So, I treated myself to a new toy for my birthday this year—finally snagged a Bambu Labs A1 Mini with the AMS (Automatic Material System) during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. I’ve had my eye on this printer for a while, and the deal was too good to pass up. The multicolor printing capability was the big sell for me, especially since I’ve been wanting to dive into HueForge prints for a while now.
Moving On from the Ender 3s
I’ve been running two Ender 3s for years, constantly upgrading and tweaking them. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve been great workhorses, but the constant maintenance gets old fast. Wanting to print something and spending 1–2 hours tuning the machine first? Yeah, no thanks.
What I love about the A1 Mini is how it flips that whole experience on its head. This thing just works. It feels more like using an appliance than a machine that constantly needs babysitting. To borrow a sysadmin phrase: it’s “cattle, not pets.” You don’t get attached—you expect it to do its job.
Out of the Box and Printing Fast
Unboxing and setting it up in the lab was painless. I ran the classic Benchy as my first print, and man, it was fast. Seeing it cruise through that test print without any hiccups was such a change of pace from the usual calibration grind I was used to.
Once I knew it was dialed in, I jumped straight into printing out my Christmas gift list. Because let’s be real—if you have a 3D printer, why buy gifts when you can print them?
The Print Queue So Far:
- 🐱 Cat Bookmark for my cousin, who’s getting into bigger books and is in a major cat phase right now.
- ❌⭕ Tic Tac Toe game to go with it.
- 🧩 LEGO sorting trays because organizing tiny bricks is a pain.
- ⚔️ World of Warcraft–themed coasters for my sister and brother-in-law.
- 🖼️ Mini self-portraits of me, my sister, and brother-in-law for my mom.
- 🛠️ Packout tool cases for my dad… okay, I actually couldn’t print these because the A1 Mini’s bed is too small. But if it could, you know I would’ve.
The Multicolor Trade-Off
The AMS is awesome for multicolor prints, but there’s a catch: filament waste. Every time it swaps colors, it has to purge the old filament, which leaves behind these blobs of plastic—affectionately called filament poop. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it does feel wasteful. I might look into ways to recycle or reuse that extra filament down the line.
Should I Restart My Etsy?
Getting this printer has me thinking… maybe it’s time to bring back my Etsy shop and let the printer start paying for itself. I did that with my Ender 3s, and it worked out pretty well.
That said, I’m not about to jump on the bandwagon with those overdone flexi dragons and articulated animals. They’re everywhere, and most people selling them are breaking licensing rules anyway. If I do it, it’s gotta be something more original.
For now, I’m just stoked to have a printer that doesn’t fight me every time I want to make something. This A1 Mini is already earning its keep.
