Considering a Bambu H2S in the next 6 months

[Ray Price]

Anybody have experience with the Bambu H2S?

I've been running a collection of bed slingers (CR10s PRO, CR6SE, elegoo Neptune 3 Plus) for 5 - 6 years for my shop and they've been real workhorses for the prints I do (generally single color PLA, boxes and minimal "organic" shapes).  Recently I had a failed main board on the CR6SE and got back on the road fairly quickly since I had a mainboard in the drawer.

All that being said, I'm realizing that the stable of printers I have is starting to get fairly long in the tooth (on the creality side) and at some point I'll have to do some upgrades / replacements.  They've all got 5k to 10k hours on them.  I"m sure they'll continue chugging along and at least the replacement parts are somewhat universal, but I've been falling behind on the multi-color print train and speed.

So, I recently started looking at adding multi-color, faster printing to up my options and capability. I'm more focused on printing than tinkering. The front runner is currently the Bambu H2S for the following reasons:

1. H2S with AMS 2 price point is very attractive at 1500 US

2. Tool changer really isn't on my horizon since the vast majority of my needs are more multi-color than multi-material.

3. Multi-Color is still a fairly small portion of my current and potentially future catalog

4. Recognize that I'm sacrificing flexibility and openness with the Bambu ecosystem, but I think the juice is worth the squeeze for me, and where I'm at now.

I went back through the podcast catalog and listened to Episode 563 about the H2D.  I didn't see anything about H2S in the descriptions after that, but if there has been a podcast discussion, please point it out.  I actually had previously listened to Clough42's H2S review a few days ago and will go back to his H2D one, since it was mentioned in episode 563.

So, I would be curious to get any feedback on the H2S and Bambu in general.  I had been concerned about lock in with their filaments, since I have a wide variety of colors / vendors that I use, but it appears that while their RFID chipped filaments are plug and play, they have also developed a catalog of settings for non-Bambu filaments and so they can be used in the AMS as well with just a setting selection when loaded.

Thanks

Ray

[Michael Vohs]

I have 2 Bambu printers, started with the A1 and then the X1C about 6 months later. Aside from bambu’s own settings I routines use an overture setting for matte filaments or an ESun for pla+/pro. I haven’t had an issue with most filaments using those settings aside from a cookie cad silk I had to tweak. 

The only thing I might look into before buying one now is they recently announced a tool changer that works with the ams, which will reduce waste if you are only using 4 or so filaments in a job. 

As you said, multicolor isn’t a big part of your work so the extra bed size on the h2 series is nice. 

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[Bryan Eckert]

I would look at the H2D (non laser one), as the second nozzle is immensely useful to feed support interface material (I.e. petg as support interface for PLA). 

Single nozzle systems need to purge a vast amount for such uses, because of you don't it affects layer adhesion. 

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[Ed Street]

Well, I have mixed input about Bambu.  I think the truth of the matter is that who you talk to at Bambu will determine your experience.  

Some of my dealings have been good.  For example, I run X1 Plus, and I had a faulty AP board and had to replace it.  That was good in how they handled it, as it was out of warranty for a while, and X1 Plus (installing X1 Plus voids the warranty), the support was quite good, and I know about three people worked on that case.  It went swiftly, painlessly, and fast.  The info I got from the support group was good.

The bad?  Out of 15 tickets for my X1 Plus over 3 year period, I have concluded that many / most who work there are clueless about a good number of things, and the do just a few basic small things, topics like LiDAR and any thing less than impressive about Bambu is the white elephant in the room, swept under the carpet and taboo to discuss. Discussions on the skew formula used on the Bambu are just yet another of those topics.  I found some errors in the formula, and it was impossible to get anything out of Bambu or even an acknowledgment of the problem. Yet the problem was fixed somewhat with a later firmware.

On this chart showing the H2D vs H2S.  What is not known is which controller they are using.  For example, the P1S uses an ESP32 controller, which has just enough resources to turn on the printer.  They also like to put electronics inside the chamber at the top, which is a terrible place.  Even the H series sees the AP board in the exact location.

Now for software.  The inclusion of the Bambu One, which is proprietary and less than open, forces you to go through their app, which is not appealing to me at all.

In closing, would I buy any of the H series of printers?  NOPE. 

[Ray Price]

Thanks for the table and the input.  The H2D is a bit out of the budget, but I had been looking at it as well.  Some of the H2S reviews / videos mentioned some things where the H2S was a little less than just a single nozzle H2D. My "volume" needs are more on the X/Y than the Z, and the 2 nozzle mode for the H2D would still handle everything I print today.

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[Sophie]

I love my H2D, I've had fantastic support from Bambu, consistently, and I'm quite surprised to be honest that a)I've had such a good experience, and b) that so many other people have not!

But let's be honest, the H2D is my hobby, I do not have print farms or 24/7 printing (although it's in use an awful lot). So I may experience things differently to those who rely on the machine for their income and providing a service daily. 

It prints petg-cf beautifully, it is my new favourite filament on this machine. (Below a wax seal stamp I designed for my wedding invites and then printed in petg-cf)

If it ever becomes your budget...look into h2D for sure. 

[Ray Price]

Dang, that looks nice!  Have to see how my holiday rush goes, although had hoped to have something in place before it started :)

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[Ray Price]

Wow.  Clough42's H2D review was enlightening.  Really impressive machine.  Gonna have to sharpen my pencil to see if I can swing the H2D.  Course also have to get this by the boss, who already says I have too many printers. 

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Ray - I've seen you on here for a WHILE now. So - here's is my short input...

I think the H2S is STUPID! They simply like turned a larger volume H2D into a single print head (Thus the "S") - And, I think that is STUPID! 

So, yeah - H2S is just like a BIGGER Carbon X. 

But, the world is moving in the Direction of a Tool Changer (as Andy will consistently Say) - or - HELL - at least a TWO Head printer - like the H2D!!!

As such - why the HELL Did they release the H2S? I say - it's kinda STUPID! But, they are truly PLAYING to the MASSES - and Giving them TOO MANY Choices!!!

Enough Said...

Rant Mode Off...

-K

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

UGH...

Boss = Wife?

HA HA HA!

U Lose!

-K

[Kurt Gluck]

I would wait until after formnext https://www.additive-manufacturing.media/events/details/formnext-2025 there are lots of announcements coming.  As a Prusa XL owner (I have around 2500 hours on it so far this year - I did a hardware reset in January so I dont have statistics for my previous year) I can tell you that toolchanging is great.   Rumor (started by Joe Prusa) has it that the core one will have INDX.  In addition the snapmaker U1 (which looks to me like it will have a limited service life due to its use of pogo pins) shows that others are copying the direction of the XL.   Creality may have an offering and Bambo already showed renderings of a Vortek Which will still have much more waste (I understand) than a toolchanger, the comming INDX or even Prusa’s MMU3.   

More important than the waste is the time.  I dont know about the Vortek but changing colors (other than switching between just 2 different ones on the H2S) on the current bamboos would have added an additional 280 hours to my 2500 hours of time on my XL (I have over 17000 tool changes since January).  

Kurt-A

On Saturday, October 18, 2025 at 12:50:46 PM UTC-4 Ray Price wrote:

[Ray Price]

Weird, the URL is broken with an extra "-", found it here:   Formnext 2025 Event Details | Additive Manufacturing

Is there a place to see the pending announcements?

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[Kurt Gluck]

Not that I know of, this guy did a video of his guesses https://youtu.be/rIVenFlVESk

Kurt-A (The other Kurt, the non bearded non evil one) 

Sent from my iPad

On Oct 19, 2025, at 10:14 AM, Ray Price <r...@theraypriceshow.com> wrote: