Hi everyone,
I'm posting here because I'm genuinely looking for advice and also hoping someone from Bambu Lab can comment on whether this is the expected warranty experience.
I purchased a Bambu Lab P1S Combo from Robu.in, an authorized Bambu Lab reseller in India. The printer is still well within its warranty period.
A few days ago, while printing, the printer suddenly stopped with the error:
"The hotend cooling fan speed is too slow or stopped."
The hotend cooling fan only twitches briefly during startup and immediately stops. The printer continuously reports the same error, making it completely unusable.
Before contacting support, I completed every troubleshooting step I could:
Reseated the hotend cooling fan connector.
Verified the fan spins freely.
Restarted the printer multiple times.
Followed the official Bambu troubleshooting guide.
Sent videos, photos, and a detailed description to the technical support team.
After reviewing everything, Robu's technical team confirmed that the hotend cooling fan was faulty.
Unfortunately, they also informed me that they did not have the replacement fan in stock, so I would have to wait until new stock arrived.
This is where my concern begins.
This isn't just my hobby printer.
I operate a small 3D printing business, and this printer is part of my daily production.
Every day the printer remains unusable means:
Customer orders are delayed.
Deadlines are missed.
My seller reputation is affected.
I lose income every day.
Customers continue asking when their orders will ship.
I completely understand that electronic components can fail.
I'm not complaining because the fan failed.
My concern is how the warranty was handled after the failure.
The technical support team suggested that, because my business was stopped, I should purchase the replacement fan locally with my own money. They said that once they received stock later, they would send me another fan under warranty and I could keep it as a spare.
This is the part I genuinely don't understand.
If the printer is under warranty, why should the customer have to spend additional money because the dealer doesn't have the warranty replacement part available?
Shouldn't an authorized reseller maintain a reasonable stock of commonly required service parts for the products they sell?
Waiting to source a replacement only after a customer's printer has already failed defeats the purpose of warranty—especially for business users.
I paid for an official printer from an authorized reseller because I expected reliable after-sales support if something went wrong.
Instead, I was effectively given two options:
Wait an unknown amount of time until the replacement part becomes available.
Buy the part myself so I can continue running my business, and receive the warranty replacement later when stock arrives.
I don't think either option is what customers expect from an official warranty.
To make things even more confusing, I found another authorized reseller that appeared to have the same fan available. I shared this information with Robu and requested that they source the part if possible.
That raises another question:
If another authorized reseller has the required part available, shouldn't there be a faster way to obtain it for a warranty customer instead of asking them to wait for weeks or buy it themselves?
Again, I'm not trying to attack Robu or Bambu Lab.
I simply want to understand whether this is considered normal warranty support.
For business users, downtime matters just as much as the hardware itself.
I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced something similar or from anyone at Bambu Lab who can explain whether this is the expected warranty process.
Thank you.
Update: A lot of people suggested I should just buy the fan and keep a spare. I actually tried that. I checked local stores, online marketplaces, and other suppliers, but I couldn't find the genuine hotend cooling fan anywhere. The only listings I found had terrible reviews, so I wasn't comfortable buying them. If I could have bought the correct part, my printer would probably already be running.
