Bambu Lab A1 Review After Two Years: What's Great and What to Consider Before Buying

This machine was used to 3D print most of our lamps and a lot of prototypes. I also used the AMS lite unit to 3D print multicolor objects. After all that printing, there was no need to change or replace any of the parts. The one thing I did continuously was lubricate the Y-axis rail.

The machine ships with a small 3 g tube of lubricant oil, plus three 1 g packs of grease (Bambu Lab Wiki). That's enough for some time, but for regular use you will need to order more. Use oil, not grease, on the Y-axis rail: Bambu switched its recommendation to oil because grease attracts dust (Bambu Lab Wiki).

Here are the regular items from Bambu's A1 maintenance schedule:

• Y-axis rail

  How often

  Monthly, or when the printer reminds you

  What to use

  Clean, then lubricant oil

• X-axis rail

  How often

  Monthly

  What to use

  Clean, then lubricant oil

• Z-axis lead screw

  How often

  Every 3 months

  What to use

  Lubricant grease

• Idler pulleys

  How often

  Every 3 months

  What to use

  Lubricant oil

• Hotend heating assembly

  How often

  Monthly

  What to use

  Clean off residue

• Cooling fans

  How often

  Weekly

  What to use

  Check for debris

The full schedule on the Bambu Lab Wiki also covers re-tensioning the belts when the printer prompts you, checking the filament cutter blade every 3 rolls, replacing the PTFE tube every 6 rolls (every 2 for carbon-fiber filament) and cleaning the extruder if it clogs.

Most of the time I used the printer with the stock 0.4 mm nozzle, which is very optimal for most prints. However, if you want to reduce the layer lines even more, the 0.2 mm nozzle is a great solution. I have also used it for objects that need very fine details. Just plan for longer print times, since a smaller nozzle puts down less plastic per pass.

Going the other way, Bambu sells 0.6 and 0.8 mm hardened steel nozzles for the A1, each as a complete hotend (Bambu Lab Wiki), which are handy for big, fast prints. I used a 0.8 mm nozzle to speed up a slow-printing PHA lampshade.

Considering that most people will use the printer for their personal projects now and then, I think this machine will serve for many years. Mine has printed far more than that, and it's still going strong.

One question most people ask is about reliability and the quality of the printed objects. A common issue is when the object collapses mid-print and the printer keeps printing in mid-air, creating a mess of “spaghetti.” That can be frustrating, especially if you've already spent hours on the print. In most cases, the reason is poor bed adhesion: the object is not sticking well enough to the build plate.

To avoid it, no matter how complex the object is, I always use an adhesive glue stick. It costs only about $4 and works perfectly with PLA. Bambu says the A1's textured PEI plate holds PLA without glue (Bambu Lab Wiki), but for me the glue stick is cheap insurance. The second thing I do before every print is wash the build plate with soap. It removes dust and oils from fingers, so the first layer grips reliably.

Bambu also recommends washing the plate periodically with warm water and dish soap, not isopropyl alcohol, which can just spread the oils around (Bambu Lab Wiki). And try not to touch the print surface with your fingers.

So far, I am very happy with this machine. But there are two issues worth knowing about.

The simplest solution is to turn on silent mode while printing. It runs the printer at about half speed (Bambu Lab Forum), and with it the problem was gone completely.

Bambu Studio 2.2 and newer also have a “Slow down by height” option (in the Speed settings, Advanced mode), so you can lower speed and acceleration from 13 cm up instead of slowing the whole print (release notes). Check its values, though: out of the box it's set to 1,000 mm/s and 100,000 mm/s², so it doesn't slow anything down until you enter your own (Bambu Lab Forum).

For me, this issue only happened on the A1, because it moves the bed during printing, like any bed slinger (the A1 mini included). On a CoreXY printer such as the P1S, the bed only moves down as the print grows, so there's no problem like it.

One other problem I had, just once, was that the printer froze mid-print, and no matter what I did it stayed frozen. Based on my research, the issue may be the SD card that ships with the machine. The A1 has no internal storage and runs the G-code from the SD card (Bambu Lab Wiki). If the card stops working for any reason, the printer stops as well. So I replaced it with a more reliable, high-quality card.

If you do the same, pick a card from a reputable brand and format it in the printer: the A1 supports microSD cards up to 2 TB when formatted with its own format option. Freezes can have other causes too, like power or software issues (Bambu Lab Forum), so if it keeps happening after a card swap, contact Bambu support.

Pros

• No parts replaced in almost two years of printing
• Reliable enough to print most of our lamps and prototypes
• Multicolor printing with the AMS lite, up to four colors
• Nozzle options from 0.2 mm for fine detail to 0.8 mm for speed

Cons

• Layer shifts on tall prints above about 13 cm, because the bed moves
• Prints depend on the microSD card, since there's no built-in memory
• The Y-axis rail needs oil about once a month

If you print mostly personal projects and small to medium objects, it's easy to recommend. If you plan to print a lot of tall objects, plan for slower speeds on those prints, or consider a CoreXY printer like the P1S.

This machine printed some of our lamps. If you want to print them yourself, you can get the files at e-leora.com. Every design comes as STL and OBJ files, plus 3MF projects ready for Bambu Studio and OrcaSlicer, with detailed printing instructions for every model. A commercial license option lets you sell the lamps you print (see licenses).