Secrets of the Bambu X1C Camera (It's USB!)
Turns out not only is the chamber camera on the Bambu Lab USB, but the printer itself will happily(ish) support other external cameras as well with a bit of DIY know how!
Andrei Aldea
7/27/20244 min read
Recently, my X1C Chamber camera started acting up and the sensor would start artifacting due to heat. This is a bit of a semi-known issue on the X1C and something that Bambu has sort of acknowledged but doesn't seem to see as a flaw. Long story short, I emailed support and they promptly mailed me a new camera to replace myself.
The camera can also be purchased from Bambu directly, but I wish it was cheaper $50 - Link
Long story short I replaced it and everything was right in the world... except now I had a camera sensor lying around and couldn't help myself but notice it was only 4 wires... which suspiciously looks like... USB!
Question 1 - Can I use a Bambu Camera as a USB Webcam? (Yes)
Sure enough, upon connecting the Bambu camera to my Mac via the franken-adapterâ„¢, MacOS instantly picked up on it as a USB camera and I was able to just use it as-is.
Here's the USB details for the nerds (as if reading this post doesn't qualify enough already)
Interestingly enough I can't seem to find anything about that USB Product/Vendor ID so it might just be some Chinese OEM auto-generating values and not bothering to register it? Or maybe I'm just not looking in the right place.
Ok so cool and all, you have a free crappy USB webcam if you want now, but this got me thinking... WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER WAY AROUND?
Question 2 - Can I use a USB Webcam WITH my Bambu X1C? (Yes...ish)
We now move to franken-adapter 2, which lets us plug in a USB camera to the X1C Camera port. I think it runs some flavor of Linux underneath so maybe generic drivers from a camera that outputs a H.264 stream is enough.
Let's try some cameras:
Logitech C922 - Works!
The C920 and C922 are at this point probably the most manufactured dedicated USB webcams on the market, I'm guessing there's probably about 6 of them for every person on the planet and what do you know, this potato-y just kind of OK-ish camera picks right up and works a treat, although it does not appear to auto-focus at all.
Insta 360 Link - Works - but half the image is green/grayscale
In what will become a bit of a trend, the Insta 360 Link works and looks very good, but something about how the X1C ingests footage makes it so half the image is green... More curious is that when you manually select a 720p stream instead of 1080p stream in Bambu Studio and refresh, half the image is still green but it's a stripe pattern where half the pixels in the bottom half of the image look fine. I might submit a ticket to Bambu to see if they actually do something like this... a "mod" kit that lets you use an external camera would actually be quite a cool if niche accessory.
Image quality aside however, the 360 Link is not ideal here because without it's Link Controller software it's not possible to re-orient the camera or select an autofocus point so it will always initialize flat and auto-focus on whatever it wants. It also might be grayscale like the DJI Pocket 3
DJI Osmo Pocket 3 (webcam mode) - Works - but half the image is green/grayscale
In comes in the DJI Osmo Pocket 3, which has a webcam mode and largely behaves the same as the Insta 360 Link. I recorded the printing Timelapse via both Printer and via OBS studio in streaming mode to see what we'd get. The Osmo Pocket 3 reports that it's streaming in 1080p 30fps and has the benefits of still having the touchscreen and on-board controls, so you're able to orient the camera and use either tap to focus or manual focus to elect your focus point. For the video I was lazy and just let it auto-focus.
Looking at the final Timelapse output, the image is actually grayscale with some red artifacting/shifting towards the top in the form of a blob and a line... I have no explanation for that aside from some processing wonkiness.
Sony Cameras (webcam streaming mode) - Don't Work
Booo, I was hoping I could create a crappy 1080p stream from my A7R5 60MP sensor but what do you know, neither it or the ZV-E10 would output anything to the Bambu. Can't say I'm entirely surprised, especially because they don't show up as generic camera devices in Linux or anywhere else (Sony insists on its stupid Imaging Mobile drivers) but one can dream. Anyway, don't bother trying this one.
What about other cameras?
I have a Logitech Brio and a Go Pro Hero 6(?) Black somewhere around here... so will try those next. But for now, interesting start!
Have you tried this madness? What camera are you using? Let me know!