Priced close to Prusa Mini+, with same print dimensions (18cm x 18cm x 18cm) but multi color.
What’s the general review of this company? Are these any good or are there more like Ender and other cheap Chinese printers?
Bambu Lab A1 Mini
11–20 of 149 posts
Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini
#12The interview[1] between Bambu Lab's CEO and Stefan from the CNC Kitchen YouTube channel has some details about the company's background and strategy. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pFtbybLlk0
Their strategy seems to be make a profit by taking everything they can from the community while milking their users. Do everything they can to lock people into their cloud and ecosystem.
How are they "taking everything from the community"? You mean researching user feedback on other printers and building a better product?
I have owned a dozen or so printers over the last decade going back to PrintrBot. As with a lot of users, the BambuLabs X1 was hands down the best out the box experience of any printer I own. It continues to be my go to printer while my other Prusa's + Creality's sit idle. As long as the cloud service never becomes a paid subscription I could care less that I am locked into their ecosystem. The additionally functionality that provides is a plus for me not a minus.
The fact they have crammed a bunch of the same features of the X1/P1 into a smaller printer that is sub $500 is pretty amazing.
Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini
#13Priced close to Prusa Mini+, with same print dimensions (18cm x 18cm x 18cm) but multi color. What’s the general review of this company? Are these any good or are there more like Ender and other cheap Chinese printers?
I have two Bambu X1C with AMS. These are solid reliable appliances rather than hackable machines. I had a Prusa MK3S+ that always required a lot of fiddling to keep it working well. I replaced it with an X1C and do not miss my Prsua.
Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini
#14I honestly want to use the ams lite with my bambu x1c because it’ll be so much easier to use third party filament in a multi material setup. But I suspect that’s not gonna be an option
I had the same exact thought. I have been using a lot of Overture PETG which comes on cardboard spools. I found some printable wheel attachments that help solve some issues. But occasionally I find that the spools get tangled when retracting.
Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini
#15Priced close to Prusa Mini+, with same print dimensions (18cm x 18cm x 18cm) but multi color. What’s the general review of this company? Are these any good or are there more like Ender and other cheap Chinese printers?
I truly love my two Bambu Printers (P1S). The rate of failure is extremely small when in the past printers it was probably close to 10% - which caused a lot of wasted time playing with settings to try to perfect things.
Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini
#16Has anyone figured out how to do multicolor printing without having to make massive waste blocks yet?
There's a ton of different methods of multicolor printing each with different pros and cons - simplified
* nozzle that mixes from multiple inputs * multiple hotends on the carriage * swappable hotends * single hotend - retracts and switchs to a different filament, few methods here, this is what the AMS and pallete are **
You can do it with multiple heads, the problem is ooze. You'll need to either be able to retract the non-used printhead so that it doesnt ooze onto your print, or be able to swap it mid print. Either way here you'll still need a method to prime it. Some materials may break down in the heat of the hotend too while they sit there unused just baking.
There's some methods that make the blocks smaller, like using the infill as the priming section.
Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini
#17Priced close to Prusa Mini+, with same print dimensions (18cm x 18cm x 18cm) but multi color. What’s the general review of this company? Are these any good or are there more like Ender and other cheap Chinese printers?
A few weeks ago their mandatory cloud printing service had a bug and caused printers to spontaneously crash in the middle of the night, in many cases doing significant damage to the printer.
Other than that Bambu had a pretty good reputation.
Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini
#18Has anyone figured out how to do multicolor printing without having to make massive waste blocks yet?
The probably current best solution are "dueling toolheads" or IDEX where you basically have two gantries [1] or toolchangers [2,3].
Both trade-off less waste for substantially added cost and complexity.
[1] https://github.com/zruncho3d/DuelingZero
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WqDcpxC3-o, https://github.com/ankurv2k6/wp-daksh-toolchanger
[3] https://www.prusa3d.com/product/original-prusa-xl-2/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3sSR2QvUyA
Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini
#19Priced close to Prusa Mini+, with same print dimensions (18cm x 18cm x 18cm) but multi color. What’s the general review of this company? Are these any good or are there more like Ender and other cheap Chinese printers?
Love the X1C as my first 3D printer. They seem to be doing quite a good job and as far as I can tell, their stuff is the best right now.
Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their strategy seems to be make a profit by taking everything they can from the community while milking their users. Do everything they can to lock people into their cloud and ecosystem.
How are they "taking everything from the community"? You mean researching user feedback on other printers and building a better product? I have owned a dozen or so printers over the last decade going back to PrintrBot. As with a lot of users, the BambuLabs X1 was hands down the best out the box experience of any printer I own. It continues to be my go to printer while my other Prusa's + Creality's sit idle. As long a…
I heard the same arguments for the Ender printers when they were popular. Best prints ever, incredible detail, etc, etc. At least Ender wasn't actively trying to trap people into their ecosystem.
It won't work though. The clones are coming. Many companies have tried to get the cloud lock-in but it just doesn't make sense to buy in as a user.