The print family grows

I said the my Bambu Lab A1 was looking kind of lonely, so I did something about it. I went out and purchased a second A1. I can see and hear the comments now:

Why not a Centauri Carbon? Prusa? P1P or X1? K2? A1 Mini?

Bambu is terrible! Prusa is better! Creality is the best!

My A1 had so many problems! The AMS lite is awful!

Here’s why.

It works for me. I started out with an Ender 3 back in the day. I built it and learned about various parts, which gave me an appreciate for 3D printing. It was not fun leveling or swapping out parts, but it allowed me to learn more about 3D printing than I likely would have if I started out with something like the A1. The next printer was the Ender V3 SE. That did not work. It was a nightmare. Creality support was anything buy helpful. It was at that point I made the jump to the A1.

I did a lot of research and felt this was the next best printer for me to try out. It had multi-color printing, which is what I wanted to really get into, and it did not break the bank. I believe I got the first one during one of their sales, so I saved $50 or so off of it. Since then, it’s worked. The only little hiccup has been one of the feeders on the AMS lite had some trouble pulling in the filament. It wasn’t until I introduced some glow in the dark filament to it though, which I feel was the likely cause of the issue. I could be wrong. I could have also pulled some filament out without releasing it at some point, which would wear it down. I swapped it out and everything is fine, even after re-introducing glow in the dark filament to it.

It saves me on parts. If I were to get a A1 mini, I would need different size build plates. If I were to get a Prusa, which I did really look at, it would be a whole set of different parts. Those are expenses that I want to avoid right now.

Multi-color printing is important to me. There aren’t a lot of great options out there for multi-color printing. I am interested in seeing what the multi-color printing system will be like for the Centauri Carbon. I think Creality’s CFS is a good option, but I am just down on them due to my last experience. The Prusa Mk4S with MMU is $1269. I could have bought two A1 combos for that price, so I really couldn’t justify that when the A1 has really done what I have needed.

That’s why I purchased another A1. I’m always interested in hearing about other brands and options, as the family will expand again one day.