Daddy’s New Toy (Bambu Lab A1)

In May 2023, I purchased my first 3D printer, a Creality Ender-3 V2 Neo. For the past 16 months, I have enjoyed learning about 3D printing, model design, model slicing techniques, and getting the end result of having a physical object in my hands. My 3D prints were often for entertainment, although many of them were also gifts or even serving a functional purpose (e.g., repairing and/or upgrading household items). For this, my Ender-3 V2 Neo served me well. On several occasions I’ve had to replace various parts such as 2 hot end fans on separate occasions (which unfortunately required me to disassemble and reassemble all the wires connected to the main circuit board), nozzles, and PTFE tube pneumatic couplers. I also upgraded my heat sink to lessen the chance of filament clogging. Last month I started to experience a higher rate of print failures, particularly on more complex objects. I noticed that my nozzle temperature was no longer holding steady but rather bouncing above and below my set temperature by 1 degree Celsius. To me, that was a harbinger of dreaded additional repairs. Had it not been for the high rate of maintenance work, I probably would have kept my Ender-3 V2 Neo a lot longer.

Earlier this month, I upgraded to a Bambu Lab A1 3D Printer. In addition to much faster print speeds and a larger build plate, the Bambu lab A1 has the ability to print in multiple colors using its AMS or AMS Lite systems. Additionally, the Bambu Lab philosophy seems to be aimed at making 3D printers easier to use and less prone to failure. For example, the A1 is programmed to perform automatic bed leveling, vibration detection, and filament flow calibration by default (most of these can be disabled) prior to each print. The Bambu Studio slicer is similar to Cura and other open source slicers, although there are some nice features that I’ve appreciated seeing in Bambu Studio such as the ability to define filament-specific profiles where nozzle and bed temperatures can be defined for different filaments, rather than defining them per model in Cura. Bambu Studio is also integrated with Maker World which is an online repository of 3D models that also allows users to upload Bambu Studio print profiles—this lets Bambu Lab 3D printer owners to print directly from Maker World to their 3D printer.

I’ve done some test prints just to get familiar with the hardware and software, and I’m impressed so far. In the near future, I will be experimenting with multi-color prints through my AMS Lite system, timelapse videos, and other new features.