I have my A1 plugged into a soecial surge protector that provides power to the rest of the outlets if the one trigger outlet draws enough power. So the printer is always on so that I can send stuff to it but doesn’t draw a lot of power. When it’s heating up and printing the power draw increases enough to trigger the rest of the outlets and a desk lamp turns on so I can see what’s being printed better. This is especially helpful at night when the desk lamp is the only light in the small office my printer is in. It’s been set up like this for 2 years and it’s been great.
This morning I was not actively printing anything and I went into the office and the desk lamp was on. I looked at the printer and it wanted to update the firmware, so I did so. Afterward the lamp stayed on. I rebooted the printer multiple times and while it’s rebooting obviously the lamp is off and when it boots back up the lamp stays on.
What is causing this increased power draw? Any ideas or insights?
For now I’m leaving it fully off but I’ll have to manually go in and turn it on before sending something to print which is less convenient.
Make sure your printer is not on something flammable, have a smoke detector (are common practises for safety). Since the problem is about power draw, and heated bed is what needs the most i got a cool build plate so i’m now printing at 30°c instead or 60°c. Obviously, some could also replace the cheap component bambou has put in but i’m not confident enough with my electric skills.
About the issue, i recall that quite a few A1 got on fire. Bambu denied there was an issue and said it was a user fault. Some guys pointed out a weak component that would just barely support the maximum load printer can use and ranked it as unsafe. No recalls as no issues for Bambu
As I know from reading various outside sources and have heard, there have been NO actual fires reported and verified caused by the NTC failure in question. Just some scorch marks and a bit of localized melting.
This does not mean that a fire is impossible, but that you would need to have an exceptionally bad day for the fire resistant plastic of the housing and board to catch fire.
I’m currently building an enclosure for mine that is double layered with backer board (concrete) and drywall (high inflammability).
also adding in a smoke detector that can cut off the power with a backup thermistor that when triggered will cut off the power and set off an even louder alarm.
my hope is to have it sealed air tight enough that even if a fire were to start, it would quickly run out of oxygen to burn. I may lose the printer, but hopefully I won’t lose my house.
my preference would have been to keep my printing to an exterior building but that’s not possible right now.
I share this in hopes someone might get some inspiration and protect themselves from the inevitable fire that starts from the hobby.
Be careful if you seal it completely, electronics won’t be able to cool down properly, it needs some fresh air.
thanks for the input. I’m going to be moving the controller outside the enclosure but there’s still the motors and hot end to contend with.
I suppose I could monitor interior temps and activate the venting/filter when it reaches temp. would be tricky though, because then I would risk feeding a fire and allowing it to escape should one start.
Mainboard and psu are the ones to take care the most but keep in mind that not all filament like to be printed in fully closed enclosure (without proper ventilation), PLA for exemple.
One way to monitor and secure my printer is to use smart devices. I have home assistant running at home, my printer has an integration available and i can recover several printer informations like status, temps, printing time… and i have several smart devices (mostly zigbee) which i use to monitor and apply automation based on scenarios. (temperature sensor, smoke detector, camera, light, plug to power on/off printer). I can then create automation like “when smoke detector has detected smoke, turn off printer, then send picture to my phone and broadcast a message in the house…”. I have maybe 5 different automation running for the printer but the possibilities are endless.
Is there any documentation about the fires? How did you find out about them?
Various report of users and a video that explained the issue. Don’t have sources now, it has been a few months