So Bambu Lab did it again! Despite claiming
that they want to end the era of bed slingers, they already released their second non CoreXY
printer in only the course of a few months. This is the A1. A very clean-looking machine
with a similar build volume as Bambu Labs CoreXY machines, yet selling for a very competitive
price of $399 for the A1 alone and $559 with the multi-color system. I’ve been using
mine extensively the last few weeks and will let you know what’s good and bad about it
and how it compares to the smaller A1 Mini and the CoreXY P1 and X1 series. Let’s find
out more! Guten Tage everybody, I’m Stefan and welcome to CNC Kitchen! This video is sponsored by VoxelPLA. Their
PLA Pro works great with Bambu Labs muli-material system and sells for only $16.99 per kilo
with free, same day shipping in the US if you order 3 spools or more. Check them out
at VoxelPLA.com. I won’t go into the unboxing or building
of this machine because there are dozens of other videos available covering that, so I
don’t want to bore you with this. Let me just say, that you’ll have to screw the
z-axis frame to the base. It’s more involved than on any other Bambu Lab printers but easy
to do and you’ll have the machine up and running in less than half an hour. At $399
the machine alone is only $100 more than the tiny A1 Mini, and if you buy the Combo for
an additional $160, you’ll get the 4-color capable AMS Lite in the box as well. Bambu
Lab told me that they’ll have limited quantities of both versions of the A1 in all of their
warehouses around the world on the day of launch. So if you’re interested in buying
one, then check out their store now, which is linked below! And even though it will hurt
my affiliate sales, yet it’s good for my conscience: Don’t buy anything you can’t
afford or need just because it’s hyped! But let’s talk about the machine itself.
The A1 has a build volume of 256 mm on all axes, similar to its CoreXY siblings, and
compared by volume, almost three times as much as the A1 Mini. Going with this size
was a smart move in my opinion, because you’ll be able to use existing printbeds from the
P1 and X1 also on the A1. The A1 has its filament cutter at a different location and also purges
and primes way more efficiently, so also doesn’t have the annoying no-build areas that the
P1 and X1 printers had. This is great if you want to use the whole print area just like
I recently needed when printing tons of soldering iron tip cases for our Black Friday Special.
The Y-axis uses a metal roller system similar to the A1 Mini, yet is now housed in the enclosure
to keep dust and dirt away. The X-axis uses a nice and rigid linear rail, and the Z-axis
uses two round rods driven by two trapezoidal lead screws. Together with the extruded aluminum
and sheet metal construction, this makes a really rigid frame. And it needs to be rigid
because the speeds this machine can reach are close to what the CoreXY siblings can
also achieve. I could throw around marketing numbers and tell you that it can reach 500
mm/s on X and Y at accelerations of 10000 mm/s² so that you can compare them to other
marketing numbers. But honestly, that’s mostly BS because you will barely reach these
speeds and also tune down accelerations for optimum quality. So let me just say it’s
a fast machine comparable to other fast machines on the market at the moment, and with the
automatic input shaping and pressure advance calibration, it is able to print at these
speeds at a really good quality. Yet not only the motion system is responsible
for good print quality, but also the extruder itself. The direct extruder print head of
the A1 is the same one as on the A1 mini, and has a filament cutter, accelerometer,
some kind of a smart force gauge for filament calibration which also acts as a nozzle bed
probing sensor. Another thing I really like about it is the quick and easy nozzle change
for unclogging or just changing it out to a different size or different type, which
are available at the Bambu Lab Store for a very reasonable price. In general, it works
really well and I always had good first layers. The machine comes with the second generation
of textured PEI sheets, which I honestly love because it sticks very well to PLA and leaves
a beautiful texture at the bottom of parts. The bed itself only goes to 80°C, which limits
your material choice to mainly PLA, PETG, TPU, and PVA for water-soluble supports. And
this is, I think, not mainly due to cost-cutting but primarily to distinguish the A line of
printers from the P and X series so they don’t cannibalize sales of their more expensive
offerings. So if you need a machine for higher technical materials like ABS, ASA or Polycarbonate,
the A1 shouldn’t be your first choice. But if you stick to PLA and PETG the results
do look really good. The vast majority of the parts that I printed were my simple soldering
iron tip cases for our store, and even though these are not really complex, they needed
to have a nice bottom layer, smooth sides, and of course, fit well together. Clocksprings
Torture Toaster also looked really nice. There is something broken on the inside but other
than that, smooth surfaces, nice overhangs, and also the tolerance pieces are free down
to 0.2 mm gap. Weksters Santa Skull turned out amazing, with smooth surfaces on the base
and great details on the beard and hat. The only thing I was able to spot is a tiny bit
of salmon skin on curved but smooth surfaces. Input shaping, which is calibrated before
each print, works very well, so the A1 is able to maintain high speeds even on complex
parts, and there is only the slightest amount of ringing visible at sharp edges. The A1
again features Bambu’s Active Motor Noise-canceling technology and makes the printer really quiet
during operation, with mainly the fans being noticeable during operation. This is nothing
super innovative and, from a sound level, comparable to what Trinamics StealthChop does,
but it makes these machines significantly quieter than the big CoreXY machines. But let’s talk about multi-color. Bambu
Labs printers not only became famous due to them making speed printing accessible but
also by making multi-color printing easy. The A1 is also multi-color capable if you
have the AMS Lite unit. It connects via one data and power cable to the printer and then
runs four Bowden tubes all the way to the multiplexing coupler at the print head. This
unit automatically feeds one filament after another to the printhead in order to make
these multi-color parts. One reason why it works so well is the integrated filament cutter
in the head that leaves all the soft plastic in the nozzle before it retracts a color.
Unfortunately, this then requires purging out all of the leftover material from the
nozzle to get a clear color output. These filament poops are purged onto a mechanical
ejector unit on the left side of the x-axis and will accumulate on your desk over time.
And this is not any better nor worse than on the previous A1 Mini or the X1 or P1 printers.
Depending on the number and mixing of colors of your model, the amount of purged filament
can be significantly higher than even the weight of your part. Just as an example: The
Multi Color Settlers of Catan pieces weigh 51g, whereas the purging poop and purge tower
weigh 98g, which is really wasteful. But this is the price you need to pay for a system
that otherwise just works remarkably reliably and at a print quality that barely anyone
else can challenge. Just look at these details! The OG AMS of the CoreXY printers nicely fit
on the top of the machine, yet with the A1 Mini, they started placing it on the side
causing a huge footprint of the setup. And by default it’s the same on the A1. And
for some applications this can be handy because I, for example, was able to connect larger
spools to the AMS when I printed all of our cases for Black Friday. But during the time
I had this machine, Bambu Lab released a 3D printable bracket to put the AMS on the top
of the A1, which makes the machine look like Roberto from Futurama, but it gets rid of
all the additional desk space needed for the multi-material system. This setup, of course,
puts the center of gravity way on top of the machine, and I am honestly a bit afraid that
it will tip over if I accidentally hit the resonance frequency. Video idea, maybe? The
frame seems to be strong enough to take the extra weight and I couldn’t see any detrimental
effects on print quality so far. Yet I think it won’t take long until the first bracket
breaks and ruins an AMS and the printer below, so use this with a bit of caution. Speaking of multi-color printing brings me
to today's video sponsor Voxel PLA. VoxelPLA’s Pro PLA is one of the most affordable yet
also reliable filaments on the market. It sells for only $16.99 a spool and ships free
in the US if you purchase three spools or more. I recently tested out how reliable it
really is by printing an 8-color version of Zelda’s Majoras Mask on one of my other
Bambu Lab machines taking six days and with almost 3000 material changes and not a single
problem. What more can I actually say? They have a range of different colors, with just
simple blue being my favorite. And a Pro tip for printing Voxel PLA: If you see a bit of
stringing, lower the temperature by 5 or 10 degrees, and you’ll be amazed! VOXEL also
started selling 3D printer accessories like the BentoBox AirFilter designed by thrutheframe
for all Bambu Lab X1 and P1 series printers as well as enclosure and light kits. So if
you live in the US and are looking for some handy accessories or want to stock up on your
filament supply for your next big project, check out Voxel PLA at VoxelPLA.com! Let’s now get to connectivity. The A1 has
built-in WiFi, and if you want firmware updates or remote access, you will need to connect
it to your Bambu Account and the Bambu Cloud using the phone app. Getting prints onto the
machine works with Bambu Studio over said cloud, or you can also use the MicroSD card.
If you’re concerned about your IP, you can also use a LAN-only mode, bypassing the cloud
service. You control the machine using the 3.5” color touchscreen on the side that
works reasonably well, but you can also access the machine over the phone app. And this might
come really handy from time to time, because this is also you to access the skip object
feature, where you can deactivate one or more of the parts from being printed if it, for
example, came loose. The app also allows you access to the camera, which is, in my opinion,
rather a gimmick because it has a horrible frame rate and is placed at such a shallow
angle that you can barely see the whole bed and also doesn’t have any AI failure detection
included. I mean, it’s another tick mark on the list of features people expect nowadays
from a 3D printer. The thing that I really like is that they went back to a removable
power cable compared to the fixed one on the A1 mini. One of the great things about Bambu Labs machines
is that they have a really well-working ecosystem of 3D printer and slicer and even more and
more of their own filaments. This makes using this machine easy, especially for beginners.
I really like working with Bambu Studio. It’s a very well-working re-skinned version of
PrusaSlicer, so it has all the amazing features like organic supports, model painting, support
painting, and so on and so forth. The default profiles for the machines and materials work
great, and the only things that I usually adjust are print temperature, max flow as
well as infill density, and wall thickness. And if you have connected the machine to the
cloud, it’s simply one click to get the GCode onto the machine and print. Yet this
ecosystem also comes with a downside. Hard- and Firmware are all closed source, so if
something fails or breaks, you are reliant on Bambu Labs support. I need to give Bambu
Lab credit that their spare parts, which are available in all their local warehouses, are
really affordable, but still, this is something that some of you might not like if you prefer
to work on and modify your machine yourself. And then, of course, there is the whole discussion
about open-source. Their Slicer is based on PrusaSlicer, and they release their source
code, but the network plugin is proprietary. On the hard and firmware side they profited
a ton from open-source projects like Voron and Klipper, yet their firmware is closed-source,
and there are patents on their hardware. They claim this is to protect their IP, and from
a business perspective, I totally understand that, yet I still hope they are going to give
something back in this regard as well, besides shaking up but also advancing the 3D painting
industry out of nowhere. So just keep that in mind to make an informed purchasing decision. Yet, generally speaking, the A1 is a really
nice machine for the price of $399. It’ll be hard to find another offering that has
a similar level of polish with a well-working and continuously improving ecosystem. I seriously
have barely anything to complain about when looking at their spec sheet and really seeing
what it can do. It’s reliable, it’s fast and part quality is amazing. Yet, the A1 is
clearly aimed towards hobbyists and starters who don’t want and need to dive deeply into
technical materials and functional prints. They had to clearly distinguish their machines
in features that one or the other doesn’t get irrelevant. And since they all print at
a very comparable level of speed and quality it had to be different features. I think the
most notable difference on the A1 printers is the bed that’s limited to 80°C and will
give you a hard time if you try to print ABS or ASA on these machines. Then there is the
AMS system. Even though I like the simple design of the AMS Light that’s from my testing
compatible with way more different spool sizes, they limit the maximum number of materials
to 4 instead of 16 of the P1 and X1 models. This might not be relevant to many but is
something you’re missing out on. The hotend is all metal and can go all the way to 300°C
but the nozzle it comes with is stainless steel and will need an upgrade to hardened
steel if you want to print fiber re-inforced materials on any of the A1 printers. Yet, how obsolete does this now make the P1
an X1 series. If you primarily want to print PLA or PETG and don’t want or need an enclosure,
there aren’t a lot of arguments for the more expensive siblings of the A1. Yet, as
soon as you want to dive into ABS, ASA, or PC, the P and X series do make sense. I don’t
really wanna talk about the P1P at that point because that was, in my opinion, only a stopgap
machine to quickly get a cheap offering on the market. The P1S, on the other hand, is
a really nice machine and the one that gets you the most bang for your buck. Not only
will the enclosure help against warping, but the 100°C bed will make technical materials
stick to the print platform. And the filtered exhaust helps reduce the nasty emissions from
printing. Their flagship, the X1C, really only makes sense if the 100°C bed is not
enough for you, you don’t want to calibrate pressure advance yourself and like the big
color touch screen. So for many, and especially beginners, that
don’t want to work on a printer but simply use it as a tool, the new A1 is a great choice,
and its second-generation tool head even gives the machine some advantages over the current
Bambu CoreXY machines. I was really happy with the print results and the workflow in
general, and am sure that this is a great choice for anyone who wants a no-fuzz printer
for PLA and PETG. Yet due to the closed hard and firmware this machine won’t be for anyone
who wants a printer as a project, to tinker on it, and improve it. The choice between
the A1 and A1 Mini is primarily the print size you need and, of course, your budget.
Links to the A1, P1, and X1 printers are down in the description that help fund the channel.
But in the end, I’d love to get your thoughts on Bambu Lab’s second bed slinger. Is the
A1, especially at that price tag, exactly what you were looking for or would you have
rather preferred waiting a bit longer and getting a second-generation CoreXY machine
or an XL version? Leave your comments down below!
Thanks for watching, everyone! I hope you found this video interesting! If you want
to support my work, consider becoming a Patron or YouTube member. Also check out the other
videos in my library! I hope to see you in the next one! Auf wiedersehen and goodbye!
