> Also Bambulab has a bad track in providing parts, when needed.

Sorry but do you have any sources for that? I'm just looking at their website[0] and I see all the common parts available - what exactly is missing with parts they provide?

[0] https://eu.store.bambulab.com/collections/accessories-for-x1...

I'm in many Reddit / Facebook groups about 3D printers and a lot of people complain constantly. So I've only this kind of evidence, other than a single friend that confirmed issues with getting parts.

I don't get it - why is Prusa mini a much better printer for somebody who actually wants to print than Bambu ones?

The cheapest Prusa mini (self-assembled) is $459. You can buy a Bambu Lab P1P at $599 with a ton of more features than Prusa mini and much faster prints without any loss in quality/consistency.

Bambu labs consistently provided parts for reasonable price in my experience. And I've been using their X1 and P1 printers for a while now.

Because the extra features of the A1 are not much useful in practice. The main thing that is required to print well is auto bed leveling, that works well with the Mini as well. The Mini is very quiet so the noise canceling feature is not useful. Input Shaping is now available on both. So what remains is that the Mini is a printer that provably was able to print in what are basically miniature factories. I printed with 4 minis for a couple of years 24H, and everything that breaks you can either print it yourself, if it's a plastic part, or get it for a reasonable price. If the A1 can do it, is to be seen, and we for sure know that the vendor itself discourages printing anything but PLA/PETG/TPU. Printing ASA is very useful for everything you want to put something inside your car under the sun or alike. Also Prusa has a long history in supporting the printer for a long time, so we can expect that the next Mini will ship with an upgrade kit.

However don't get my wrong, I believe that the A1, especially without the multicolor gear, is a reasonable purchase, with some risk ahead because there is yet to see if it is a reliable printer. If you buy the multicolor gear you paid for more than the Mini, and I believe soon you'll no be using it anymore in most cases, and just be left with a printer that in practice can't be used so extensively as the Mini.

FWIW, Prusa has released the first alpha version of a new firmware update for the Mini+ that adds input shaping and increases the speed of the machine substantially.

https://blog.prusa3d.com/original-prusa-printers-now-printin...

> Multicolor is not something you actually use often and is horribly slow. Slow like in a 2 hours print becomes 12 hours print if it's colored.

on the X1C multi-color is less bad if you fill the bed with copies since the switch time gets amortized across many parts. So your print takes 13 hours but now you get six copies. Although with a smaller bed on the A1 mini that will help less.

True. But multicolor is often used for miniatures or alike. Who needs 4 magic creatures? If it's for an Etsy shop, then things are different and your point is a lot more valid.

Usually you'll want to paint miniatures. A multicolor print of a miniature isn't going to look as good.

multi-color is lots of fun! https://github.com/cjdaly/FishCoin

> Multicolor is not something you actually use often and is horribly slow

Let's get the straw man out of the way: "multicolor" is not the only use for printing with multiple filaments.

I own an X1C. I print with breakaway support filament all the time. It's a total game changer. And since only two filament changes are required for each layer that has a support interface, the time it adds to a print is negligible.

There are plenty of uses for multi-filament printing that don't involve changing filaments every single layer of the print.

Exactly.

And for me, it's a huge time saver to not have to manually change filaments between prints, or changing over to a new role of the sake filament mid print. There are lots of reasons the AMS is a huge time saver that don't involve multi material printing.

copy on that! I often use the "print by object" feature, and it's super useful being able to print each object in a different color with no color changing

> The printer can't print things like ASA. Limited to PLA/PETG/TPU.

Why would it not print ASA? In my experience (I mostly print ASA, with PLA almost always used for prototyping), printing ASA is about as easy as PLA. 10-30 degrees hotter, less fan and possibly slightly slower speeds but otherwise just fine.

This printer seems to be rated to 300℃ which should give you a margin of over 60+℃ for ASA.

Bambulab itself says it can't print ASA. I've the feeling that while the max temperature is 300 degrees, for some reason and with the volumetric flow that they set, the hotend is not able to keep up.

ASA is very prone to warping, and thus needs an enclosure to keep ambient temp high enough while printing. You might be able to print small parts in ASA with a non-enclosed bedslinger like this, but you will run in trouble for bigger parts.

I print ASA all the time on my Prusa MK3S. It's the filament I use the most. The printer is not encased, though it's also not in a draughty environment.

I rarely have a warped part, and I've printed from tiny parts to some that would take most of the bed and 10-30cm tall.

Keeping the bed clean is usually enough. For trickier parts I add a brim. I always use a release agent (I prefer a thin layer of talcum powder but glue and others work as well), otherwise it sticks badly and I've damaged more than a couple PEI sheets trying to get them off.

>This looks much better than it actually is for a couple of reasons...

It looks absolutely brilliant just for its single color print speed, which is like three times faster than a much more expensive Prusa.

Everything else is a bonus.

I don't have a multi-filament printer, but I'm under the impression that two color printing is quite useful because you can print high-contrast text, e.g. for labels. When I need to iterate a tricky design, I hand-label them "1" "2" ... If I could print better text, It would be nicer to include a version number, dimensions, etc.

This sort of printing is super easy on an bambu and wastes almost nothing if you can design your text onto the top of the print: You simply print the top few layers in your contrasty filament using the layer paint tool in the slicer. It works wonderfully.