BABY BAMBU for the masses IS HERE! And…
it’s a bed slinger… but it promises advanced tech, fast printing and allegedly the most
convenient user experienced than ever before. Come join the 247printing review, where we
break down the A1 mini as well as the marketing to the bones and where we test technology
deeply and extensively. Stay tuned, that’s going to be a disclosing ride! This video
is sponsored by Surfshark VPN – check the link below for an exclusive offer. Bambu Lab
already have a remarkable story of success to tell. In 2022 they launched their X1 printers
and raised around seven million dollars in a Kickstarter crowd funding campaign. That’s
not surprising, as their high end X1 and X1 carbon printers were made to stir up the market:
Extreme fast at high quality printing capabilities, optional multi-colour printing with their
AMS system, high manufacturing quality and an emphasis on ease of use. Their machines
as well es the accessory come at a high, but reasonable price tag and they gathered a lot
of happy customers in their community. The stripped down P1P and the enclosed as well
as enhanced P1S are derivatives of the X1 Carbon flagship meant as an offer for more
price sensitive customers. But still: Their cheapest offer, the P1P, at a discounted 600
dollars, still is far from being an entry level product for the masses. And it’s obvious:
Bambu Lab aims at dominating the 3D printing market. Just as DJI does at the market of
consumer quadcopter drones. With the founders of Bambu Lab being former high-level DJI engineers,
they are definitely aware about the product concepts, marketing and manufacturing strategies
as well as worldwide distribution processes to achieve their goals. Their newest product,
the A1 mini along with the AMS lite, might be that ground breaking entry level product
for the masses of price sensitive consumers either still hesitating to get into the hobby
or for 3D printing veterans who are fed up with the hassles of super cheap and half-baked
products. 299 USD for the printer and 459USD for the combo are competitive price tags for
a printing system which allegedly is – in certain aspects - ahead of the higher end
P1 and X1 series. The marketing is emphasizing on: Active noise cancellation, next-gen flow
control and fast nozzle changing. Silent at use, no more calibration hassles and ease
of use. In addition: Those are the marketing promises and I state beforehand: Those promises
are mostly kept. Disclaimer One for this review: I was able to test the A1 mini and the AMS
lite for around three weeks during kind of a soft embargo – there was no contract,
only written and spoken word as well as mutual trust on respecting the official release date.
The machines were provided by Bambu Lab free of charge – thanks a lot for that! No money
changed hands for this video. Bambu Lab’s only wish towards me was: Have fun with the
machine – do as you wish! Opinions are my own and this video was not previewed by Bambu
Lab. Disclaimer 2: Bambu Lab also sent a transparent version of the A1 Mini and AMS lite which
will appear in certain B-roll footage. Let’s have a look at what you receive, after ordering
the A1 mini-AMS combo for 459 USD or 489 Euros. The printer itself can be pre-ordered at 299USD
or 319 Euros. In the Combo package, you’ll find a foam layer which concludes: a textured
as well as a smooth spring steel print surface, both double sided, tools as well as accessory,
the filament spool holders for the AMS and colour samples for every filament colour and
type Bambu Lab is actually offering. You’ll also find the AMS lite unit, which comes semi-assembled,
a stand for the AMS lite and randomly one of four example mystery projects to start
your maker career with: Like a wireless computer mouse you can print by yourself, a marble
machine run game, a lamp or an engine model. I got the computer mouse to start my maker
career, but I forget to make it. Shame on me… But seriously: That’s a great idea
and motivation for beginners and youngsters to get started with projects on this machine.
In addition, the A1 mini-AMS combo Package includes a striking 20 gram of filament. That’s
a pity, as you couldn’t start multi-colour printing right away. That was a disappointment
for me to be honest. The package also includes the PTFE tubes for multi filament printing
as well as regular printing. There is also a spool holder included, which is attachable
to the printer for single colour printing. For the assembly of the printer, you get all
tools needed. The quick start manual instructs well for the assembly: You unscrew the Z-axis
fixation, cut off the cable ties on the toolhead, mount the nozzle wiper as well as the spool
holder and attach one of the two print beds. The printer itself was prepared for start-up
within seven minutes. You’d probably do that in five minutes – without chatting
and recording clips for a video. The assembly of the AMS lite is as straight forward to
assemble as the A1 mini: Four screws for the stand, place the filament holders, which is
foolproof and attaching the four tubes from AMS lite to printer. In the end you attach
the data cable and you’re done. I assume you’ll need around 10 to 15min. for everything.
After turning on, you choose your language and you connect to your WiFi, which honestly
was painful on that little display. If you own one, use a pencil for that – at least
with the special type of my fingers, it was a bit of a hassle. After that, you can or
should connect the A1 mini to the Bambu Handy smartphone app, which includes makerworld,
which is in closed BETA right now, but it’s a nice market place and convenient way to
start your prints without a PC – a glimpse on that also later! After that, the fully
automated calibration routines for vibration compensation as well as motor noise cancellation
are started. Vibration compensation is essential for fast printing as it is meant to eliminate
visible ringing or ghosting due to high speeds and accelerations - at least to a certain
degree and if you don’t go too fast. Motor noise compensation is very exciting, as it
is unprecedented on any other consumer 3D printer and as it actually works like intended.
We’ll have a closer look on that and how silent the machine is, when doing the tech
checks on that machine. The first thing many do with a machine like this do is printing
a pre-sliced fast 3D-Benchy, to see the printer in action. Unfortunately, the wiping device
threw the little filament poop at the wrong direction at the very first time. During my
print tests, that happened from time to time, but so far it didn’t evoke any problems.
The first thing I noticed while print preparation: Bed probing and all the procedures are super
quick in comparison to the bigger X1 and P1 series. The print was kind of violent on the
infill of the 3D Benchy, which even caused the printer to move on the table. Nevertheless,
the 3DBenchy came out at nice quality after around 17min, which is very promising concerning
overall print speeds. Even though the movement seemed quite violent on the A1 for that fast
3DBenchy, this little printer feels heavy, sturdy and it looks like it’s made for fast
and reliable printing. I like the rather simple and straight forward industrial design – even
though it reminds me a bit on the equipment at my…dentist...? It definitely doesn’t
look or feel cheap – quite the opposite! It somehow welcomes you to touch and use it
with its old-school rounded corners and that tiny touchscreen looking at you… And yeah,
many of you were disappointed, because it’s a bed slinger, even though Bambu Lab stated
“no more bed slingers”. Consider this: Scaling down a CoreXY P1P example to 180 cubed
build volume wouldn’t make it proportionally cheaper. The actually expensive tech overhead
would just stay the same and an entry level product like this, wouldn’t make sense in
any respect. So let’s rather welcome how it is executed and that it comes with MGH12
linear rails for X, which seems to be a great fit and a logical choice for this printer
concept. On the Z-Axis, we even have a beefy MGN15 linear rail – I personally have never
seen that before on a 3D printer – have you? Please tell in the comments! Also, it’s
is lead screw driven and it’s hidden within the custom aluminium extrusion. The Y axis
also seems well engineered for this printer design and I see a potential for scaling up
the build volume: We see a relatively wide support for the metal rollers using a double
axis guide rail design. For the X-axis Bambu Lab chose a 6mm belt; the Y axis of the A1
mini is moved with a 9mm wide belt. In addition, belt tensions are constantly monitored: On
the X-Axis while measuring of the resonances before every print. On the Y-Axis there is
a load cell for monitoring the belt force and therefore the tension. All interfacing
and supporting elements are executed as metal construction. As a novelty for the motion
system, the marketed highlight is “Active Motor Noise Cancelling”. During the calibration
process, the printer measures the imperfection parameters of the x and y motor at different
speeds. In addition to that the motor drivers measure the running status in every tick together
with the imperfection parameters. The motor driver calculates the inverse excitation and
then applies it into the motor control loop to cancel out the noise that is produced from
the imperfection of the motor. Let’s explain that shortly: That’s about how noise cancellation
we all know from headphones or similar works. Done in real-time, also during the print – I
have a nice example for that later on. Being a measure of software, this will also be applied
to P1 and X1 series in the future. Now, is that a universal remedy for super silent 3D
printing? Unfortunately, not yet: The advertised 48dB are achievable, but the part cooling
fan is still the loudest component and can be annoying – depending on the model and
features to print. We’ll see later. Nevertheless: The efforts done on this by Bambu Lab definitely
are a leap forward to the goal of really silent 3D printers and real-time monitoring of certain
factors. Opening the bottom lid reveals the tight, but tidy electronic package of the
A1 mini. Functionally, the central element is the custom mainboard interfacing with all
electronic components. The printer is powered by a 150W power supply unit. This also reveals
we have a DC print bed, which is controlled and powered directly from the mainboard. The
toolhead is connected via USB-C and we also see the exposed antenna for WiFi which was
100% reliable and felt quicker at download than on my P1P or P1S during my testing. The
custom motor drivers are covered by a rather massive heatsink, which receives some cool
air from a rather silent fan you’ll mostly only hear while printing. The printer comes
with a 32 Gigabyte micro-SD card, which used for print files sent from Bambu’s Slicer
“Bambu Studio” or Bambu’s marketplace “makerworld.com”. Also, for the timelapses
recorded with the integrated camera. The 1080p camera streams and records at around one frame
per second. The image quality is sufficient to observe the print progress wirelessly in
Bambu Studio or in Bambu Handy, the Smartphone App for Bambu Lab printers. You can also produce
timelapses, which… look interesting… or let’s call those near to useless. Hope is
viable though, that those get improved software-wise in the future. In addition: The integrated
lights do not really enlighten your prints much. Still: Better than nothing. I like that
2.4inches IPS touchscreen at a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels. Colours, contrast and
positioning towards the user are nice for my taste. Even though it’s rather small,
it’s perfectly usable in daily printing due to a dedicated UI for the A1 mini. Only
entering the WiFi password was too flimsy for my taste and there are little delays here
and there. I’d call it slightly superior over the P1 series display. Even though being
a bit more laggy on the processing side, the X1 Carbon display still is far ahead concerning
convenience and functionality. You see, the Bambu Lab product strategy works. Oh, by the
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print bed with integrated heater is thin, very thin... It’s only 2mm. Flatness and
evenness are a concern I’ll address later during the print tests. It’s sandwiched
by insulating foam at the bottom and a magnetic sticker at the top, which carries the spring
steel print surface. I assume the insulation is desperately needed due to the low thermal
mass as there is a very low amount of metal used. On the thermal sensor of the bed, it
reaches 60°C in two minutes and 45 seconds. On the thermal camera that’s a measured
53°C at the centre and 49°C at the front edges. Its maximum temperature is limited
to 80°C – printing ABS or other industrial grade material like PC or Nylon is not recommended
or supported. It reaches sensor measured 80°C after six minutes and 42 seconds. The thermal
camera states 73°C at the centre and around 70°C at the edges. Even after waiting an
additional 10minutes, it doesn’t get hotter or more equally distributed. I’d call heat
distribution over the printer area as ok and sufficient. The focus obviously was on light
weight over thermal mass here. In addition to the poop sling at the X axis, the print
bed carries two wiping areas at the rear which are used at the preparation processes: One
perforated metal area to push back filament to the nozzle and a rough silicone wiper to
clean the nozzle from filament debris. This is crucial as the nozzle is used for homing
as well as bed probing and as marketing guarantees “always perfect first layers”. I’d say
“not perfect everywhere, but always usable”. On certain areas, the nozzle just seems a
bit too close, as that thin aluminium print bed on at least my printer is kind of crooked.
This print bed heavily relies on the automated nozzle bed probing, which is achieved with
the nozzle contact to bed and a so-called Eddy current sensor, positioned on the toolhead.
But step by step. First of all, the A1 Mini comes with a new Bambu Lab nozzle/hotend design,
which promises one handed nozzle changing in 30s. Alright, challenge accepted: Let’s
try this…! I’d say: If you exercise hard enough, that’s achievable…and you’ll
have the advertised quick swap revolution! The hotend now consists of nozzle and heatsink
as the one part to be changed and clip closure as well as heater and temperature sensor fixated
on the toolhead. From my point of view: A big step forward over the actual X1 and P1
hotend/nozzle design. Honestly a great way for nozzle changing – maybe the best on
the market. What do you think – please leave your thoughts in the comments. We’ll probably
see this in the X2 and P2 series in the future. And in the copy cats… Theoretic maximum
Temperature on the provided stainless-steel nozzle is 300°C. The direct drive metal extruder
is driven by a Nema11 motor with helical gearing and it’s driving a rather big gear which
moves the filament to the hotend. We have a filament runout sensor, which is executed
with a hall-sensor and a triggering magnet. In the numerous teasers before the release,
the A1 mini was even advertised to detect tangled filament spools… I tried it! It
works, but probably that’s not like intended… Or… Is it? Don’t expect high tech or a
killer-feature here: The hall sensor probably just detects the pulled back filament, similar
to a run-out. The toolhead also carries a PCB which interfaces the toolhead periphery
to the mainboard at the bottom via USB-C. Printing Carbon/Glass fibre reinforced polymers
is not recommended at default setup. Max stated flow rate is 28mm³/s with Bambu Lab ABS at
280°C. For Bambu Lab PLA Basic, the flow rate is limited to 21 mm³/s in the slicer,
which seem to make sense for this extrusion system. For 3rd party PLA filaments, Bambu
Lab goes conservative at 12 mm³/s, which has an impact at print times depending on
the layer heights. That little toolhead brings even more to the table: It's advertised to
have Automated Flow Dynamics or Pressure Advance calibration before every print and Active
Flow Rate Compensation during the print. Now this sounds really exciting, right? This could
be important and handy for the user, as the commanded flow rate and pressure prediction
- in relation to print speed - can be calibrated by getting the force response on the nozzle.
That’s achieved by measuring the pressure directly on the nozzle / hotend combination.
No load cells on the print bed needed anymore. And no rather complicated LIDAR system like
on the X1 Carbon or like on Creality’s K1 Max or manual methods like on the P1 series
or with Klipper. Does it work? It seems like that. Did I ever calibrate the flow pressure
value on the P1P manually? Nope and it works great anyways. For those choosing the A1 mini-AMS
combo, the spools can simply be attached to the corresponding spool holders of the AMS
lite…if you are using Bambu Lab filament or if… the inner diameter of your third-party
spool matches the quite tight tolerance between 53mm and 58mm. Not the case for example for
the SUNLU PLA spool I used. Using original Bambu Lab filament has another advantage:
Due to RFID chip reading of the Bambu spools, the filament type and colour is automatically
recognized and they are synchronized automatically to the smartphone app as well as to Bambu
Studio on the computer. It’s still a pity that we don’t have programmable RFID chips
for third party filament, yet. Bambu Lab, this would be a great service to the community.
The AMS lite is, like the branding states, a stripped-down version of the regular AMS,
which can be used with Bambu Lab’s CoreXY printers of the X1 and P1 series. All in all,
it’s stripped down concerning the filament path, therefore it’s less complex concerning
drives as well as filament buffering and it’s unenclosed. The principle stays exactly the
same: There is always only one active filament path. There is no mixing of filaments at the
toolhead or something like that. From my point of view, it comes with some disadvantages
in comparison to the regular AMS. First of all, feeding from the bottom can leave you
with some hassles as you don’t see what you are doing there. Now you are not only
limited by the outer diameter and width of third-party spools, but also by the inner
diameter. In addition, with not being enclosed, you don’t want to leave moisture-sucking
filaments like PETG on the AMS lite, as you can’t use desiccants in a closed room to
keep them dry. What bothers me most about the AMS lite, is what I stated before: Less
flexibility for the arrangement printer/AMS lite and the foot print needed for the A1
mini-AMS combo as the components are not stackable, like for the X1 and P1 AMS combinations. The
combo demands a big footprint plus a poop management system for the poops being slinged
around. Other than that: It works great and, in my case, also reliably and flawlessly so
far – I didn’t have a single failure or flaw with it. If you are into multi-colour
PLA printing and/or if you want to use it as a PLA filament magazine, that’s the best
way to finally do that at a low price for printer and system. In addition, the procedure
of how to start your prints will be simplified massively with Bambu Lab’s new marketplace
makerworld.com in the future. I attended the closed BETA for some time now and I mostly
enjoyed the intuitive process of browsing for models and sending them to the printer
with makerworld being integrated in Bambu Handy, the smartphone App for Bambu Lab printers.
You can also just use your browser and Bambu Studio to get started with printing one or
multi-coloured models using the presets coming in makerworld. Let me tell you beforehand:
I am not a big fan of multi-colour printing with devices that require filament changing
and flushing the hot end. The results might be nice, but I don’t like the effusive waste
and exorbitant print times for this. Anyways, the multi-colour prints I made where mostly
sent over makerworld on the smartphone app and besides some colour bleeding and little
imperfections they look good. I hope my niece and nephew will like those super cool Flexi
Factory models, as I don’t really have much use for those. At least we have PLA recycling
services in Germany. What do you do with your filament waste? Please tell me in the comments!
I send my filament waste to recyclingfabrik.com The torture toaster I printed, shows good
overhangs and the moving parts work like intended, but the tolerance test only worked until 0.3mm.
On The P1P, Bambu Lab’s cheapest CoreXY printer, the overhangs came out a bit better,
but it struggles identically concerning the clearance test things. In general, the P1P
also is faster in print time because of higher accelerations in the default profiles. The
hand-sliced 3DBenchy, which I printed with 3rd party filament looks good aside that typical
slow to fast transition on the outline going from shiny to matt… and… There is a tiny
gap at the rear as well as a slight gap at the smoke stack. Maybe something went wrong
with automated flow calibration…? Didn’t see any of those problems ever again. As some
of you might have already seen on my social media channels, I also tried to push the A1
mini to the limits of the advertised speeds of 500 mm/s and acceleration of 10,000 mm/s².
For sure, the goal for this cannot be to print super pretty at max specification, but I was
curios if it could even finish those prints at the advertised speeds. First, I did a 247printing
classic: A simple cylinder of 170mm diameter, printed in vase mode with two bottom layers.
I maxed out the speed settings, set the default profile to 0.12mm layer height and 0.4mm line
width. I turned off auto-cooling and therefor speed reductions and let it fly. Using regular
Sunlu PLA+ at 230°C, that’s a requested 24 mm³/s of volumetric flow with those settings.
And now listen to this, right after the spiral phase kicks in… You actually hear a change
in noise – might the active noise cancellation do its thing here? For sure that’s a special
print scenario – noise isn’t representative, as you’ve seen and heard earlier in this
video. Though, we realize even something else: The z-axis has a lot of compensation work
to do, because the bed is not really flat – I estimate there is around 1mm of height
difference. That’s a pity and might be an individual case, but 2mm in thickness is just
very low – also concerning thermal mass. Though, in daily printing, you won’t even
realize this. The print succeeded like intended. On the finished part though, there is a pattern
caused by a lack of cooling or slight underextrusion – maybe both – but it succeeded. What
do you think? Is that under-extrusion, a lack of cooling or something else? Micro stuttering
due constant accelerating and decelerating for the arc segments? Is it the active noise
cancellation doing this? I am really curious about your thoughts for this extreme scenario
and I’ll also talk to Bambu Lab about this. I also wanted to print some more complex geometry,
so I decided to slice a 200% 3DBenchy – scaled up for longer movement paths. This time at
0.16mm layer height and 0.45mm line width to push the volumetric flow to requested 36mm³/s
– that will cause a lot of pressure at the nozzle at peak speeds and therefore peak flows.
Also, a challenge for the just released PolySonic high speed PLA on this hotend – even at
those elevated temperatures. Watch that movement! Have you seen this? That’s crash detection
and recovery! That’s not a particularly new feature, but hardcore-tested with that
print! I was surprised that it even finished, but it did. We see signs of under-extrusion
and overheating – mainly on arcs and overhangs, but for the rest it doesn’t look too bad.
I’d say the A1 mini passed the tests for the advertised speeds and acceleration, even
though the real-world printing profiles are far from that. But still: The A1 mini seems
confident at fast printing, that’s sure! For testing PETG, I wanted a real challenge
and chose the Voronoi Cat at 100%. Steep overhang angles and a lot of retracting. Keep in mind:
That’s PETG, that loves to ooze and which is hard to print without stringing in general.
And those overhangs… are even more of a challenge with PETG. In relation to those
boundary conditions, the print quality is good on the A1 mini and identical to the P1P
print. Only print times differ slightly, because of the higher accelerations on the CoreXY
P1P. I wouldn’t call the difference decisive though. For the TPU test I chose the “Voronoi
3DBenchy” – also here: Steep overhangs and a lot of retracting. A true nightmare
for every printer and that’s probably not a typical print scenario with TPU. Nevertheless,
the Creality K1 Max and the QIDI X-Max 3 – review incoming - succeeded on this model and TPU.
On the A1 mini, I was not lucky. I restarted the print three times, with the same result
each time. Extrusion stopped very early. There was not tangle detection or clogged nozzle
detected in this scenario, so I wonder what the real-time nozzle pressure monitoring was
doing at that time – having a break? Seriously: Time ran out to investigate on this, at the
moment the TPU filament used is in the filament dryer. With a bed heating at a maximum of
80°C and being unenclosed it doesn’t make sense to test ABS printing. The A1 mini is
a machine for PLA, PETG and TPU. Summing up the A1 Mini Combo with the new AMS lite, you
get a lot of advanced technology, good printing performance as well as a very convenient and
super reliable user experience for the money. The A1 mini just works and might actually
be the first quite near to perfect entry level FDM printer – in relation to what it wants
be. Together with the AMS lite it’s an affordable system for multi-material printing, but there
are the mentioned limits concerning materials and flexibility for sure. I also want to put
into perspective: Automated flow calibration and active noise cancellation are noticeable
and memorable efforts for advanced technology in FDM, but the practical reality is: The
advantage of the automated flow calibration over an absolutely not flow rate calibrated
P1P for example seems not existent… yet. At least for my eyes and my cameras. Active
noise cancellation makes >motor noise< decisively more silent on the A1 mini and I welcome that,
but still: The part cooling fans will still be the most annoying factor concerning noise.
Nevertheless, the A1 mini is kind of a jack of all trades for PLA, PETG, Multicolor PLA
and maybe TPU. While writing and recording these lines, it still feels a bit awkward
for me personally, as… I would not buy that machine or the AMS lite – for my requirements
it would be too limited. Not really because of the build space, that’s sufficient, but
concerning material possibilities. It doesn’t really bother me it being a cantilever bed
slinger, because it’s performed super sturdily, but I need higher bed temperatures and I like
my printers enclosed. That’s not possible at that price tag for sure. And, as I said
before: I do not like the material waste due to multi-colour printing – we need other
approaches for that. Though, I like the fact that the A1 mini has the potential to be >the<
convenient tool bringing more mainstream users into the hobby of 3D printing and making.
For everyone still hesitating to get into 3D printing, because of the hassles cheap
and antique machines provoke: For you, that might be >the< machine to start with. Of course,
also for those who are just fed up with tinkering and working on their cheaped-out sub 200 Dollar
machines. We are closer to FDM printing being as convenient as using a photocopier than
ever before. Are you able to use a photocopier? Tell me in the comments! That being said:
Thanks for watching, liking, commenting, subscribing, and spreading the word - please ring the bell
- a ton more to come on 247printing!
