Maintaining and Troubleshooting My Bambu Lab A1

I purchased my Bambu Lab A1 Combo about 5 months ago, and with the exception of a heatbed temperature malfunction, I’ve had a great experience with it because the 3D printer just works. In comparison to my older 3D printer, the Bambu Lab printer is relatively worry-free because bed leveling, Z-height adjustments, and flow calibration are done automatically, and success rates with prints are very high. That being said, the printer does require occasional routine maintenance, and there are some common issues that I’ve either experienced myself or see reported by others that may require troubleshooting.

MAINTENANCE

First let’s talk about routine maintenance. I find it helpful that my Bambu Lab A1 reminds me of scheduled maintenance. For example, it tells me when it is time to lubricate the A1 Y-axis guide rail. It displays a QR code on the screen which takes you to the wiki page with written step-by-step instructions and an accompanying video to illustrate.

Another reminder is the availability of firmware upgrades. Upgrading is as simple as accepting the upgrade on the touchscreen or from the Devices tab in Bambu Studio. While most firmware upgrades are welcomed with open arms, there has been recent controversy with the impending release of their Authorization Control System which they state is being done for security reasons. Some users have lamented this forthcoming change, the rumor mill was in full swing, and Bambu Lab issued a statement to set the record straight related to third-party integration with Bambu Connect in an attempt to quell some of the fear. A summary is provided here and here and a zillion other places. Suffice it to say that I am not bothered by it at all, and I will likely just instal the firmware update when it becomes available.

Visit the A1 Maintenance Guidelines for additional recommendations.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Aside from the aforementioned heatbed malfunction, the main issue I’ve had to troubleshoot is related to filament getting stuck in my AMS Lite unit. One time this was due to a tangle in the filament (which was my fault for accidentally letting go of the filament and not checking for tangles when loading the filament), and at other times it had been due to an overly sensitive filament tangle detection feature which simply required me to resume printing (I’ve since deactivated filament tangle detection because of the high rate of false positives).

I’ve recently started following the Bambu Lab subreddit, and there are some common problems that people report. By far the most commonly reported issue is a sloppy or non-adherent first layer, and community contributors are always quick to point out that users have gotten the oils from their fingers onto the build plate. While some people use isopropyl alcohol to clean their build plates, Bambu Lab offers a Textured PEI Plate Cleaning Guide and specifically recommends detergent because alcohol might only spread the oils on the print bed rather than removing it. While some commenters swear by a particular brand of dish detergent, I find that any dish detergent or liquid soap does the job well, as long as I remain vigilant about not touching the build plate with my fingers after washing.

One time I introduced a jam in my hotend because I attempted to feed a new roll of filament into the hotend in the middle of a print job as I reached the end of another roll. I simply needed to understand how to remove the hotend so I could clear the jam, and sure enough there is a wiki on how to replace the A1 toolhead.

Perhaps less common but certainly very dramatic is when users experience hotend clumps. If left unattended for many hours, the clumping can turn into a huge blob. Although it may appear quite disastrous, Bambu Lab provides blob/clump cleaning instructions which should restore printers to fully functional status.

CONCLUSION

As with any hobby, there may be ups and downs. For 3D printing, maintenance and troubleshooting are inevitable, but I think Bambu Lab does a very good job of making it as understandable as possible. I hope your ups far outweigh the downs so that you can unleash your creativity.

Deprecation of 4K Video Downloader

I watch a lot of videos on YouTube, and I often prefer to download them so that I can watch them using my favorite media player, VLC. I’ve previously written about how you can use 4K Video Downloader to download and convert YouTube videos.

Much to my dismay, 4K Video Downloader has reached end of life, as support has been discontinued as of February 1, 2025. The developers encourage 4K Video Downloader users to transition to 4K Video Downloader Plus which is a similar application by the same developer. The downside for me is that my license for 4K Video Downloader will not work on 4K Video Downloader Plus. Fortunately the free version appears to be full-featured, albeit with a daily download limit.

Sometimes developers release new versions of software that require new licenses, and they may do it so often that the licensure model starts to look more like a subscription model (cough cough, Parallels, cough). This is not one of those scenarios, but given that 4K Video Downloader Plus is pretty much the same application as 4K Video Downloader (plus a browser that I don’t plan to use), it doesn’t add any value for me. That being said, I can understand how the developer needs to invest resources to ensure compatibility with YouTube and other video repositories. For now, I’ll migrate to the free version of 4K Video Downloader Plus, and perhaps I will share more in-depth thoughts later on.

U.S. Passport Online Renewal

My U.S. passport was nearing its 10-year expiration, and I was dreading the renewal process. The last time I renewed, I recall filling out a paper form, jumping through hoops to obtain an “official” passport photo, sending the form and old passport via certified mail, and waiting anxiously for my new passport to arrive while at the same time fretting over the slim possibility that my precious passport could get lost in the mail.

I’m pleased to say that in 2024, the process is much simpler because the U.S. Department of State allows you to renew your passport online if you meet the requirements including:

• You are age 25 or older
• The passport you are renewing is or was valid for 10 years
• The passport you are renewing is either expiring within one year or has expired less than five years ago
• You do not need to expedite your renewal (routine service takes 4-6 weeks)
• You can upload a digital passport photo
• Various other requirements (see link above)

Filling out the online renewal form was easy, and the only information I had to look up were the details related to my current passport (e.g., passport ID and issue date). I was most pleased with the ability to upload a digital passport photo because that was the biggest time-saver in comparison to passport renewal in the old days when we had to provide 2 hardcopy prints that conformed to numerous dimensions as pictured below. Even with my photography skills, the photo requirements were usually too cumbersome for me to bother with, and I’d just pay for passport photo services to make sure they got the dimensions right.

But now you can simply upload your digital photo, and the U.S. Department of State provides a step-by-step overview on its website and accompanies it with a YouTube video. The photo requirements are much simpler now: use a white background, don’t do something stupid (e.g., close your eyes, look away from the camera, open your mouth) and save your original color photo in JPG file format. After uploading your photo, the website will apply conformance checks, automatically crop your photo to a square, and allow you to adjust the cropping if desired. No need to leave your home, print hardcopies, or pay someone to do something that you can easily do with the tiny little supercomputer in your pocket.

Another improvement in the passport renewal process is that you no longer have to mail in your old passport. It is stated, however, that upon submitting your renewal application, your existing passport becomes void and cannot be used for international travel so make sure you plan ahead. After paying the processing fee (which was $130 for a passport book at the time of this writing) and submitting my passport renewal application, I received an email confirmation and was also given the option to sign up for additional notifications about the status of my application. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Apple Image Playground First Impression

A new Apple application called Image Playground was introduced in macOS Sequoia 15.2. According to its App Store description, “Image Playground, powered by Apple Intelligence, lets you turn descriptions, concepts or people from your photo library into original, fun images in unique styles.” It is one of many new features introduced to macOS that is powered by Apple Intelligence.

I’ve found 2 potential use cases for Image Playground. First, you can simply describe an image and have Image Playground draw that image for you. From my limited experience, DALL·E from OpenAI does a better job of adding the context from a written description into an image. DALL·E is built into ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, and I will probably continue to use those application to generate complex images. That being said, I will consider using Image Playground if I want to generate images that are simple or cartoonish.

The other use case for Image Playground is to generate caricatures of real people. Simply drag and drop a photo onto Image Playground and it will generate several cartoonish variations of your photo. Further customize the image by typing other descriptive text. For example, here is an original photo of me, along with Image Playground’s original interpretation of the photo, and a refined version of me playing ping pong.

What other use cases have you discovered for Image Playground, and how do you think it performs relative to other similar image-based generative artificial intelligence applications?