I’ve had another A1 Mini before and it was very good and never had any issues with. Recently got another one, but off the Bambu store on Amazon instead of directly from the Bambu site. The first one I bought off Amazon came with a stripped screw under the heat bed and had to return it, as I couldn’t tighten one of the 3 screws.
Ordered a replacement and now I got another issue? The replacement has a super loud humming/buzzing sound coming out of base of the unit. When I turn it on, it’s extremely loud for a few brief seconds, but the video shows the noise level it settles down to. This is with nothing running at idle. Turn the volume up to at least 60% to get an idea of how loud it is.
Check the printer’s hours counter to make sure it’s brand new and not second-hand. With Amazon, you can never be too sure; every now and then, they mistakenly send out used devices, which really shouldn’t happen. It’s rare, but it does happen.
Yeah, I did that beforehand, but double checked it and it does display 0hrs.
Another odd thing I found with my unit which led me to believe it was used, the bed/camera light was set to ON out of the box. I don’t know if I’m recalling incorrectly, but I don’t remember the other two units coming like that.
Seems like they have some quality control issues at the factory, or I just got really unlucky with the latest two units I received.
For anyone else that might land here with a similar issue:
Bambu Support ended up saying it is the motherboard fan that is the issue and recommended replacing it. If you hear a loud noise coming out of the base on the right side of the unit, you likely have a similar issue.
If you want to be 100% sure it’s the fan, leave the printer on and idle for a long time. It should turn off the fan after a while, as long as your room temperature isn’t too warm (my room=63f). If the noise disappears after idle, it’s 100% the fan. I noticed this when I left it idling by accident. Once you start doing anything again on it, it should kick back on.
I think the chinese “small electronics fan” market got a bunch of counterfeits dumped on them sometime in the last year and are working their way into most consumer products. Sleeved when they should be bearings, or cheap garbage bin bearings that grind after a couple hundred hours… Maybe I’m just unlucky or increasing my statistical slot-machine-pulls, but fans have been grenading on me left and right recently.
Well, I got the replacement fan direct from Bambu and replaced it today. The new fan is quieter, but still loud. It’s not as loud as the original fan, but still annoying.
They either switched to cheaper components or have a bad batch of fans.
I did some searching to maybe buy a third party fan replacement and ended up seeing some mods on makerworld for replacing the fan. Lots of people complaining about the noise in comments. The weird thing is, my first A1 mini I bought over 2 years ago was silent, it only got semi-loud when actually printing. These new fans sound like they’re running at max RPM just sitting idle doing nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they also switched out the hotend fan with this cheaper junk.
If you check the wiki, you can see the fan label is very different from the ones in the printer and the replacement they sent out. I think the originals were higher quality/quieter. Wiki shows a “Snowfan” brand in their guide, the one they’re shipping now is a “FZN”. Snowfan seems to have a site and lots of info on their products. The first results for FZN is a Walmart listing with no manufacture site to be found.
Kind of ridiculous, considering it’s winter and in a cool basement and sitting idle doing nothing. The original first one was even worse. Junk quality fan. It’s louder than my PC that has 3 fans running.
After about a month after replacing the fan, there is now a weird sound when the bed is moving. It’s like a weird ticking sound. I think I’ve done 2 or 3 print jobs since the replacement motherboard fan.
I tried re-calibrating the printer using the menu calibration on the printer, it failed and gave a calibration error and said it couldn’t print the file? I didn’t even select any files to print, I just went to the calibration option in the settings menu. Restarted printer, re-ran it and it completed the calibration.
I’ve also been running in offline and decided to check the firmware, it was on firmware version v1.03! This was a printer bought in 2026 from official channels and it has a firmware that seems to be over 2 years old. Brought it online, updated the firmware.
First update firmware, got stuck at 25%. Restarted and did it through the phone app, it complete the firmware update.
After firmware update and another calibration, the weird bed noise is still there. The bed now also has some pre-heating issue before printing. Before it would heat up quickly and print immediately. Now when I send a print job, it gets stuck on pre-heating bed for 2-3 minutes. Then continues, then freeze again before printing and heating the bed again 1-2 minutes before starting a print.
Wish I sent this thing back for a refund when I had the chance.
Restarted printer, re-ran it and it completed the calibration.