Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bambu Lab A1 Mini

bambulab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 149 posts

Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

#91

Post by antirez »

cassianoleal wrote: post #90
antirez wrote: post #46

This looks much better than it actually is for a couple of reasons: - Multicolor is not something you actually use often and is horribly slow. Slow like in a 2 hours print becomes 12 hours print if it's colored. And it wastes a lot of plastic (and doing so does a lot of noise, too). - The printer can't print things like ASA. Limited to PLA/PETG/TPU. - While the design of the hotend and swappable nozzle looks nice at…

> The printer can't print things like ASA. Limited to PLA/PETG/TPU. Why would it not print ASA? In my experience (I mostly print ASA, with PLA almost always used for prototyping), printing ASA is about as easy as PLA. 10-30 degrees hotter, less fan and possibly slightly slower speeds but otherwise just fine. This printer seems to be rated to 300℃ which should give you a margin of over 60+℃ for ASA.

Bambulab itself says it can't print ASA. I've the feeling that while the max temperature is 300 degrees, for some reason and with the volumetric flow that they set, the hotend is not able to keep up.

Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

#92

Post by eloisant »

antirez wrote: post #63
nullc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Multicolor is not something you actually use often and is horribly slow. Slow like in a 2 hours print becomes 12 hours print if it's colored. on the X1C multi-color is less bad if you fill the bed with copies since the switch time gets amortized across many parts. So your print takes 13 hours but now you get six copies. Although with a smaller bed on the A1 mini that will help less.

True. But multicolor is often used for miniatures or alike. Who needs 4 magic creatures? If it's for an Etsy shop, then things are different and your point is a lot more valid.

Usually you'll want to paint miniatures. A multicolor print of a miniature isn't going to look as good.

Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

#93

Post by antirez »

rcarmo wrote: post #86

I've been tracking the Bambu printers ever since the crowdfunding days, and the overall feature set is impressive. Like I wrote the other day* Prusa is in trouble here. As much as I appreciate them (being in the EU myself and owning an old Prusa clone), they are not competitive feature-wise (although the XL mostly holds its own against the X1 series as a workhorse printer if you buy it with multiple toolheads). The A…

Here you are assuming that the A1 will be able to print, like the Prusa Mini, for years no-stop without issues and with little servicing needed. That's, IMHO, to be seen.

Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

#94

Post by oortcloud42 »

__jonas wrote: post #88
oortcloud42 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on the SV06's shortcomings? I bought one after selling my Ender 3 (the shittiest machine ever made) and it has everything you want from a home 3D printer. Auto-calibration, no manual bed leveling, an excellent extruder, powder-coated PEI sheet (can print PETG straight on the bed without damaging it) and it's really sturdy. Oh, and it works out of the box (after some quick assembly). It's basically…

I’m currently researching what printer to buy and I was put off by the fact that the SV06 doesn’t have filament runout detection, so I’m personally considering the Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro instead which seems to have the features I would like in the same price range.

Filament runout sensors can be easily DIY'd (endstop switch with a roller in a 3d-printed casing). You'd have to recompile the firmware though so I see how that could be a pain. I wonder why Sovol didn't add one, they're dirt cheap, small and easy to integrate.

Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

#95

Post by obscurette »

ThatPlayer wrote: post #85
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bambuu forks Prusa Slicer but appears to do the bare minimum to not get called out.

They've been called out for removing credits from merged code by the main developer of OrcaSlicer: https://twitter.com/fever_soft/status/1678262984999837701 . Technically not against licenses, but still.

Been there, done that. That's why I stopped actively contributing open source many years ago. Not because I discovered my code without any mentioning in appliances from heavily subsidized Chinese company, but because nobody gave any s*t, even my own employer. "Stop whining, it's too_good_to_be_true cheap stuff!"

Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

#96

Post by leokeba »

cassianoleal wrote: post #90
antirez wrote: post #46

This looks much better than it actually is for a couple of reasons: - Multicolor is not something you actually use often and is horribly slow. Slow like in a 2 hours print becomes 12 hours print if it's colored. And it wastes a lot of plastic (and doing so does a lot of noise, too). - The printer can't print things like ASA. Limited to PLA/PETG/TPU. - While the design of the hotend and swappable nozzle looks nice at…

> The printer can't print things like ASA. Limited to PLA/PETG/TPU. Why would it not print ASA? In my experience (I mostly print ASA, with PLA almost always used for prototyping), printing ASA is about as easy as PLA. 10-30 degrees hotter, less fan and possibly slightly slower speeds but otherwise just fine. This printer seems to be rated to 300℃ which should give you a margin of over 60+℃ for ASA.

ASA is very prone to warping, and thus needs an enclosure to keep ambient temp high enough while printing. You might be able to print small parts in ASA with a non-enclosed bedslinger like this, but you will run in trouble for bigger parts.

Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

#97

Post by rcarmo »

alsodumb wrote: post #37
function_seven wrote: post #4

EDIT: After some more poking around, I’m finding out that the cloud features of this thing are pretty integral to the experience. This thing looks nice, but the enshittification scaffolding is too much. I knew the price was too good. ORIGINAL COMMENT: Wow, I've been out of the 3D printing world for a bit. I have a Monoprice Maker Ultimate (Wanhao D6, rebadged) that has a slightly larger build area, but otherwise it's…

Ahh, classic hackernews upvoting the 'I hate cloud' comment to the top. I have a few Bambu lab printers (perks of being a grad student) and their offline mode is pretty good - there are printers in my lab that are pretty much never connected to internet and print 24/7. Sure, offline mode doesn't have all the features they mention on their website, but even without it, Bambu lab printers are better than their competit…

That is all fine and good as long as I can use it (all the features, including firmware upgrades but except a marketplace) without a cloud login. I've been printing to my Prusa and KP3S via the LAN using Octoprint and Klipper for years now, and I welcome feature-based competition as long as I am not the product.

Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

#98

Post by rcarmo »

antirez wrote: post #93
rcarmo wrote: post #86

I've been tracking the Bambu printers ever since the crowdfunding days, and the overall feature set is impressive. Like I wrote the other day* Prusa is in trouble here. As much as I appreciate them (being in the EU myself and owning an old Prusa clone), they are not competitive feature-wise (although the XL mostly holds its own against the X1 series as a workhorse printer if you buy it with multiple toolheads). The A…

Here you are assuming that the A1 will be able to print, like the Prusa Mini, for years no-stop without issues and with little servicing needed. That's, IMHO, to be seen.

I wasn't comparing them support-wise -- Prusa has a better track record by dint of being older, but regardless of support and maintenance I would pick the Prusa if it cost the same and had the same software feature set because there are more spare parts around and I can build one from a kit if needed.

As much as I like the idea of the 3D printer market evolving towards appliances, I will always pick an appliance I can maintain myself - which is why I got a KP3S Pro last year: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2023/09/16/2000

Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

#99

Post by zitsarethecure »

alsodumb wrote: post #52
antirez wrote: post #46

This looks much better than it actually is for a couple of reasons: - Multicolor is not something you actually use often and is horribly slow. Slow like in a 2 hours print becomes 12 hours print if it's colored. And it wastes a lot of plastic (and doing so does a lot of noise, too). - The printer can't print things like ASA. Limited to PLA/PETG/TPU. - While the design of the hotend and swappable nozzle looks nice at…

I don't get it - why is Prusa mini a much better printer for somebody who actually wants to print than Bambu ones? The cheapest Prusa mini (self-assembled) is $459. You can buy a Bambu Lab P1P at $599 with a ton of more features than Prusa mini and much faster prints without any loss in quality/consistency. Bambu labs consistently provided parts for reasonable price in my experience. And I've been using their X1 and…

FWIW, Prusa has released the first alpha version of a new firmware update for the Mini+ that adds input shaping and increases the speed of the machine substantially.

https://blog.prusa3d.com/original-prusa-printers-now-printin...

Re: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

#100

Post by gooseclip »

jdietrich wrote: post #39
function_seven wrote: post #4

EDIT: After some more poking around, I’m finding out that the cloud features of this thing are pretty integral to the experience. This thing looks nice, but the enshittification scaffolding is too much. I knew the price was too good. ORIGINAL COMMENT: Wow, I've been out of the 3D printing world for a bit. I have a Monoprice Maker Ultimate (Wanhao D6, rebadged) that has a slightly larger build area, but otherwise it's…

Bambu printers will accept G-code on a MicroSD card, like basically any 3D printer ever. The cloud stuff is optional, but very useful. I completely understand why people hate Bambu Lab, but I wish they'd understand why other people like them. If you want a new hobby, there are lots of excellent FDM printers on the market. If you just want to print good parts, you'd be a fool to buy anything other than a Bambu. There'…

I actually do not understand why BambuLab gets so much hate. It seems previously people complained about the privacy but I gave their privacy policy a read and it seems quite explicit about how they only use the data for improvements. As makers surely we can appreciate that data is required to make improvements from a B2C product, especially when dealing with hardware with so many refinement parameters
Post reply on HN