Bambu Lab A1: smooth silk-PLA lamp print after just over two hours

After using the Bambu Lab A1 for a few days, I can say its print quality really is not as poor as people online make it sound.

Before buying the A1, I spent quite a while researching it.

Opinions about the A1's print quality online are very divided. Some people say the A1 is only an entry-level machine and that anyone wanting better surface quality should move up to the P1S or X1C. That made me hesitate before ordering because I was worried I would regret the purchase after seeing the layer lines.

But after actually printing with it for several days, I feel that the A1's print quality is seriously underrated.

This time, I happened to print a fairly complex lamp body using silk pink PLA.

The entire model was made up of irregular curved surfaces, bumps and twisted structures, so I was quite worried that the print might fail. In the end, when I took it off the printer, it looked much better at first glance than I had expected.

The large curved surfaces shown in the photographs were especially revealing. Once silk filament reflects light, it can expose flaws very easily, but the surface actually looked quite smooth and the transitions across the curves were fairly natural. You can definitely see FDM layer lines up close, so there is no point pretending otherwise, but when it is displayed on a table and viewed normally, the overall finish is already very good.

The lamp body was also fairly large. It printed for more than two hours and used about 80 g of filament. I barely supervised it during the process: I sliced the model, started the print and left it alone, and it ultimately finished intact.

That is what I currently find most comfortable about the A1

It is not the kind of 3D printer that requires you to study the machine every day.

It basically handles things such as bed levelling and flow for you. I mainly want to print finished objects rather than constantly tinker with the machine, so it feels genuinely worry-free to use.

Of course, the A1 is not completely without drawbacks.

Its open frame limits the materials you can use, and surface quality is also affected when the print speed is pushed especially high. If you really want more advanced materials and a more enclosed printing environment, the P1S or X1C would certainly be more suitable.

But if you mainly want to print PLA and PETG, make display pieces or lamps, and produce small things for around the home, I now feel that the A1 is more than sufficient.

At least based on my own use, I completely do not get the feeling that a bed-slinging printer automatically has poor print quality.

I even stood in front of the machine and looked at the finished lamp for quite a while.

It gave me a strange feeling

Just over two hours earlier, it had been nothing more than a spool of pink plastic filament, and now it had genuinely become quite an attractive object.

Recently, I have already started searching for models like crazy...