Back in June 2024 I got a Bambu Lab A1 mini to add to the printers in the shop. The Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D Printer is a tiny little thing! And it’s not my first mini printer. Back in 2021 I got a Prusa MINI+ and when I did I pretty much stopped using the old Monoprice Maker Select Plus except for larger prints because the quality was so good on the Prusa.
I liked the Bambu Lab P1S I got in October 2023 so much that I convinced Josh at Brown Dog Gadgets to replace our Ender-3 S1 printers with a few, so he got four of them.
And since I was having great success with the P1S it made the A1 mini look nice, and I saw it as a “replacement” for the Prusa MINI+… oh, and Bambu Lab was having a sale, and oh, I actually had a $50 gift card to apply to the purchase so I got it for $175 USD. Killer Deal!
I did not get the AMS unit. I’ve got one for the P1S and do any multi-color stuff on that machine. There are a few things that aren’t amazing about the A1 mini, like the camera and the light, and of course the smaller print area, but the print quality is extremely nice for a bed slinger. It appears to print higher quality prints than the Prusa MINI+ did, even when it was brand new. The A1 mini came ready to print… no assembly required.
The screen is a little small (though it’s much better than the old “car stereo” style screen on the P1S) and I use a stylus for pressing the buttons on the screen because my fingers are not tiny because I am a fully grown adult man.
I mostly use the A1 mini for printing printing plates (yes, plates!) or other small prints if the P1S is busy. Honestly if you want a small beginner printer the A1 mini fits the bill pretty well.
6 replies on “Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D Printer”
Printing “plates” …..!
What kind of plates?
Plates for the A1 mini machine itself?
Or dinner plate
Thank you
Printing Plates for Relief Printing! Follow the links for posts explaining things.
I just decided to add to my printers as well I have owned an A1 since before the bad heated wire, and now I will have a mini to sit beside it..
A lot of my printing is functional parts for fixing things, or storage, but my wife does enjoy some 3D printed ornamentation…
So two A1s for me
I love my A1 Mini! I have been holding off for years getting a printer, not wanting another hobby. Don’t want to fiddle, just want to print. It’s amazing and the print quality is amazing. Plug and play. I let huge jobs run over night no problem.
Mine was great until their latest firmware update ruined it. Printing through the cloud fails 95% of the time, LAN only simply doesn’t work even with developer mode enabled. I can now only print using the micro SD card which is a pain.
I’ve rolled the firmware back to a previous version and factory reset it but all in vain, it’s been crippled.
Ian, I don’t think I’ve updated the firmware in quite some time… maybe I won’t!