Comment by the_af
3 days ago
I have to say the Bambu A1 Mini has been a game changer for me. I wouldn't own a 3D printer otherwise. While it doesn't really "just work" as the hype would have it (I believe this is impossible with current tech), it comes pretty damn close. Probably the printer that does it best.
I didn't want another hobby, fiddling with settings and materials, and generally going down the 3D printing rabbit hole. I just wanted to print stuff for my actual hobbies. And the A1 does this, with little fuss, for which I am forever grateful.
I have the A1 Mini as well. Mostly having sat unused since I bought it a few years back, I'm now wondering if the thing will function normally again. Any advice on basic "cold boot" maintenance? It's been a year since I last turned it on.
Shouldn't require much. Very light oil (ideally the oil that came with it) on the rails, wash the removable build plate with basic soap and water (may be dusty from sitting), and then run a test benchy to clear out any filament in the hotend.
You might want to run a tension adjustment process. It’s in Bambu’s highly useful documentation.
I've had it paused for some months, and just a bit of WD40 and re-running the auto calibration was enough maintenance in my case. Maybe I was lucky?
Have you owned any other printers?
So much of this opinion sounds like a Bambu ad read from YouTube, as if they're the only ones making printers that just work now, like a Prusa can't crank out perfect first layers without breaking a sweat.
The A1 Mini was my first printer, which is of course biases my opinion of other printers.
I've bought many, many other printers since then, and every time I've gotten something other than a Bambu Lab printer I've been disappointed, and ended up returning them or selling them.
Creality's K1 Plus was great, but regularly needed the extruder disassembled to get broken filament out.
Anycubic Kobra 3 Max regularly failed to keep prints on the bed. I bought 2 Elegoo Centauri Carbons. The first has been out of commission since the extruder went haywire, and I couldn't get replacement parts without going through some random support chat app, and the 2nd one's build plate delaminated the first weekend I had the printer.
The Snapmaker U1 I'm pretty happy with, but when I first got it, I learned you have to be very gentle with how you put the spools on, as it can pop an internal plastic panel off with interferes with the Y-axis.
Prusas are good, but price and availability are issues (I bought all the above new at my local Microcenter). I do have an older Prusa MK3 that I bought for an pellet extruder conversion, but for a printer with no online capabilities and a need to manually level it via paper, it cost more used than a new Bambu Lab P1S. I'm okay with putting your money where your ideology is, but imagine if the only alternative to an iPhone's walled garden was a $2000 Android.
As I said in my comment, the Bambu is the printer that made me try. Every other video or review I've seen, from multiple enthusiasts who use other brands, makes it clear any other printer (at least ~2 years ago when I bought it) was "a hobby into itself", most definitely what I did NOT want.
I do not want a hobby, I already have way too many. I wanted something plug and play, zero fuss, and the A1 Mini delivers.
If that reads like an ad to you, I don't know what to say.
This is part of the reason their attempts frustrate me so much. I love my A1 Mini but I do not want to support this kind of behavior so I will probably go to another company if I ever upgrade.