Hey everyone,
I’ve been in the 3D printing hobby for a while, starting with a MakerBot Replicator 5th Gen, and eventually moving to Creality printers and beyond. I currently run a small print farm with 20 P1S printers and sell full-time on Etsy, Amazon, eBay, etc.
However, I’ve been extremely frustrated with my experience using the A1 series printers. Last year, I bought four A1 Minis, and by the third week, all of them stopped extruding properly—clogged nozzles, extruder issues, you name it. Then, I tried the regular A1, bought two of them, and experienced the same problem after about 10 hours of use. There was also a heat bed recall, which ultimately led me to sell all six units just to move on.
Recently, I decided to give it another go and bought eight more A1s (without the AMS Lite system), thinking perhaps the wall-mounted setup with AMS Lite was the issue. I planned to dedicate these machines to printing PETG exclusively. Sadly, within 10 days, only five are working. One machine didn’t even load a single strand of filament—the extruder gear clicks right out of the box. I’ve had an open support ticket since the 10th, still waiting for a response.
I’ve attached some photos to show what I’m dealing with—there seems to be a serious issue with these machines. They work fine for a while, but then the nozzle gets clogged, and the filament barely extrudes. Even after cleaning and performing cold pulls, it feels like there’s some kind of obstruction. It’s baffling that this has happened to 9 out of the 14 machines I’ve tried.
For context, humidity is not an issue in my print room (30% average), and I go through a new roll of Sunlu PETG every two days. I print at 250°C, but even after lowering to 220°C, the problem persists. My older A1 Minis with AMS Lite had same issue eventually, using the same PLA that I run through my X1 Carbons and P1S machines with no problems.
I spent eight hours today scraping PETG off the textured plate because the A1 managed to extrude just enough to fuse it to the surface in the worst way imaginable. I’ve reached a breaking point with these machines.
attached video is what my life is like now, using included filament stand, no joint issues, all 8 are setup exactly the same so i know its not a setup issue with the tube guiding etc.
Has anyone else experienced similar issues with the A1 series? About to deal with returning 8 a1s and biying p1s like i should have.
and if this post seems ai generated, i had to run it through chatpgpt to take out the 30 profanities i had in my original post.
fml
