Hey,
I had a few questions regarding the A1. I have watched many reviews of the machine and comparisons of all BL printers. As the A1 is a bedslinger, is the fact that bedslingers are slow/worse now just stereotypical? And do you notice any real quality difference between its more premium brothers?
People seem scared away from it because of this (or what material they print). I think the A1 would be perfect for my budget as I wanted to try out multicolor printing. I am also aware of the waste it produces.
While some people say to go with a P1S for the “future”, I don’t think $530 more is worth it. I have been printing for years and never really needed to print ABS. This obviously only applies to me personally.
So what are your thoughts on the A1? Do you still recommend it for someone who is more experienced in the realm of 3D printing?
Thank you for any advice!
Bedslingers can be more problematic for taller/thinner prints. The print is flexible, it can bend and deform as a result of being whipped back and forth, leading to print quality issues higher up on the print.
A printer that doesn’t move the print bed in X and Y doesn’t have to worry about the print wiggling around during the print.
I’m not the most experienced but coming from a complete cheap as chips Anet printer. The jump to an A1 was like night and day. At the price point it’s hard to beat
I have had the X1C for about a year, a couple of months ago I picked up the A1 Mini. Honestly can hardly tell the difference in print quality, I think the Mini is an outstanding machine for the money. Haven’t tried the A1 but can’t imagine there would be much difference.
I have a Bambu A1 and have watched a ton of videos comparing the different Bambu products. here are some bullet points to summarize what they are.
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The quality of the P1P, P1S, P1C, and A1 are the same, but you are more limited on material you can print on the A1. (if that makes a difference for you, I just print in PLA)
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On single color prints, the P series is around 20% faster then the A1, but when printing in multi color, they are the same speed due to the A1 being faster at changing out colors then the P series.
As a multi printer owner I can give you a comparison, I have an A1, a Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro a highly modded Ender 3, Modded Ender 3 V2 and a Flashforge Finder.
I have a large set of prints that I’m doing for a client, the prints are 235mm tall. I used to think my Elegoo was fast, which compared to my Ender 3 it is but, the Elegoo doing the same print same nozzle size etc takes 34 hrs to print this print. The A1 does it in 21. That’s huge leap in speed and the quality is actually better due to the advanced features built in.
This has allowed me to double my output.
While I’m not saying the Carbon X1 wouldn’t be nice to own, the simplicity of a bedslinger is great. Since I’ve rebuilt my bed with better wiring this printer is a beast. It’s just keeps going. If you were to ask me if I’d buy it again, my responce is in a heart beat.
Happy Printing
M1
I was using a bed slinger before switching to the P1 series.
Quality discussions aside, here are my two main problems with bed slingers:
Footprint: Even though a bed slinger printer might look smaller than a core XY for a similar bed size, the bed slinger requires much larger footprint since it needs clearance on front and back.
As others have mentioned, if you have a particular massive or tall object, all that weight swinging back and forth might case bending or the printed object becoming loose.
The AMS-lite even takes more foot print since you can’t stack it on the top of the printer unlike the P1/X1 AMS.
I guess if you have the space and don’t print massive or very tall/narrow objects then you’ll probably be happy with a Bambu bed slinger.
There are definitely prints that will do better with a XY than a slinger. But if you’re not printing that kind of print, the differences between a good slinger and an XY will be undetectable.
Slingers are more popular because they’re less expensive to make/sell. If their only “negative” was that they needed more space to sling the bed, there wouldn’t be XYs and Cartesians and Deltas, there would only be slingers.
I don’t know where it came from. Tilting , flexing, bending, you name it of print is almost negligible. Bedslingers are so much simpler, much easier to service, take less space, usually
The A1 is simply and arguably the best bedslinger in the market, especially if you factor in the AMS lite. Having 5 PLA spools on standby at any time is an amazing feature. It’s true that the AMS wastes a lot of filament, but there are profiles that help reduce the waste by around 40%. You have the option to print “by object” without wasting or manually changing filament, so for instance you can through multiple models on one bed, and have the printer print them one at a time in different colors.
There’s zero competition at this price point.
I only print with PLA, and rarely with PETG. So the A1 is the perfect choice.
I just bought the P1S combo and think that will be the best choice, as I think I can see myself wanting to print more than PLA. Another factor to those decision was that just because I’m not printing with many exotic filaments currently doesn’t mean I won’t in the lifetime of this printer. When I looked at the A1, I felt like I was going backwards in upgrading if that makes sense. I didn’t really want another open air Bedslinger.
The biggest differences are what filament you can print and the speed out of the box. I have that P1S and I can say that after playing around with a friend’s bed slinger I am glad I got the P1S. Plus the noise of the machine is way lower when printing compared to a bed slinger when fans are at their max.
Well since I don’t sleep with the printer anywhere near me fan noise has never been an issue. Both types have their plusses and minuses. I own a core XY and for me the absolute worst part is the first layer. You simply cannot see it and since the lower machines don’t have that elaborate lydar system, you still run the chance of a ruined print. It’s much harder to see your first layer on a core XY.
As far as tall prints I just finished making 8 trophy’s on my A1 that were 235mm tall with a fairly narrow base and they came out perfect every time. The key is bed adhesion.
I have Elegoo, Ender and Flashforge printers and I really like them all. But the A1 is leagues above those. it’s like a Porche compared to a regular car. They both get you where ya need to go it’s just how fast you get there.
I wish I had the opportunity to review a Bambu Labs core XY. The deal breaker for me on the core XY was the bed size is the same as the A1. If it would have been larger then I may have gone that way.
Seeya
M1
