3, how many years ago, what sensors did you have? Maybe you had a filament run out sensor if you added it extra. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, maybe. Because some of them didn't. Yeah, some of them at the time didn't. And so you'd have your XYZ limits switches. Jerry: I know! but those are a given, you had to have those. So auxiliary sensors that gave you quality of life increase, right? So in the old Ender 3 days, you either had nothing or if you bought an auxiliary sensor, you had fill and run out sensors. Then we started to add BL touch probes so you could do automatic bed leveling, but then that was it. JJ Shankles: You have to have those, yeah. ⁓ huh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Jerry: And then you maybe got BL touch and filament sensors. We've we've kind of gotten into an era now where you expect your printer to have like the the x2d says 31 sensors span the entire system that's on their marketing page and they're probably including x and y limits and stuff like that. But those are those are in the noise. JJ Shankles: Yeah, and maybe in the AMS. I wonder if that's including the AMS path as well. ⁓ It's still incredible. Like, yeah. Jerry: Even if it does, those are 31 sensors. This is something that a lot of in your printing journey, you don't actually see these sensors working until they work and until they halt your print. And then you take it for granted because, ⁓ wow, my printer stopped printing because it stopped working as it should. It shouldn't break itself. But JJ Shankles: No. Yeah. Yeah. Jerry: But these are things that we probably shouldn't take for granted. like in the X2D, they're adding new sensors in. And like, I'm going to bring up the MOVA AtomForm Palette 300, right? So I don't remember how many sensors were in that, but when I went to the launch event for that printer, it was an exorbitantly large number of sensors. There's sensors in every single pathway of the machine, where the nozzle turns and stuff like this, where the nozzle turns, where this... JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jerry: to confirm that the nozzle went up the path. These are things that we take for granted because the printer works. When BambooLab or Mova or Creality add a new sensor in, that adds price because there's extra hardware that adds price because developers need to integrate these things. There's brand new software that goes into it. ⁓ Calibration possibly with that sensor takes time and then you got to put hours on it. You have to have JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jerry: engineers test the sensors to make sure that they work test the calibration make sure that it works. So like It's- JJ Shankles: Yeah, it's one of the... Sorry, I'll let you finish what you're... Yeah, the sensors are incredible and I think it's because you don't... Because there's so many of them. Like, I don't know where every single one is, but the more I use these printers, the more I find them because it will give you an error message that says, the clog is between the AMS and the hotend, or between the hotend and here, or the error messages you get are very exact and you're like... Jerry: No, no, no, you're good. No, you're fine. JJ Shankles: how did you know that the error is between this part and this part of the machine? And it's like, yeah, because we have 30 sensors in there. We know exactly where the error is, exactly what went wrong ⁓ versus the machines that don't. It'll just be like, ⁓ error, something. I don't know what happened. And you're like, OK, cool, thanks. ⁓ Jerry: did you know that? Yeah. Well. So the ⁓ I'm trying to look now the nozzle clumping. So on the X2D, it is that that that sensor under the nozzle actually is an RGB camera. It's for nozzle clumping. So this is something this isn't this is a problem that we don't see as often in a 3D printing space. However. JJ Shankles: Mm. Yeah. Jerry: JJ, I know that you remember this and a lot of older viewers probably remember this as well. Go to the 3D printing subreddit and go back like three or four years. People will post pictures even on their bamboo lab printer. They will post pictures with a glob of plastic, literally this big. I'm not joking. A glob of plastic this big, like extruded and like just formed onto their nozzle, onto their hot end. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry: so much plastic that it gets inside the thermistor, it breaks the thermistor wires, it gets inside every the whole entire hot end has to be replaced. So consider the fact, of course, I'm like, I'm like trying to justify the $100 price increase may bring the price down. But consider the fact that this one nozzle clumping sensor could actually save you the $50 or the $75 JJ Shankles: Yeah. Ha ha. Mm-hmm. Jerry: in materials to replace your hot end, it'll save you the time just by detecting a clump, right at the nozzle. ⁓ JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry: Think about that one time. It's the one time that it affects you and you wouldn't know that it would affect you because you had the sensor stop the print, right? JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Exactly, yeah. I had it take apart my longer printer, the longer something, one of the bed slinger printers where there was such a big clump, it got off the side of the bed slinger and somehow it jiggled enough to unscrew the bed screws and the entire bed came up and I came down in the morning and there was a clump on the hot end and the bed was unscrewed and off to the side, probably the worst... print failure that I found but because there were no air there were no sensors anywhere it had no idea that it had unscrewed the bed Jerry: Yeah, it. Yeah, it's wild to think how one single sensor can prevent a failure of breaking hardware. let's like also consider this. Consider the fact that it doesn't break your hardware. Just consider the fact that a sensor can stop your print from failing. Right. If you started a print. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jerry: You went to work. Most of us work nine to five jobs. We go to work. We come home at five. We come home at six o'clock. We dinner. Then we come up and check the printer and the ⁓ print halted to be halted itself because a sensor caught a failure. Now your print. Sure. Your print didn't complete, but it wouldn't have complete anyway, because it would have failed, but you didn't waste all the filament. You didn't possibly break your printer. ⁓ You can just fix the error and then start the printer again. Start the resume the print and you're good to go. JJ Shankles: But it's even better than that. Because the sensors are so fast and it runs the AI error detection on board, it'll stop at error. timed it of spaghetti detection is like five seconds of like I removed a print and then started the print again. And it's printed and it stopped in five seconds. And so right on the screen, you can do object canceling. So on the newer screens, so everything from the P2S forward, Jerry: cheese. ⁓ yeah, yeah. JJ Shankles: and the H2 ones, you can say, okay, cool, this object failed and this object failed and the one next to it got some bits on it, so cancel that one as well. Print the rest of the bed and it will just auto on the screen. You don't need to like go into the app or go back to your desktop to do it. ⁓ It will actually save things. Instead of on other printers, it'll, the Anycubic, I did the spaghetti detection test and it took three minutes. Something ridiculous. was like three minutes before it detected spaghetti, that it was just printing spaghetti in the air. And it was like, yeah, it's ruined every single part on the build plate at that point. Like it would destroy everything versus five seconds is like, cool. It might bump into the object next to it. And just the amount of saving your prints is way better because there's more sensors. Yeah. Jerry: 3 minutes. ⁓ yeah, your print is canceled at that point, right? That is good. That is good. Yeah. So, yeah, well, so this other sensor in the X2D, there's a camera that's pointed at the purge shoot. So if you get a purge shoot jam, it'll stop it. JJ Shankles: Ooooo Jerry: Now, interestingly enough, we talked about this on the last podcast. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. But ⁓ that is a common problem that I've had personally on my X1 Carbon, where I don't know if it's the filament that I use. Maybe there's some maintenance that I need to do that I'm unaware of. I really have no idea because this didn't used to happen. But I will get a lot of issues where the purge shoot jams. I think it happens more often with silk filament because silk filament like extrudes and then sucks itself back up and like really bunches JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm Mm-hmm. Jerry: up into a big thick ball. But ⁓ I have I can't tell you how many times I've had filament get jammed in the pursuit and it like, it starts to come out and then it just forms into a literal solid brick of PLA. And when it's a solid brick, the ⁓ printer keeps going and ⁓ JJ Shankles: Yeah Yeah. Jerry: Eventually, some other sensor will pause it, but it's not the purge shoot thing, hopefully it doesn't break the print. But I'll go back in and I'll fish out a massive blob of... Anyway, now there's like specific detection of like, ⁓ your purge shoot jammed. Let's pause and then you can go take care of this. So... JJ Shankles: Yeah. Yeah, and so I guess that one's not... Okay, no, on the... I'm looking at the P2S, and it does also have that, but not with that camera, maybe. But there is some sort of... Yeah, but it's... Instead of using the nozzle cam, it's using the side camera. It says on the P2S, it'll detect nozzle clumping and purge chute jam. Jerry: So this is definitely an AI detect camera. JJ Shankles: in some way. So maybe less sensors but different cameras covering it. ⁓ Jerry: Sure. I wonder if, you know, with the P2S less sensors, it possibly can still do it, but it can't do it as efficiently. Right? I don't know. mean, this is, these are, these are like tests that if someone had infinite hours in a day, they could test. yeah. You know, the X2D catches it, you know, 10 seconds faster. It does a 20 % better job at detecting. Who knows? But, ⁓ JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Totally could, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jerry: It's just something to consider, right? Like price increases don't exist for nothing, right? Obviously, we could get into the whole inflationary discussion. That's totally not worth it for the podcast. But there are there are hardware improvements. And when hardware comes in. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Mm-hmm. No. I think there's easily $100 of hardware improvements on this machine. Yeah. And the whole... Every new bamboo, my motto of the newest, the best bamboo is the latest bamboo of whatever printer they've released most recently has the most sensors, has the best every little thing. And so this will have more sensors and better little features than the H series printers, even though they're twice as expensive. Jerry: Yeah, it's also very interesting to note that, ⁓ and maybe it's just my local area, but it's interesting to see that bamboo printers, hold, well, I'm gonna say this very lightly, they hold their value very well, or maybe the people that are selling them are just too, like, I don't know what the right word is, but they refuse to sell their printer at a more reasonable price. So. It's almost like you go on Facebook marketplace and you want to buy an X1 carbon and they still want like 800 bucks for it. And I'm like, this is like a four year old printer. It's a pretty good machine. However, you can get an X2D for 700, but what is it? What? 650 bucks, which arguably, probably not even arguably is better than the X1 carbon. It's cheaper. So like JJ Shankles: Yeah. ⁓ huh, yeah. 650 for just the printer. It is 100 % better. Jerry: Just from that alone, right? Like the X1 Carbon was the single best consumer grade printer of its time when it was released, and it was the best printer for a year and a half, maybe even two years. And now you can get a brand new one from Bamboo for less money than what people want used. It's very difficult to argue with that. Even, even if the price increase JJ Shankles: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes, yeah. Jerry: from the P2S to the X2 is not justified, which I think it is, but even if it's not, it is a new machine that is arguably better than the best printer from four years ago, which is still comparable today. I still use it at least. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah, it's still a great printer. Like, people who have an X1, it's still a good printer, but it's not... It's a good bit behind where the X2 is now. Like, they have upgraded so many little things along the way. Like, I would take an A1 over a... Well... Jerry: It is. Yeah, it is. It is. It is. ⁓ that's a tough decision. JJ Shankles: Interesting thing of like I love the nozzle changing on the A1 and it's really quiet motors over the X1 but it's not enclosed and it's not core XY. That's an interesting question. Yeah we should do that. Jerry: We need to do a tier list. We need to do a tier list, a visual tier list podcast at some point. I'm not sure how we will do that. that, like we did a top printers of 2025 and it seemed like you guys enjoyed it, but we need to maybe do it again. But take top printers and go back X number of years and say, these are all still valid printers. Whatever. JJ Shankles: Maybe next episode. Mm-hmm. Yes. Comment and ⁓ email us if you want us to do that. Jerry: Yeah, whatever printers we should put on the tier list, put in the comments or email us. So. JJ Shankles: Yes. For sure. Jerry: We are coming to a close, though. We kind of rambled on. There's I feel like the X2D, there's enough new about it, but I don't know that it's. Maybe maybe I will admit I wasn't the most 100 % prepared, but there's enough new about this that I felt like it was worth talking about. ⁓ JJ Shankles: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it feels like there's not like a main, or I don't know, the main feature of a second nozzle isn't, there's not much to talk about, but it's all these little things. The side windows, we didn't even talk about, there's windows on the sides. Like there's another little thing that like, yeah, that adds cost to it. ⁓ Custom cut glass and like a new panel side panel thing. Like, you know, it adds up. Jerry: ⁓ my, the side windows. And glass, custom cut glass. That is not cheap. Anyway, guys, if we missed anything about the X2D, put it in the comment section down below. We'd love to hear what are your thoughts. And we post every Friday at 9 a.m. So if you haven't, make sure you subscribe so you can watch next week's podcast when you're eating your breakfast or you're driving to work or eating lunch. So there you go. JJ Shankles: Yes. And we'll see you next week. Have a great day. Bye. Jerry: We'll see you later. Bye guys.