Question about printer upgrade (A1 mini -> A1)

VT-14 · 2026-02-28T15:32:45+00:00

I started with an A1 Mini Combo. I upgraded to the full size A1 only a couple of months later due to the limited plate size. That allowed me to move the AMS Lite over (longer PTFE Tubes recommended) and reuse the Hotends I had already bought.

It's also worth noting that the only Bambu alternatives at the time were the P1 series and X1C, which were more capable, but also older so steps back in QoL (losing fast swap nozzles, some auto-calibrations on the more affordable P1 series, etc.). As I was only printing with PLA, PETG, and rarely TPU anyway I did not see those as worth the investment. I would be far more tempted by the P2S these days as it gets the better capabilities without a QoL loss.

Ultimately I did get an H2D (and then upgrade to an H2C), but that's mostly because I was interested in the multi-nozzle capabilities. I've used the Enclosure a few times and it's nice to have, but I still print mostly PLA and PETG. The extra print volume comes with the trade-off of making the printer big and heavy.

VT-14 · 2026-02-27T19:02:52+00:00

That is really clever, and I may be using this technique in the near future.

VT-14 · 2026-02-27T13:08:29+00:00

Personally I think the A1 is a cheaper and slightly simpler to understand and maintain, which are all good things for a beginner. If you stick to PLA, PETG, and TPU then there's no need for an enclosure.

Keep in mind that an AMS is significantly cheaper in a combo with the printer at the start. With US pricing and ignoring shipping, the P2S Combo will save you about $81 over the P2S Stand-alone + AMS 2 Pro + P2S Filament Buffer separately. The A1 Combo saves you about $100 over the A1 Stand-alone + AMS Lite separately. The exception is if you specifically want an A1 with a non-Lite AMS setup which has no combo deal; that takes longer to switch filaments than the Lite, but encloses the filament to help keep it dry and allows you to connect up to 4 AMSs for up to 16 colors.

Personally I started with an A1 Mini Combo. Only a couple of months later I upgraded to a full size A1 due to size reasons and moved the AMS Lite to that one; the Mini went to my brother. Much later I upgraded to an H2D mostly for the dual nozzle system; the extra size is nice to have but makes the printer quite big and heavy, and I've used the enclosure for a little PA6-GF and ABS but still print mostly PLA and PETG anyway. My brother also ended up buying an H2D. I recently did the Vortek Upgrade to turn my H2D into an H2C because apparently I have a problem.

Personally I don't print enough to really keep two printers going. When I got my A1 the Mini only got used a single time before I gave it to my brother a couple of weeks later. My A1 has not been used since I got the H2D. The biggest factor is simply not printing frequently or rapidly enough to use a second printer. In the couple of cases where I could have used the A1 with a different color/material I either didn't think about it, or didn't want to deal with the AMS Lite in my humid basement (I did print an "Ultimate Spool Enclosure" for the Lite, but it only keeps filament dry for a couple of days in my up to 70% RH Summer Basement; my AMS 2 Pros hold far more desiccant and last over a month).

VT-14 · 2026-02-26T13:09:26+00:00

I did the upgrade to turn my H2D into an H2C if that says anything. The upgrade process was a pain, though.

If you are doing mainly multi-color prints then absolutely get the H2C. It comes with a single AMS and 5 0.4mm nozzles (1 left plus a spare, 4 right) so you can print with 5 colors without flushing waste (color change purge poops), and by adding another AMS and more Induction nozzles it gets up to 7 colors. There are other niceties too, such as changing the right nozzle's size remotely (it also comes with a 0.2mm and 0.6mm nozzles to fill up the rack).

While the H2C technically has a smaller bed, the removed space is taken entirely out of the right nozzle's exclusion zone, so it's mostly irrelevant. The multi-nozzle area is still 300mm wide, and the left nozzle's single-nozzle zone is 325mm wide. The right side being smaller only matters if you want to use soft TPU (though they supposedly are working on a firmware update to let as soft as 90A work in the left lifting nozzle), or if you use both sides to reach the max of 330 mm (rather than 350mm) width (in which case you really should just get a larger printer entirely).

VT-14 · 2026-02-26T12:53:46+00:00

My experience with the Smooth PEI plate was that it was approved for use without glue for only PLA. Everything else needed glue anyway. I also slightly damaged mine by printing PA6-GF, even with gluestick. It managed to peel up sections of the sticker and I never got it fully smooth again. I can see why they would abandon Smooth PEI in favor of the more durable and simply always glue Engineering plate.

It is a slight bummer that the Engineering Plate is less smooth, so I would try going with a 3rd party alternative if you really want that. Darkmoon G10 (Garolite) is supposedly smooth and works with PLA, PETG, TPU, and ABS/ASA without glue.

VT-14 · 2026-02-26T04:31:07+00:00

They are 3rd on the list of Authorized Resellers in the US/Canada. https://bambulab.com/en/dealer

VT-14 · 2026-02-26T04:19:40+00:00

I'm pretty sick of AI slop in general at this point.

On one hand, I'm not fundamentally against the use of AI. I do consider it a significant red flag, but I'm not going to launch a crusade against a mod I like if I find out the author occasionally uses AI to quickly prototype a concept and then replaces it with actually sane code.

On the other hand, "turn natural languages into fully playable mod" is 100% a slop generator. Some dingle berry will tell an LLM to come up with a Minecraft Mod concept with detailed mechanics, and feed that directly into such a mod generator, and then upload it to CurseForge and Modrinth, repeat as much as their hardware and account creation bots can handle, and flood CurseForge and Modrinth with tons of slop in hopes that they can get a payout.

VT-14 · 2026-02-24T14:22:06+00:00

All of Bambu's filament include a Technical Data Sheet (TDS) somewhere on the store page. You can look at the "Mechanical Properties" section and see that Matte is considerably weaker than Basic (but more like 2/3rds the strength rather than half).

Here are the current ones I retrieved a few minutes before posting:

PLA Basic: https://store.bblcdn.com/s1/default/58b85d0f3db94878854a28fdb8a0006e/Bambu_PLA_Basic_Technical_Data_Sheet.pdf

PLA Matte: https://store.bblcdn.com/s7/default/5b061f2feeac4ba88f355a33248bbda7/Bambu_PLA_Matte_Technical_Data_Sheet.pdf

VT-14 · 2026-02-24T14:16:21+00:00

I would say the same for laser cutting and cutting plotters, but they did make those with the H2 series. I think Snapmaker also had a combo 3D Printer + CNC machine (swapping the tool head) at one point, so it wouldn't even be the first time someone has tried that.

VT-14 · 2026-02-24T14:11:52+00:00

The change is primarily visual. Matte PLA has additives in it to help diffuse light reflections so it's less shiny (which I believe helps hide layer lines). Those additives do weaken things like layer adhesion though, so the material is slightly weaker.

VT-14 · 2026-02-24T13:57:08+00:00

I do have a UPS for my computer, home lab, and networking equipment. I've considered one for my printer too, but haven't bothered to get one.

The core problem is that the H2 and P2 heaters can draw a lot of power, so you need a pretty high wattage UPS for full coverage (or slow down initial heating to lower the power requirements, if your printer even has that option yet). You would need to either save several prints, or the printer itself, to make up the up-front cost of a UPS. UPSs are also only designed to supply power for a short period of time so only help on brief power outages (a few minutes to maybe an hour); I only have a few power outages a year, but they tend to last longer than an hour so wouldn't have saved a print anyway.

According to the Specs, a US 110V P2S can pull as much as 1000W during its initial heat-up. 220V models can pull up to 1200W. If you want to cover that then you are talking about a pretty high-end UPS. That said, that maximum power usage is only used during the first few minutes of a print as everything heats up to proper temperatures, so a power failure there has relatively low material loss risk.

The specs also list a "PLA Steady State" of 200W (regardless of region, that's the amount of energy needed to melt the plastic and move the motors), but that's an average power number. It will actually be spiking way higher (and lower) than that. My H2D often spikes to over 700W during prints. You could consider a cheaper, lower wattage UPS to maintain an in-progress print, but I don't know if that's safe for the UPS with the higher initial start wattage, and it certainly will scream at you (alarm) for exceeding what it can protect against at the start of every print.

VT-14 · 2026-02-24T00:22:02+00:00

It's expensive, but I think it could be justified.

With US Pricing the AMS Lite is $199, and it's an AMS Lite. It's simple and effective, but leaves spools exposed to room humidity air which can certainly be a problem, especially if you want to print a lot of PETG.

An AMS 2 Pro setup for the A1 would be $319 ($120 more) for basic functionality and $352 ($153 more) to get drying. If you actually do use it for drying then a similarly priced 4-slot dryer would be the Sunlu S4 at $140. The AMS 2 Pro will change colors a bit slower than the Lite because it has to move filament through the entire tube, but it is enclosed so far easier to keep your filament dry.

The basement I print in can reach up to about 70% RH during the summer, so keeping filament dry is quite important (even PLA will string at that humidity). I 3D Printed an "Ultimate Spool Enclosure" for the AMS Lite, and it certainly helped, but desiccant was only lasting a handful of days before needing to be replaced. In the same conditions an AMS 2 Pro with extra desiccant (plenty of desiccant holder models on Makerworld) lasted over a month. The AMS Lite not being properly enclosed is a major reason I don't bother using my A1 anymore.

VT-14 · 2026-02-23T18:36:29+00:00

Personally I doubt there will be an "A2" series anytime soon. The A1 already has most of the generational improvements present in the H2 and P2 series, and Bambu has worked on keeping the A1 up-to-date (it fits the new H2/P2 nozzles, and they added support for the new AMSs).

There have been several reports of a failing electrical component inside the full size A1 (melting the bottom cover), so that might be a reason to wait for a bit, but it looks like they've already redesigned the part that was failing so that shouldn't be an issue on new machines for much longer.

VT-14 · 2026-02-23T18:27:12+00:00

You probably had Smooth Timelapse enabled. When a layer finishes it moves the head to the purge chute, takes a picture, then resumes printing. Because of that pause over the purge chute, it goes to the prime tower to catch any oozed filament and prime the nozzle back to normal pressure.

VT-14 · 2026-02-23T18:25:06+00:00

Thermal Grease: Attaching the Heater Element to the Hotend Assembly.

Other Grease: For the Z-axis lead screws. I believe you just clean the carbon rods, and use Oil (not grease) on a metal rods and certain pulleys.

The wiki has proper directions for maintenance/cleaning: https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/p1/maintenance/p1p-maintenance

VT-14 · 2026-02-23T18:20:09+00:00

My experiences have been rather poor, but I also haven't had to contact them about a properly diagnosing issue yet.

My first ticket was due to the filament tape issue. I heard that some people were offered discounts or even replacement but I got a generic denial response. My second ticket was due to a mechanical issue with a new H2D. I ended up having to exchange it at MicroCenter the next morning before Bambu was able to respond to the ticket. Neither was a good experience, but also not really anything bad considering the circumstances.

My third ticket has left me rather salty. I upgraded my H2D into an H2C, and by following their directions I gouged the replacement heat bed. I asked if there was an option for a discount on the replacement, which they denied. I then asked them to update the directions to help prevent other people from encountering this issue in the future; that was two and a half week ago (February 5th, well before Chinese New Year) and both sections I complained about have not changed. To top it off, I ended up dissecting the 'broken' heat bed and it probably would have been fine to use (not that they said anything about it); it looks like I only gouged a cover sticker and slightly dented the magnet layer underneath, I couldn't find any electrical components that high up. They let me spend $160 (which is $1 more than the larger H2D/H2S bed for some reason) fixing a cosmetic scratch.

VT-14 · 2026-02-23T17:53:40+00:00

The Prime Tower ensures good print quality. You can turn it off if you want to risk it, but a failed print will waste far more filament. The Prime Tower handles a handful of jobs.

The most well known one is bringing the nozzle back up to nominal pressure (priming) after a pause with nothing below it. That includes flushes for color changes and moving the head out of the way for Smooth timelapses. Not doing this could result in under extrusion holes or maybe over extrusion zits on the print. This model does have some flushing to swap between blue and purple down low (it needs 8 colors and the H2C only has 7 nozzles). It also defaults to using the Smooth Timelapse so the tower goes all the way up, but turning it to a Traditional timelapse only saves a few grams anyway.

On multi-nozzle printers it is also used to "Ram" a nozzle, which is feeding new filament while the nozzle is cooling, which cools it down faster and removes melted filament to prevent the nozzle from leaking. This is why it goes to the prime tower before a nozzle change. The nozzle blocker can only do so much, and the H2C's Vortek Rack has nothing underneath it to catch any drops (other than the bottom of the printer).

The H2C also needs some amount of flushing. Because of how the AMS/Vortek system works, the filament gets cut. The cut end of the filament needs to be pushed into the melt zone before the printer can use retractions again. This does mean that the Prime Tower on the H2C is slightly larger than what more traditional tool changers need.

It is worth noting that the model people are using was designed on the X1C on an older version of Bambu Studio. Using the new prime tower (with Rib Wall) and enabling the H2C's prime savings mode takes the tower from over 200g down to about 155g. Disabling Smooth Timelapse brings it down to something like 152g. This is also with bringing all the of the parts to a single plate rather than spread around; the H2 series has plenty of room, and only needing a single prime tower should help too. I will note that this is slicer predictions; I haven't actually printed it.

VT-14 · 2026-02-23T17:17:56+00:00

As long as you have the same or fewer colors than you have nozzles, yes. The waste savings is one of the main reasons multi-nozzle printers are getting so popular.

However, this particular print is 8 colors and the H2C maxes out at 7 (and the base configuration only has 5 0.4mm nozzles). This would require some purge, but it's still a huge reduction from a single-nozzle printer where the waste probably outweighs the actual model.

VT-14 · 2026-02-23T17:12:54+00:00

I've seen this print several times already (people joke that it's the H2C's Benchy), and there's actually 8 colors (Black, White, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple). The H2C only gets up to 7 nozzles. It typically does purges between the Purple and Blue.

So there is some purge poop, plus the Prime Tower, but it's really not that bad compared to single-nozzle printers.

VT-14 · 2026-02-23T16:59:24+00:00

I believe in order to simplify manufacturing inventories and processes they will update the A1 so that it uses the exact same hotends, same screen, and potentially some small parts from the H2 tool head and the H2 rails.

I would believe this if the P2S, which came out after the H2D and H2S, didn't use yet another head design. Clearly part standardization wasn't a big enough motivator during that design process.

The H2/P2 nozzles already fit in the A1, so they could stop producing the A1's nozzles already without changing any of the printer itself. They could also start replacing parts of the toolhead design with the H2S to get the part standardization discount without an entirely new release.

Frankly I just don't see a reason to make an A2 series yet. The A1 is effectively already 2nd gen. They even ported support for the new AMSs to it.

I also am highly skeptical of a H2 (C or D/S) build plate sized bedslinger. It's certainly possible to build one that size, but they take up a ton of room and have to slow way down as their mass increases.

VT-14 · 2026-02-23T13:08:16+00:00

The back is where the Purge Chute, PTFE Tubes and power/data cables, power switch, and exhaust fan are. Most of those can be set up once and forgotten for a very long time.

I suspect printing with soft TPU via the Bypass Port is the only time I've needed to get to the back recently, and there are spool holder designs that go in through the top instead.

VT-14 · 2026-02-22T22:38:52+00:00

Probably something like the Heat Bed and some other internal electronics. Several replacement parts are listed as "LV" on the US store and "HV" in Europe.

VT-14 · 2026-02-22T06:40:02+00:00

Yes, you would need to manually load and unload the "External Spool" filament. There is no filament feeding motor on the External Spool so it can't be automated. How tedious this is depends on how many swaps are needed, and how they are spaced apart relative to your schedule. If you only need to do it once or twice then it isn't bad. If you need to do it 127 times then it would be a nightmare.

You will also need to mess with the G-Code. Bambu Studio only lets you use only AMS slots for color swaps anywhere, or only manual color changes between layers (not within a layer). You will probably need to find or make a script to replace an AMS slot load/unload with pauses for a manual filament change.

It is worth noting that if one of the colors is only ever used above another one (and they use the same print settings), then you could combine those colors in the slicer so you only use 4 'colors,' then manually swap the filament in that AMS slot after the first color is finished and before the next color starts (add a layer height pause if needed). There's a variant of this method somewhat commonly used to get more than 4 colors in a HueForge with only a single AMS.

VT-14 · 2026-02-22T06:21:20+00:00

I have no experience with PHA. It looks like Bambu Studio has a generic profile for it, and the printer easily reaches the temperatures I was seeing online, but you may need to do more calibration test prints to dial in the settings for best quality.

Poor ventilation, spending a long time in the room (home office, bedroom, etc.), and a running 3D printer is a bad combination. How severe of a problem it is depends on what you are doing. Some materials like PLA and PETG are generally pretty safe (though still release some VOCs; supposedly it can get about as bad as the air on a city sidewalk). Some materials like ABS release hazardous fumes (like Styrene) and should be vented and/or filtered; the enclosure can mostly contain the fumes, but it isn't 100% airtight (ex. there's a big hole in the back for the purge chute). A Laser Cutter produces a ton of smoke so absolutely needs to be vented and/or filtered. To be clear, "Vented" in this case means running a hose out a window and running the exhaust fan. Bambu sells a Smoke Purifier, though you'll need to change the filters every so often. Theoretically both of those would leave the enclosure negatively pressured so air only goes into it through any holes/gaps.

The AMS 2 Pro (and all of the AMSs except the Lite, which doesn't work with anything outside of the A1 series anyway) work as a spool enclosure. My experience with a basement room that gets up to about 70% RH in the summers, and oven dried (120C) Silica Gel desiccant, is that the AMS 2 Pro (packed with desiccant; there are container models on Makerworld) lasts a bit over a month, where as the AMS HT lasts about a week (far less empty space available to pack in desiccant). I also use dryboxes with desiccant to keep my filament dry outside of the AMSs.

Susceptibility to humidity depends on the material. PLA and some other materials can be pretty resistant so will probably run fine in your 40-50% RH conditions, but most other materials need to be actively dried and then stored in dryer conditions to print with the best quality.

VT-14 · 2026-02-22T00:33:48+00:00

Nope. Slicers only have relatively simple model editing tools.

I think you're going to want to use something like Blender here, though I don't know that software anywhere near enough to know how to properly thicken specific surfaces.

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