3D Printing Bambu H2D Vs. Snapmaker

 

We are experimenting with using our new Bambu H2D printer and comparing it to the other machines that we have at our school, which is the Snapmaker.

As a disclaimer straight away the Bambu is brand new where-as the Snapmaker are now four years old.

As shown left the student design recently featured on this blog we made the decision to use this as a test print to compare the two prints and see what they have offered and how they might differ or what we might consider moving forward.

The design was created by a Y4 student, who is eight year old, inspired by the movie Monsters Inc.   She designed this using Tinkercad from scratch using the movie character as the inspiration.   The first significant difference between the two designs is the print time.   The design shown left has a print time of just under seven hours, including the rafting as shown, prior to its removal.

In the Bambu H2D printed example here shown left the print time was three and a half hours.   The rafting shown here is considerable less than its Snapmaker comparison.

While it was not particularly visible from the two photographs when the two prints are compared side by side there is clearly superior finishing shown from the Bambu printer.   There are also some additional features with regards to the Bambu set up and dispensing of the PLA which is superior in terms of the 'fouling' or jamming of the PLA.    The Bambu also has the ability to have remote camera viewing the print in progress.   We have had the Snapmaker housed in our library on a desk for the students and staff to use.    The size of the Bambu means that this location will not work for the printer and we will need to organised a dedicated location.

The biggest apparent difference between the two machines is the print quality but in particular the print time, which at this stage appears to be twice as fast by using the Bambu printer.    Less PLA is used for the Bambu version as the rafting is reduced.