3D printing company Bambu Lab has ordered a recall of its latest product, the A1. The company published a blog post saying that some of its A1 devices may have damaged cables connecting the heatbed to the printer’s main body. This damage could be enough to start a fire, and in one case discussed on the Bambu forum, the machine suffered burns and caused a power outage to a user’s home.
In the blog post, Bambu Lab identified several ways this issue could occur:
We should have designed the strain relief (SR) better to protect the cable from damage. Our research has identified several factors that can cause this damage:
- Rough handling during transport, e.g. B. Dropping the package in certain directions causing damage to the cable root.
- If the base is placed vertically on the table with the cable side down during installation, the entire weight of the printer will be concentrated on the root of the cables and cause damage.
- After installation, the cable root on the printer base is accidentally damaged by external force.
Bambu Lab has offered two different solutions to this problem. If your cable is damaged – this is indicated by the pinched shape of the cable near the printer base – you can fill out this form to arrange for the damaged device to be returned and a new device to be sent to you. If you notice any damage to your A1 cable, you should stop using it immediately and fill out the form as soon as possible. Nobody wants your printer to catch fire.
If your printer shows no signs of damage but you are still concerned about it, you can 3D print a cable protector that can be attached to your A1 to protect your cable from kinks. Bambu hasn’t said whether it will include the cable protector with new shipments of the A1, but the company has said it will repackage the cables it currently requires to ensure the cable is not damaged in transit.
The review unit CNET received shows some early signs of this damage, and I don’t remember it being there when I first used it. The A1 test unit has 240 hours of use in confined spaces at this point, so I will contact Bamabu via the form to see what the next steps are and print out the cable protector to see how that works.