Two weeks ago, Joshua Wise (aka jwise), one of the lead developers behind the X1Plus project, posted on the Bambu Lab forum about a new expansion board they have been working on.
The goal is to add some functionalities to the Bambu Lab X1C printer, which would not have been possible through X1Plus alone. On the physical side, it adds Ethernet, two USB ports, I2C, and a bunch of other GPIO.
Joshua mentions some things he would like to do with it, including some that are working and some that are still being worked on.
Joshua Wise
- neopixel / programmable LED light bar control (display status for print farms, add extra chamber light when appropriate, etc.)
- external sensor monitoring (direct humidity monitoring inside the AMS, temperature/humidity monitoring inside of a filament dryer, light sensors to turn the chamber, and tool head lights off when the room lights go out, etc.)
- provide a shutter release control for timelapses on a DSLR
- write recordings to external hard drives, etc
In a video shared in the forum post, we can see the ethernet cable already working perfectly:
Joshua says the hardware is open source, but they hope to manufacture the boards and sell them directly.
If you own an X1C modded with X1Plus, adding the ethernet port alone is probably enough to convince you that this board is a great addition to your printer.
Here are the pictures shared by Joshua:
