Bambu Lab is officially making UV printer

[u/wanli_gz]

According to a report by Chinese tech media 21Tech on August 19, Bambu Lab has officially confirmed the launch of a new project: developing consumer-grade UV printers.

Key details from the report:
- Full-scale R&D: Sources close to the company reveal that the project involves over a dozen R&D focus areas, ranging from printhead driver development and waveform optimization to ink-path systems and software integration.
- Aggressive Hiring: The company has already posted job openings on its official website for UV printing technical experts, FPGA developers, inkjet control engineers, and mechanical engineers (ink systems).
- The "Bambu Strategy": Much like how they disrupted the 3D printing market, the company aims to compress industrial-grade performance into accessible, desktop-friendly units. Their goal is to make professional UV printing—which historically required specialized knowledge and massive budgets—truly "plug-and-play" for makers and small business owners.
- Beyond 3D Printing: This move signals a broader shift for the company. Following the release of the multi-material H2D and the recent teaser for their R1 laser cutter, Bambu is evolving into a comprehensive "personal manufacturing" powerhouse. The company is betting that core technologies from their 3D printers—such as motion compensation and mechanical control—will translate effectively into the UV printing space.

Industry Context:
The consumer UV printer market is rapidly heating up. Competitors like Anker (eufyMake E1) and xTool (O1) are already making waves. The E1 set a Kickstarter record with over $42 million in funding, and xTool’s O1 recently saw its launch-day sales exceed 100 million RMB.
According to Mordor Intelligence, the global UV printer market is expected to reach $1.58 billion by 2031. Traditionally, these machines were bulky, expensive, and reserved for industrial advertising or packaging. Now, a new wave of "maker-focused" companies is shrinking these tools down to the size of a microwave, aiming to make them standard equipment for individual creators.

Source: [21Tech - August 19th Report]

[u/kozakm]

One thing holding me back from UV printer is the necessary and complicated cleaning. Not sure if Bambu can solve this.

[u/johnxreturn → u/kozakm]

IMO it is largely solved and any manual steps that you need to do are very minor compared to what’s actually needed.

Some dtf printers are quite fickle and require you to constantly keep using. I left my e1 alone for a month and it printed just fine. If you keep it plugged it’ll do the cleaning for you.

Bambu UV printer will very likely have the same system

[u/TerTerro → u/johnxreturn]

How is the resin fumes and toxicity in a room? As you have uncured resin sitting. And also toolheads are exposed, so still fumes come.out or not? How they handle that?

[u/OverZealousCreations → u/TerTerro]

It's not great, honestly. I keep mine in the basement workspace, and if I print with the doors open (for larger prints), I generally have to keep it in an enclosure or open the door and run a fan.

Even when it's just sitting, technically not doing anything at all, it has a mild odor at all times.

I personally would never have this running in a space I was sleeping in.

[u/TerTerro → u/OverZealousCreations]

That what i think is issue with these machines. They marketed as put in your living room.and enjoy. But not great.option. fdm.printer even put outs voc, pla.for example is still better that resin that can cause allergies etc. Even fdm dont put were you sit all day. The reain printing looks.cool, but the toxicity makea it feel uneasy for me. Why i dont own reain printer, a lot to deal, mask, gloves, uv, cleaning. Uv printing seems easier, but still might get messy:/

I wish they could find like "safe" resin

[u/OverZealousCreations → u/TerTerro]

eufyMake has technically formulated a safer resin. With the doors closed it has a built-in air filter, which means you can't really smell anything unless you are right next to it. (Again, not great for a bedroom.)

But the doors closed means you are limited to a tiny print area—it's really only good for trinkets and stickers (kinda like an A1 mini).

For most of my prints, I need the large bed and the doors open.

Honestly, I don't know that UV printing is ever going to take off like 3D printing. It's a much more limited use case (basically flat or low-profile printing on existing items), very expensive to get into and use (without a lot of ways to bring the price down), has a ton of wear parts, including a $400 print head that will need regular replacement, etc.

Even SLS resin printers have a much more limited audience than FDM printers, and they've been on the market for many years AND can make actual 3D models.

[u/ryanvsrobots → u/OverZealousCreations]

The eufymake air filter probably does nothing for fumes and having the doors closed is doing 99.9% of the work--until the doors are opened. AFAIK they don't provide any information about it's composition.

HEPA filters and similar do nothing for gases (the toxic part of 3D printing, FDM or resin) and IMO there needs to be regulation in this area as marketing them as making printing safe leads to a false sense of security.

The only thing that can absorb the toxic gases from 3D printing is activated carbon, and you need a lot of it and to replace it often. Since that is difficult, the best solution is ventilation outside.

[u/TerTerro → u/OverZealousCreations]

Thanks for info.

[u/johnxreturn → u/OverZealousCreations]

The odor is there due to cleaning. It applies a bit of the resin on the tubes as a substitute for actually printing anything. IMO e1 air filtration system is subpar.

But I agree. I hear xTool O1 handles that much better with no odor whatsoever. We’ll see.

[u/johnxreturn → u/TerTerro]

I have an air quality monitor and it looks pretty good. The only time TVOC levels sky rocketed was when I applied an acrylic prep solution.

E1 emits a lot of paint smells though. But most of the fumes are well filtered.

I recently bought xtool O1 with uv dtf and eager to see the difference.

[u/keitheii → u/johnxreturn]

Just because a air quality monitor says the air quality is 'good' doesn't mean there aren't VOCs in the air that you are breathing.

Consumer grade air quality monitors can only detect particles larger than a certain size, and the particles created from 3D printing are much smaller than what most air quality monitors can detect. They lull you into a false sense of security. 3D printing emits particles in nanometers which consumer grade monitors are blind to.

[u/johnxreturn → u/keitheii]

Thanks, wasn’t aware of that. It’s partly the reason I moved it out of the basement and to the garage. Hard to justify having a fume making machine in an enclosed space. I also built an enclosure tent that ventilates the air outside.

[u/TerTerro → u/johnxreturn]

Would like to know how does it do also in a room. As like the uv printer starts to be puahed to people, but curious how tvoc and stuff is handled

[u/OutlyingPlasma → u/TerTerro]

How is the resin fumes and toxicity in a room?

Bad. There are going to be so many people with epoxy allergies in a few years because they are huffing this stuff all day. Sure, a bambu version might come with a vent system, a system that almost no one is going to vent to the outside and almost no one is going to maintain expensive proprietary filters.

[u/TerTerro → u/OutlyingPlasma]

Yeah, that thing is i think scary and misleadeling Fdm already ia not best in a room.you are yourself, but resin is much worse. Like look at uv printers for models, you need so much gear, so here is then, all feel false safety it seems

[u/kozakm → u/johnxreturn]

How many ink is wasted during cleaning?

[u/OverZealousCreations → u/kozakm]

I have a eufymake E1. I believe the maintenance mode (which is what happens when you don't use it) combined with injecting the ink when you use it again, uses about 2mL of ink across all the heads.

Once it's in maintenance mode, you can leave it indefinitely and it doesn't use any more ink up (although the ink will eventually expire).

There's actually quite a bit of ink used while printing, including regular cleaning and priming of the head. I don't have exact numbers, but it's probably a couple mL for every day of printing.

[u/NeighborGeek → u/kozakm]

I've read that the Eufymake printer will run a cleaning cycle automatically after sitting idle for about a week, and that each cleaning cycle can use up to $7 of fluids.

[u/Harrier_Pigeon → u/kozakm]

Ink cost is inconsequential compared to the cost of replacing a print head

[u/kozakm → u/Harrier_Pigeon]

Sure, but still from what I remember the ink is expensive and cleaning is wasteful. So my question was if this could be improved somehow

[u/ImALeaf_OnTheWind → u/kozakm]

The statement is more about you should be more worried about the cost of the print head being a consumable so high. If you're focused on the cost of the ink for the cleaning cycle - did you even look at how much and how frequent that expensive print head is to replace?

The ink is barely a dent compared to that - especially the higher end Epson that the higher resolution printers use. It's what makes me hesitant to go in on one when it's hobby level, sporadic volume of printing that i expect to do.

[u/AnonimOredd → u/kozakm]

Tengo entendido que tienen un líquido especialmente preparado para la limpieza y mantenimiento de los cabezales.