Bambu Lab A1 Review | PCMag

Just a few years ago, around $500 would get you a 3D printer you'd likely have to spend hours assembling and calibrating—and then, you'd have to pray for a decent print. As the excellent Bambu Lab A1 shows, that’s not the case anymore. It's the big brother to the A1 mini we reviewed recently and liked very much. The A1 models are some of the first mainstream 3D printers with optional four-color filament feeds. The A1 works with Bambu Lab’s four-color spool system as either an optional extra for the $399 base model or included with the A1 Combo reviewed here, which costs $559. The A1 mini is cheaper still, at $459 for the Combo version with the multicolor filament system. We think this larger A1 tested here is the better overall value, and it's our new Editors' Choice pick for mainstream multicolor 3D printers.

While Bambu Lab helped pioneer fused deposition modeling (FDM) multicolor printers, also known as fused filament fabrication (FFF) printers, many of its competitors have recently joined the fray. Bambu Lab has hinted at a new generation of multicolor FDM printers, but the A1 is well-designed and should still be considered a good printer for the price. One thing to be aware of is that the first batch of A1 printers was recalled due to the possibility of a cable shorting and causing a fire. The company offered either a repair and upgrade kit or the ability to return the printer and get a replacement as well as a discount coupon. Since the initial launch, there have been no further major problems reported.

As with the A1 mini, the A1 is a bed-slinger-style printer, though with two vertical gantries to the A1 mini’s single gantry. With a bed-slinger, the extruder moves up and down and from left to right. The print bed stays level but moves to the rear and front. Compare that with a core XY design, which has the print bed moving vertically while the extruder moves forward and backward and left and right.

However, some fairly significant differences separate the A1 mini and the A1. The first is size. The A1 is physically larger than the A1 mini to accommodate a 10-by-10-inch print bed, compared with the A1 mini’s approximately 7-by-7-inch bed. The A1 also offers a larger 3.5-inch control panel. I find this much easier to use than the smaller control panel on the A1 mini.

Other than size, both panels offer the same display resolution and settings choices, as well as the same selection of starter objects to print on the included microSD card. The larger print area is a nice upgrade from the A1 mini’s 7-inch size. As with the A1 mini, the A1 comes with a removable PEI build plate, and other plates—including textured ones—are available for purchase from Bambu Lab.

As with the A1 mini, the A1 offers an easily replaceable print nozzle. Just open a spring latch on the extruder (hot end) and pull the current hot end out, inserting the replacement in its place. This makes nozzle replacement easy and quick. The default hot end is 0.4mm, with 0.2mm, 0.6mm, and 0.8mm nozzles available as options. These are all made of stainless steel.

Heavy-duty hot ends are also available should you want to use abrasive filaments. The extruder/hot end can reach 300 degrees C (572 degrees F), which allows the A1 to use PLA, PETG, TPU, and PVA filaments. The print bed can reach a temperature of 80 degrees C (176 degrees F). I made all of my test prints at the default 60 degrees C and, except for one print, had no adhesion problems. (One of the test objects detached from the print plate at the end of the print several times until I added a brim on the print. We'll discuss print quality later in the review.)

The A1 is available as a single-color printer without the four-color filament holder for $399. Bambu Lab calls the holder the AMS lite (for "Automatic Material System"). It sells by itself for $269, so buying the A1 Combo is a much better value if you're interested in multicolor printing. The same filament holder works with both the A1 and the A1 mini.

While the assembly process is getting better as printers evolve, many FDM printers still require a fair amount of time and effort to get assembled and calibrated before you can actually start the first print. Other 3D printer designs are ready to use—or almost ready—right out of the box. The A1 lands somewhere in the middle.

You can download a detailed assembly manual from the Bambu Lab website, and while the process involves quite a few steps, I found it rather simple overall. You have to remove some screws, put in some others, and put the printer frame and base together. Then you plug in a few cables, attach the purge wiper, and the printer is ready to use. Each step is described in simple language on a separate page of the manual.

The packaging includes a single-spool holder, which I did not install as I intended to use the four-spool accessory (shown in the photo above). Assembling the accessory is even easier than the printer. First, you attach the base with several screws, click in the four rotary spool holders, and plug the cable into the A1 printer base. You then run each of the four PTFE tubes from ports on the accessory housing to the filament hub at the top of the extruder. The documentation tells you which tube goes into which hole on the filament hub. If you are using the single-spool fixture, it doesn’t matter which tube the PTFE tube goes into, though if you have the four-color attachment, you can dispense with the single-spool fixture and just mount a single spool on the external holder.

After installing the four-color fixture and loading some filament, you’re almost ready to make your first print. The last steps in the setup process consist of installing the Bambu Studio slicer app on your PC, installing the Bambu Handy mobile app on your phone or tablet, and connecting the printer to your Wi-Fi network. The printer has neither a USB port nor a port for an Ethernet connection. Wi-Fi and a microSD card are the only ways to get prints from the slicer app to the printer.

The A1 automatically runs a 49-point calibration on the first print after it is powered up, and it also adjusts the printer resonance to generate the lowest sound while printing. This feature works very well—when I was in another room, I had to physically check that the printer was actually working (though if you have the built-in camera turned on, you can check this with the Bambu Handy mobile app).

Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest from the experts at PC Labs delivered right to your inbox.

By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Thanks for signing up!

Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!

In addition to a tool kit that helps you assemble the printer itself, the A1 comes packed with a box of supplies that will help you print and assemble an electronic device. The tool kit is similar to the ones that come with A1 mini and several other vendors’ printers. It has tools such as Allen wrenches that you will need to assemble and maintain the printer. It does not include a side cutter like the ones that came with Anker’s printers, such as the M5C, however.

As with the A1 mini, the box of supplies contains the electronic and mechanical parts to print and build a finished project. The one in my box is a neat little clock. As with the A1 mini, the files for this are located on the MakerWorld website, along with numerous other files you can print. In addition to the clock, there are a number of different project kits that might be packed with the printer. With the A1 mini, I received the parts to print and build a computer mouse. The Bambu Lab website has other build kits you can purchase.

We printed a dozen different models sourced from Printables and Thingiverse, all with the slicer’s default settings and with Bambu Lab’s own filament. As far as a visual examination, we were unable to discern any notable print problems like lines or distortions. Three of the models are what we use to benchmark print quality for every FDM 3D printer. These are a benchmark object that Kickstarter developed in partnership with Autodesk, the 3DBenchy (a boat), and a panel that consists of a number of geometric and typographic forms that increase or decrease in size going horizontally from left to right. Two of the three—the Kickstarter-Autodesk model and the 3DBenchy—have formal rubrics that let us compare particular print areas with an established value and note any discrepancies between the two.

We printed all three benchmark objects three times, using Bambu Lab filament with the spool mounted on the holder. We measured the 3DBenchy and Kickstarter models with a micrometer, averaged the results of the measurements, and compared them with the expected values.

According to the rubric for the 3DBenchy, the horizontal overall length of the boat should measure exactly 60mm. This measurement on the A1 was 61.95mm, which is acceptably close. The bridge roof length measured 23.05mm against the rubric’s 23mm, exactly the same measurement we obtained with the A1 mini. While we did not perform measurements on every benchmark the rubric contains, we did measure most of them and found the print to correspond almost perfectly to the measurements given in the rubric.

The Kickstarter-Autodesk benchmark measures dimensional accuracy, filament flow control, fine negative features, overhangs, bridging, XY resonance, and Z-axis alignment, and the expected measurements can be found here. A score is assigned to each benchmark feature, most ranging from 0 to 5. Adding these individual scores gives you a total score, which you compare with the best possible score that could be achieved. A perfect score in this benchmark would be 30 points. The score the A1 achieved on this benchmark is 24.5, which is very good and acceptable for a budget 3D printer, even though it's not perfect.

The third benchmark we printed was the geometric panel. I saw no visible artifacts or other misprinting on this test, and would rate this particular benchmark result as excellent.

In fact, in all three of these benchmarks, as well as the other objects we printed, the output quality varied from very good to excellent.

Note that all benchmark results were obtained using Bambu Lab filament fed from the holder. We used Bambu Lab filament for the test because Bambu Lab filament spools have an RFID tag that tells the printer what kind of filament is on each spool, as well as what color the filament is. The exact print results may be affected by the brand and spool of the filaments you use, as well as other factors, such as the humidity of the room where the filament is stored. (PLA tends to absorb humidity, which can slightly change its characteristics.) We performed all of the measurement comparisons with the average of the results of three iterations of prints.

As with other Bambu Lab 3D printers, you can use the slicer app—Bambu Studio—or the mobile app to design your prints. The mobile app, Bambu Handy, lets you slice a model and prepare the gcode necessary for the A1 to produce a print. The A1 is also compatible with PrusaSlicer, SuperSlicer, and Cura, though not all of the features and settings may be available if you use third-party slicer software.

In addition to designing something from scratch, you can also print one of the already sliced models on the microSD card included with the printer. You can select these models using the touch-screen control panel. If you are using the slicer, you can load your own models onto a microSD card (assuming you have a microSD card slot on your PC, or have an adapter) and insert the card into the slot located on the right panel of the printer.

The A1’s default printing speed is 500mm per second (approximately 20 inches per second). You can set slower speeds using the slicer, but we didn’t see any noticeable change in the quality of our prints when we ramped down to the slower 250mm-per-second level. Most 3D printers of this generation offer similar—if not slightly faster—speeds. But speed isn’t much of a consideration in most purchase decisions for budget 3D printers, since hobbyists aren't typically printing anything that's time-critical.

As with the A1 mini, the A1 extrudes a small amount of filament with each color change, pushing these filament extrusions off to the left side. These waste extrusions are nicknamed “poop,” and you can collect a lot of them when you are printing a model with numerous color changes. Numerous bins to contain this waste are available in the Bambu Lab MakerWorld repository of models.

Read about our mission and testing methodology.

While several new multiple-color FDM printers are now on the market, the Bambu Lab A1 is one of the first, and it still holds a commanding position. It boasts a four-color print capability, a large print bed, and an easy-to-switch nozzle system, all at a reasonable price. It’s easy to get going, offers excellent quality prints, and is a good fit for both beginners and experienced hobbyists. If you are looking for a FDM 3D printer for less than $500, the A1 should be at the top of your list.

Ted Needleman has been covering the world of technology for almost 40 years. He writes frequently on software, hardware, and technology-related subjects. He has been a programmer, accountant, Editor-in-Chief of Accounting Technology magazine, and the director of an imaging and printing test lab. He has been performing reviews for PCMag since the 1990s.

Read Ted's full bio