3D printers, need guidance

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Silvrav

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#319746 28-May-2025 14:25

Time to get me a 3d printer. I've narrowed it down to the following two as they are similar priced:

Kobra 3 Combo pack

Bambu Lab A1C 3D Printer, Including AMS Lite Multi-Colors Combo Pack.

Looking for multi color support and something that doesn't need internet to print.

Any other suggestions welcomed.

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#3377713 28-May-2025 15:39

I have a Bambu P1S with AMS. Overall I really rate it. Replaced an Ender Creality 3 and chalk and cheese in speed and ease of use. Littlest Miss MDF (14) loves it and is its main user, no guidance or input from me.

That said, part of its ease of use is the tight integration between printer, app, Bambu Studio and Makerworld. There was a kerfuffle earlier this year about tightening up the ecosystem further but I will have to confess, I don't know how that played out. I think it does work without internet access, but it definitely works better with internet access. Don't know if that impacts your thinking at all.

You also have to do things Bambu's way, it is less open. I had a skew issue and the online support is really good, but you had to do it Bambu's way, not the way most other printers do it.

So again, overall I really like the Bambu and would recommend to anyone, but would extra recommend it for anyone getting started with 3D printing. I suspect when time and finances allow, I will be building a Voron though.

waikariboy

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#3377731 28-May-2025 18:30

have had a few and atm the Bambu Lab A1 3D Printer with AMS is the best i have had. Compared to creality printers i have had the A1 is amazing, no issues, AMS was a game changer for me. Yes people have issues with the new rules on third party slicers but i dont care about that.

Balm its gone!

Dunnersfella

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#3377780 28-May-2025 20:24

We got our first 3D printer 3 weeks ago - the A1 Mini + AMS.

I guess it would have been great to have got the larger A1, but we were conscious of space. Having said that we haven't struck any real issues as so many prints can be split and joined or, there are prints specifically designed for the A1 Mini.

We've now bought 10 different filaments so far, the printer is hardly ever turned off and my partner has gone right down the rabbit hole (she's half way through an 8 hour print right now). So yeah, so far it has been mint.

Negatives: Micro SD card was faulty out the box, easy fix, but annoying.

PB Tech were next to useless with filament advice and didn't try any form of up-selling, which was interesting.

Camera lost connection to the app once, but a power reset fixed that.

But again, the printer has been on non-stop... and for a sub-$400 printer that strikes me as pretty amazing.

If you're in Auckland I would honestly advise to go to Marvle3D in Rosedale, they're clearly there to help the hobby printers, have a good range of printers up and running, spare plates, hot-ends, loads of filaments etc - they're pretty much the place I would advise buying from / visiting if you're in Auckland.

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#3377792 28-May-2025 22:07

I have both the Bambu A1C (from Marvle3D) and the Kobra 3.

Do not buy the Kobra 3. Buy the Bambu.

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michaelmurfy

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#3377793 28-May-2025 22:35

Agree with others here. I’ve got a Bambu X1C and rate it. Have had creality printers and while they’ve been good, they haven’t been great.

Have recommended Bambu printers to others and they’ve found them largely problem free.

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Silvrav

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#3379353 31-May-2025 11:17

Thanks everyone.

I ended up going a completely different direction and got a creality Hi combo. Should have it by Wednesday and will see how it goes.

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Paul1977

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#3379532 1-Jun-2025 09:20

I just bought the Bambu P1S combo with AMS yesterday on a whim.

Never done 3D printing before, but it had good reviews and I didn’t want to go too basic. Seems like a reasonable compromise of features without going crazy expensive (but still certainly far from the cheapest option).

Once you stick the AMS on top it is very tall, but the footprint isn’t too bad.

Trick for new players, the labelling of the desiccant holders in the AMS is confusing. Makes you think you’re meant to remove the desiccant before use, but you’re just meant to take the outer plastic wrap off but leave the desiccant in there.

Minor downside is it just poops its waste filament out a hole at the back. So you can’t have it backed up too close to a wall because you need to put something down to catch the waste, and have enough room to clear it out.

It shakes my desk something wicked when it picks up speed and am worried the wobble will impact print quality, so may have to come up with a better place to put it. Any recommendations on the best place to have these to minimise shaking?

I went overboard and bought a bunch of different filament types (PLA Basic, PLA Matte, PETG HF, ASA, TPU 95A HF), so think I’ll return all but the PLA Matte which I’ve already opened until I get a bit of experience under my belt with the entry level filaments (combo already included samples spools of PLA Basic and Support filament).

Might get a 0.2mm nozzle as well for finer detail (comes with a 0.4mm) but they didn’t have any in stock where I purchased it.

Does anyone know what all the extra plastic tubes that come with the AMS are for?

Silvrav

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#3379534 1-Jun-2025 09:28

Paul1977:

I just bought the Bambu P1S combo with AMS yesterday on a whim.

Never done 3D printing before, but it had good reviews and I didn’t want to go too basic. Seems like a reasonable compromise of features without going crazy expensive (but still certainly far from the cheapest option).

Once you stick the AMS on top it is very tall, but the footprint isn’t too bad.

Trick for new players, the labelling of the desiccant holders in the AMS is confusing. Makes you think you’re meant to remove the desiccant before use, but you’re just meant to take the outer plastic wrap off but leave the desiccant in there.

Minor downside is it just poops its waste filament out a hole at the back. So you can’t have it backed up too close to a wall because you need to put something down to catch the waste, and have enough room to clear it out.

It shakes my desk something wicked when it picks up speed and am worried the wobble will impact print quality, so may have to come up with a better place to put it. Any recommendations on the best place to have these to minimise shaking?

I went overboard and bought a bunch of different filament types (PLA Basic, PLA Matte, PETG HF, ASA, TPU 95A HF), so think I’ll return all but the PLA Matte which I’ve already opened until I get a bit of experience under my belt with the entry level filaments (combo already included samples spools of PLA Basic and Support filament).

Might get a 0.2mm nozzle as well for finer detail (comes with a 0.4mm) but they didn’t have any in stock where I purchased it.

Does anyone know what all the extra plastic tubes that come with the AMS are for?

Nice, I went the PETG route over PLA after about 8 hours of doing down a rabbit hole yesterday. Seems to be the best compromise between pla and abs. That said, I might not stick with it once I start getting some experience.

I can only assume the extra plastic tubes is if you want to place the ams further away?

The hi combo poops out the side which I like. But will try and minimize wastage as much as possible with using poop to either infill or print a second print that I don't care about the looks (fidget toy for the kids as example)

Paul1977

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#3379535 1-Jun-2025 09:30

@Silvrav if the A1 is like the PS1 then I think you can print without Internet or a Bambu account, but you have to put the printer in “LAN only” mode, and needs to be on the same subnet as your PC from what I can tell. I couldn’t get Bamboo Studio to see it when I tried it on a different VLAN to my PC, I could ping it but just could make the software see it for some reason (but I didn’t ray for long, because I wanted to get printing).

I did need to use the Bambu Handy app on a phone and connect via Bluetooth in order to join the printer to my wifi, but I could do this without needing to create a Bambu account.

Paul1977

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#3379553 1-Jun-2025 09:42

Silvrav:

Nice, I went the PETG route over PLA after about 8 hours of doing down a rabbit hole yesterday. Seems to be the best compromise between pla and abs. That said, I might not stick with it once I start getting some experience.

I can only assume the extra plastic tubes is if you want to place the ams further away?

The hi combo poops out the side which I like. But will try and minimize wastage as much as possible with using poop to either infill or print a second print that I don't care about the looks (fidget toy for the kids as example)

Most of the extra tubes are really short. Anyway, I’ll just hold onto them.

I missed your post about going with the H1.

I don’t think you can reuse the waste? But there isn’t much of it.

I went down a rabbit hole as well and decided on getting ALL the filaments to try, but then when I saw them all I thought “what a waste of money” hence returning a bunch. I can always try other filaments a bit later. PLA has a heap of downsides, but apparently the easiest to start with for beginners. And the matte does look very nice.

mdf

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#3379644 1-Jun-2025 11:45

PLA is definitely the best starter filament. It's also the best for decorative prints. PETG gets mixed reviews (it can ooze) though I am coming around to it. TPU can be quite hard to print depending on the durometer; it can also over-adhere to the P1S PEI build plate and the more flexible stuff can't go in the AMS.

The extra bowden tubes are if you don't have your AMS on top. The shorter ones are to replace the internal tubes if you have wear or clogs. I have mine to the side so I can access the top of the printer. I've also added the Bambu 4 way splitter so I can feel from an external spool as well as the AMS. I have mine feeding into a filament dryer. You also shouldn't put cardboard spools in the AMS.

I bought the flexible feet for my P1S. It definitely helps the shaking but adds swaying. I've since moved it to a robust garage style shelving unit (it was previously on a desk) and moved back to the original feet.

There are plenty of "poop chutes" to print to deal with the waste at the back issue.

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richms

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#3379649 1-Jun-2025 12:28

I have got a paving stone from bunnings to put under all my printers, and then a rubber gym mat type mat cut to the size of the paving stones to try to cut down on the noise and vibrations into the shelf. The gym mat did not seem to do a hell of a lot, but the paving stone stopped a lot of the creaking I was getting from the shelves.

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Paul1977

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#3379761 2-Jun-2025 10:48

Hmmm... wish I'd realised there was an AMS 2 Pro before I bought my combo that comes with the v1 AMS. Might have just got the P1S and AMS 2 Pro separately had I realised. The active drying seems like a great feature to have.

Oh well, a bit late now. Live and learn I guess.

Paul1977

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#3380198 3-Jun-2025 15:37

I'm getting into it now. Just ordered a 0.2mm nozzle for extra detailed stuff, and a 0.4mm and 0.6mm in hardened steel for use with carbon fibre filaments etc. Ordered the full hotend assemblies for these after I looked at the fiddly procedure on YouTube to swap if you just purchase the nozzles (too much mucking about, I'd rather spend a little more for the full assemblies which are much easier to swap.

Threw the antivibration feet into the order to try as well.

Now I'm Googling how to do multicolour prints without wasting so much filament. It's mental how much is wasted with all the filament changes! Sounds like there are ways to get less wastage, but overall it seems like multicolour prints inevitably waste a lot of filament no matter how much tweaking of settings you do.

I can see this turning into an expensive hobby.

Silvrav

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#3380213 3-Jun-2025 16:25

Paul1977:

I'm getting into it now. Just ordered a 0.2mm nozzle for extra detailed stuff, and a 0.4mm and 0.6mm in hardened steel for use with carbon fibre filaments etc. Ordered the full hotend assemblies for these after I looked at the fiddly procedure on YouTube to swap if you just purchase the nozzles (too much mucking about, I'd rather spend a little more for the full assemblies which are much easier to swap.

Threw the antivibration feet into the order to try as well.

Now I'm Googling how to do multicolour prints without wasting so much filament. It's mental how much is wasted with all the filament changes! Sounds like there are ways to get less wastage, but overall it seems like multicolour prints inevitably waste a lot of filament no matter how much tweaking of settings you do.

I can see this turning into an expensive hobby.

My printer just arrived today and have picked up some pf my PETG rolls from PBtech. wont get change until Thursday to setup and start playing but have youtube a lot.

The key so far to taking your poop to a print is to ensure the poop print height is the same as what you are printing, otherwise you using more filament to complete the poop print and in turn you not actually saving filament.

But yes, ultimately color prints is going to waste a lot and I have come to accept that and rather look at ways to reduce this waste (poop prints, poop infill, orientation of the print, etc)

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