I got some feedback that people might be interested in knowing the specs and details about the 3D printer I got. I covered it briefly in my first post and linked it to the product page but apparently, people want to hear it from me. I’m waiting for a print of an overly-complicated, probably not effective, clamp mechanism (well, part of it anyway) to finish so I thought I’d go ahead and do this thing.
Printer Specs
I purchased the Biqu B1 directly from BigTree Tech. I got the all black one but they have a model with anodized pink/purple parts. That’s the one I wanted, because I intended to, and did put, the printer in the guest room closet and I thought that the color would brighten up the place.
The Biqu B1 uses a BTT SKR V1.4 32-bit motherboard. and a BTT TFT35 V3.0 touch screen and supports a lot of connections and interfaces for upgrading and tuning such as WIFI, dual Z-axis etc.
The printer uses the BTT SKR V1.4 32-bit motherboard, which has an ARM Cortext M3 CPI, Motor drive interface (X,Y,Z,E0,E1), I2C, SPI, WIFI and Double z-axis capabilities. The main interface is a BTT TFT35 V3.0 Color touch screen. It uses the running the BTT TFT35 V3.0 Dual Operating system with legacy Marlin interface and the Touch Works interface which takes advantage of the color touch screen.
It has a heated bed, which is essential for PETG printing. And because it uses a 24V system, there’s plenty of power to get the bed hot fast and keep it hot. Ocotoprint monitors and reports the bed temp, and it takes about a minute to go from room temp to the 75C I’ve been using. IT also stays within a .2C during a print. I’ve read those older 12V systems can take a long time to heat the bed or maintain the temperature which can lead to adhesion issues.
The print area is 235mm x 235mm x 270mm and comes with a magnetic spring steel sheet to print on which makes removing objects easy, just lift and bend the sheet a little, and most things pop right off. the 235mm x 235mm is technically true, but that’s an edge-to-edge size. I doubt I could print something over 230mm x 230mm. The steel spring sheet is coated in something that the PETG I’m using seems to like to stick to. I’ve never had anything stick so bad I couldn’t get it off and, except for one time where I had a print not adhere 4 times in a row I’ve had very few adhesion problems. And that one-time was probably an issue with the print bed alignment because it hasn’t happened since I realigned it. Speaking of which, the printer supports BL Touch auto bed leveling out of the box, including a bracket to attach the sensor to the print head and a port in the back to plug it in. I probably should have spent a couple of extra dollars to get that, I might still as I start printing more.
It also has a filament detector, if the print is in progress and the filament breaks or it runs out, the sensor will detect this and pause the print. I haven’t tried this but I assume it can be restarted, although I have my doubts on how well that would work. There is also a “Smart filament sensor” port on the back, right above the BL Touch port. But I have no idea what a “Smart filament sensor” is or why I would want one.
The ports on the back were one of the reasons I chose this over the other printers I was looking at. For most of those to add a BL Touch sensor required opening up the case, routing the wire to the control board to plug into the appropriate port. They also use a unique single-cable solution to connect to the print head, a USB Type C connector. It’s clean and elegant and just a little less wire clutter to have to manage.
The printer supports all the same filament types as most modern printers. I know it can do PLA and PETG, so it should also work fine with ABS and the other less common types as well. I’m thinking of getting some of that rubbery soft filament to see what it’s like or the wood filament, that seems interesting to me too. But, that’s for another post.
One “fun” feature is that the extruder block has a multi-color LED in it. It doesn’t serve any real purpose other than to look pretty, although it does light up the printed object if it’s a little dark where your printing.
What I like about the B1
The Biqu B1, from a specification perspective, is pretty similar to several other printers out there. The reason I chose the B1 was that it felt like the company put that little extra effort in to differentiate itself from the competition. The biggest factors were the cable management with the ports in the back to accept most of the standard add-ons a hobbyist might get and the touch screen interface. As I’ve written in my other posts, I use OctotPrint to control the printer most of the time, so having a graphical push the screen interface for those times I need to interface directly keeps things simple for me. And of course, price. $300.00 is hard to overlook. There are other comparable printers in that price range but none of the ones I saw had a multi-color LED on the extruder module.
I’m happy, let’s go so far as to say impressed with the print quality. In my first post, I mentioned how impressed I was with the first print. I printed a tiny pokemon figurine that came on the provided SD card. IT has a lot of detail and it printed with almost no stringing or blemishes the first time. Which, if what you see on YouTube is representative, is pretty good. Especially for a $300 printer. I paid more for my first 20MB hard disk (no, that’s not a typo, it was 20MB and weighed about 2lb. And yes, I’m old.)
The other thing I like is it is really quiet. I had read that the latest controller boards were much quieter than the previous generation. I think they are controlling the servos more smoothly so you get less of that grindy servo noise. I’ve been in the guest room working on other stuff, it’s my hobby room first, guest room second, and forgotten the printer was running until I heard a little click noise or a fan make a momentary buzz.
I haven’t printed that much yet, but I haven’t had that many issues either. A couple of early prints which were probably user error and there was that time I already mentioned where it just didn’t want to adhere until I re-aligned the bed, but otherwise, it’s been reliable, quiet, and made nice-looking prints.
I was also happy with the shopping experience. I purchased directly from BigTree Tech from their site. It was a little wonky, maybe because I used PayPal but nothing too frustrating. I selected a North American warehouse which is why I didn’t get the pink accented model as they were only available to ship from China and I didn’t want to wait.
It was well packaged, all the parts were there and well labeled. There was some assembly required but the instructions were easy to read and understand and all the parts were labeled with the step in the instructions where they were used making it easy to find what you needed. I think I took about 45 minutes to put it together, but I took my time, which is actually quite uncharacteristic.
Recommendation – Thumbs up all the way
I would recommend the BigTree Tech Biqu B1 to anyone who wants to start 3D printing and want’s as much bang for their buck as they can get. There’s a little technical knowledge required for the assembly, but after that, it’s just learning how to print.