Originally published at: https://3dprintbeginner.com/bambu-lab-x1-heatbed-cable-replacement-guide/
You know that I love the X1 line of printers from Bambu Lab, but my heatbed signal cable got broken after a few hundred hours of printing, and it displayed an error related to the force sensor. Besides that, there was also a heatbed homing abnormal message telling me that…
Thank you for this. I got my printer on the tail end of Kickstarter and I got the force sensor 3 error weak signal cable about 3 months after owning it. It’s actually the only problem I’ve ever had with it besides snapping off the top of the AMS roller holder top piece which I fixed with super glue but they sent me a new AMS but it was barebones. I fixed the original with super glue but anyways, I was always able to fix that force sensor 3 error by loosening the nut under force sensor 3 and retightening it and then tapping on the bed or banging on the bed on the corner where force sensor 3 is which is the front right of the printer. Then I would stick my fingers all the way into the back of the printer near the Z lead rod and wiggle the wiring around and the error would go away sometimes for months at a when it first happened I put in a ticket to support they answered within 24 hours then 2 days later I had the brand new cable shipped to my door but since I made the error go away most of the time I never tried to replace it and they gave me store credit to fix it myself. Well 3 days ago I could not get the error to go away no matter what I tried and I came across your instructions and it made the job so much easier.I did not have to take the power cables out and disconnect them out of the connectors. I basically notched out that same little bracket piece that you did with filament cutters that come with basically every printer. Getting the old wiring out was a little difficult because of all the three Benz and sharp turns that it takes but I was going to get it out of there one way or another or even if I had to pull so hard I would have ripped the end of the connector off but it did come out in one piece. I took off the tape for the wiring loom ran the new cable through there and ran it up and threw the three different holes and connected it and I used double-sided tape and regular tape to keep it sturdy and in place on the heat bed supports. Then I pulled all the slack out trying to be careful because I know these wires are very flimsy. I put everything back together then forgot to put the stupid clip on to the bottom of the purge shoot. Once I got everything routed correctly, I left the back panel off and did a test run and noticed that the printer would bottom out really hard when I made the bed go all the way to the bottom after homing and it would make a really bad noise. It only did that twice I’m not sure why. But I unplugged it put the back panel back together then recalibrated the printer. It hasn’t made that noise again when it goes all the way to the bottom but I should have checked how tightly the wiring gets when the bed is all the way to the bottom that’s one thing I forgot to do to make sure that the cable isn’t going to get ready to snap out because I would hate to have to do this again because it was a major pain. I don’t think they intended for regular people to be replacing this specific cable. I think replacing anything else would have been much easier on the printer but thank you for this article it probably saved me $50 or more steps and a lot of time. I started off modifying and working with Creality printers so this wasn’t anything new but it was the most involved job. They only gave me $50 store credit which knowing how much work had to be done to do it it should have been a lot more than that. I ended up getting a completely loaded 0.2 mm nozzle since I had all the other nozzles and spare normal size 0.4s and I also got the black textured PEI plate which is now discontinued I believe and that only lasted 6 months and they refused to warranty that because they said it was consumable so I bought five aftermarket plates on Amazon that have been holding up well. I don’t remember if I said it but I have had the printer since September 2022 and I have well over 4,000 hours on it. I would have more hours on it but I stopped printing for 4 months and then again for another month. This thing is a beast and still runs like brand new and it has been the only brand that has been consistent and never requires any tinkering. If I wanted to tinker I would have bought another Creality or built a Voron. It’s funny that I got the smart pro and a CR5 pro high temperature version that cost more than the X1C 2 months before my bambu x1c came in. I think I used the Smart pro probably like 20 times in over 2 years and the CR5 pro high temp I have used probably 5 to 7 times and I just traded it a few months ago and the guy had nothing but a headache with it which I didn’t know about but apparently the fan was dying so I sent him new ones and Creality actually honored the warranty even though I sold it and it was over 2 years old at this point for the two linear bearings that go up on the rods and they are inside this plastic block that you can’t just buy, you can only get it from customer support and also the extruder gear had seized up and there was a couple other minor issues but he fixed everything on it so it worked out and we became friends. Hey boned about 40 printers in the last 7 to 8 years. 20 of them I believe were Creality. Some either had a major malfunction within 30 days like the fans dying on the heat block or something else major like nothing sticking to the bed no matter what to some being dead right out of the box. My buddy that I traded the CR-5 too he got a used k1 for $250 and it was probably only used like 10 times and the guy that bought it had no idea how to use apparently it worked fine for a few months then it started having all kinds of problems. I don’t want people to look at this and say oh he’s a bambu Fanboy but after my experience with all these other printers and then comparing it to the X1C that required nothing up until recently after 2 years which was just a signal cable is pretty impressive and I’m still on my original nozzle and I still could have been on my original filament cutter because when I did the major maintenance overhaul recently I took it out and although it still looked new and was extremely sharp I just replaced it anyways because it came with three spares. Still on my original extruder as well and that’s never jammed up even with all the abrasive filament I’ve ran through that and the hot end very impressed. I got the Kickstarter bundle package for a dollar which gave me the larger size nozzles for free and spare 0.4 mm fully loaded nozzles and a spare extruder. Then quite a few months ago they did a promotion where if you were a Kickstarter back or you got four full rolls of filament which were phat-cf petg-cf and two other carbon fiber ones I can’t remember for only $10 shipping. This has been the best investment so far and I’ve had many printers that cost much much more than the X1C that failed hard and quickly. I don’t know anything about the k1 Max but maybe they ironed out some of the flaws in that model, I’m not sure.