Following on from their Black Friday sale they have a new End of Year sale and this time with the A1 Mini discounted to an all-time low at $299 + Shipping!
A1 mini Combo (with the AMS Lite) also comes down to $549 + Shipping.
Note: International transaction fees will apply, to avoid this fee, pay with a credit or debit card that waives international transaction fees.
3D printer
Panda food
It's a portable A1 paper printer. Now I can finally print posters in my pocket!
I tried that code last night and it told me it was no longer valid.
The code is listed on the product page so must have just been an error and is now fixed
It's being auto applied in the check out for me
After spending almost $1000 on my A1 combo and 14 rolls of filament (after the first big discount was hyped on OzB), I have printed a flower pot, an SD card case and two Ghostbusters traps that in total prob would have cost under $100 at AliExpress.
Math was never my bag.
download FreeCAD / Fusion / Other CAD program and start designing your own stuff!….
suddenly, every need around the house can be fixed with a quick 3D print!
Just starting up a 'wall of ozito' now with my own battery / tool hangars!, 3D printed
I downloaded TinkerCad and I definitely want to design say, a plate that covers my light switches since I use Philip Hue dimmers (the ones currently for sale on Etsy etc are the wrong size for me). But I find it incredibly fiddly and time consuming learning by myself - I don't have much of a head for design. Any recommended short courses?
Tinkercad is a bit 'weird' CAD wise, it's how I started though.
No real recommendation other than have a nose through 'tinkercad basics' youtube videos.
Fusion appears to have a large steep learning curve…..BUT, it's deceptivley simple, loads of tutorials out there also
Easiest way to use fusion (personal use) is….
Create a sketch.
Extrude
create a new sketch on the new face
extrude / cut
repeat!
you can even import a canvas - a side view / top view / bottom view and draw around it! you can get some surprisingly complex shapes with just a handful of sketches and cuts/ extrudes
Happy to give you a quick run through / screen share at some point if needs be, I'm in central coast if by co-incidence you're anywhere near
@bleugh: I am really handy in TInkerCad, I just find it limited, but moving to Fusion just hurts my head :( being they are from the same company, you would think there would be a lot of crossover, but it feels like the opposite to me.
I do like that i can do some in Tinker and then export it over.
@BlasterBoy: Autodesk buys out anything they see becoming competition or in an area they want to move into.
Revit was purchased years ago and is totally different code base/language to everything else. They gobbled up Eagle pcb design. Pretty sure tinkercad was an acquisition at some point too.
Most of their apps are run by massive independent teams.
@bleugh: i did the funny learn fusion in 30 days youtube (the one that starts with a lego brick) my previous background was in maya which actually made it surprisingly hard to pick up, but yeah once i thought of it more as "machining" blocks and stuff, and everthing being made up of extrudes and cuts it became a lot easier to think around. The ability to tinker with all the lengths and details and have a timeline to slide through makes it much easier to work with than maya at least for usable parts
This was one of the first things I designed when I bought a 3D printer years ago - for exactly the same reason. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3122866
@gravelc: Same here, although yours is way more elegant - mine just covered the entire switch and plate
@gravelc: @gravelc @y2k I just searched thingiverse for "clipsal" and this was the top result https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4041344
I dont have a 3d printer (yet) so no idea how good it is
Onshape has a free version and is easy to learn.
Check out the videos by Too Tall Toby. He explains things much better than the official Onshape videos. Although I sometimes slow the videos to .75x as I work through them to avoid having to pause.
@DaveTee: OnShape is great. The only catch with the free version is that all your models are public, which probably isn't a big deal if you're just getting started.
I sorta learnt fusion on my own, experimenting throughout high school. Now enrolled in a design bachelor where my skills came in very handy. Happy to show you around/help with making things if you wish!
There are already heaps of covers around, just do a search on thangs.com
Tinker cad is pretty easy to use, just learn with practise and youtube videos
I am by no means a great 3D modeller. TinkerCad has been great for me for utility prints (brackets for things in the house, etc), simple gift designs, and for creating things to compliment the other things I sell on my side hustle.
That having been said, I definitely need to step up my game and get better at more complex modelling and potentially use other programs, there's a lot of potential there if you find your niche.
This is the way.
My experience is quite the contrast! I'm at seven weeks with my A1 Mini.
20+ 3m strip wall mounts for mini helmets.(Shipping them from the UK was up to AU$35 for each order!)
Three 3m strip towel hooks.
Two shower screen mounted towel hooks.
Six phone stands.
Two Remarkable stands (third printing now).
One shower head.
Seven headphone hooks.
One security monitor partition mount.
Two fidget spinners.
Three cube lamps.
Six Glorious GMMK 3 (keyboard) knobs.
Interlocking poop chute.
Box cutter/opener.
Headphone desk stand.
Four 3d printed versions of my kids school project tank (one for each member of the team).
2 filament swatch display boards.
One 360mm custom fan trim for my kids PC.
Nice
What's a project tank?
But did you catch any ghosts?
This is still a bedslinger, you're paying a premium bambu price for an ender equivalent. Save for the P1S, it's coreXY which is exponentially faster and what made Bambulab take the world by storm.
The A1 mini and A1 are great machines. I wanted to get into 3d printing and wanted the p1s but after 6 months of mulling I realised I couldn't justify the $1200, as soon as I lowered my price range I got the A1 combo and couldn't be happier. Many say the prints between the A1 and P1S are hard to distinguish and the A1 is 15% slower.
My 10 cents.
Also, if your happy with PLA and PETG you could get two A1's for a little more than a single P1S. 😅
I agree the P1S is a great 3D printer, I have one. For me however, I went for a Bambu printer due to the ease of setup and simplicity of use. On this front Bambu are miles ahead of other brands.
Just the convenience of having an app with print profiles on each model is enough to keep me with Bambu. Most of my prints are done directly through the Bambu Handy phone app, I only boot up my PC and the slicer for a small number.
“Exponentially faster”? Do you even know what exponentially means? You don’t know math.
Literally
It is NOTHING like an Ender!
I have a few A1 and P1S. The A1 isn’t really slower, it’s MUCH quieter, and if you just want to do pla/petg it’s the better choice. Nozzle swaps are so much easier.
I hate that the AMS for the A series is not compatible with the P series, I want to start with an A1, and if I do like it and use it enough, move up to a P1, and it would be way more cost effective if you could just keep using the AMS (and the P series AMS would be great if it could be used on the A series, and just have it on a small shelf above to save room.) /whinge
there's really no reason to jump to the P1, unless you need the space. The A1 does pretty much everything the same, some things even better….
BUT, needs about 3x the footprint of the P1 to work
it uses about 2 depths front to back for the bed to sling
and about 2 depths on one side for the AMS to sit
the P1 uses 1 depth as AMS sits on top
infact, the real only reason to use the P1 is the enclosure allows higher temperature filaments like ABS….
BUT, you can always chuck a cardboard box over the top of the A1 and achieve mostly the same thing
Thanks for that! This is the kinda info I have been needing to make a decision!
I mount the AMS on top - rotated mount so it's easy to access all 4 rolls
Saves a lot of space
Is that the official Bambu mount or a different one? I've printed the Bambu mount but haven't set it up yet. The whole thing feels a bit sketchy…
@PurchaseAnxiety: it's very stable and has been working fine for months.
Most of it is using the official model, it's just the mount part that is rotated 90-degrees
@penguinswillrise: That's all I use.
Just print some adapters.
Black rolls are v1
Blue, reusable rolls are v2, slightly smaller so require a different adapter.
BUT, you can always chuck a cardboard box over the top of the A1 and achieve mostly the same thing
You can achieve about half of the same thing. Printing anything medium sized or complex shaped under a cardboard box is still pretty challenging for a bedslinger. I wouldn't recommend it unless you absolutely have to- I've done it a lot and it's a PITA.
I thought it used to be recommended to move the AMS next to the P1 rather than on top, to help reduce vibrations when printing or something?
It used to be recommended place the AMS on the right to help filament feeding. However, I haven't seen anyone recommend this in the past 6 months, and loads of people mount on the top and have no issues.
Needs caution as the electronics have no active cooling.
"Whoaa Black Betty.."
Bambu lab!
"Whoaa Black Betty.."
Bambu lab!
Is this an actual special?
I was keeping an eye on Bambu's stuff and noticed their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales were not great at all.
It is a special in the sense that their discounted price is normally 329. I was hoping to see something around the 250 mark as their prices have been steadily falling, but I guess since its a popular product there's no need to discount it for them
Same, was hoping for a bit more of a discount since it's black friday and christmas and all, or at least a meaningful discount on the AMS units, to encourage me to finally get one.
Makes me think I might as well wait and see if they do any 'celebratory' discount when the release their new upcoming 'premium' printer.
Yes. I bought at $329 and immediately forgot about the price. Have printed every day since and at times have half a dozen jobs in the ToDo list.
Conscious that these printers have a small footprint, I hope they find a way to integrate the AMS units a little better if or when they release updated models.
it already can sit 'on top' with third party 3D prints….so the space really is just front to back needed. if overall space is an issue, get the P1S
I'll need to check them out. I've already purchased a P1S for myself for Christmas.
Is this an all time low?
Yes
Love my A1 mini. Wish I got the combo to start with. Great for beginners!
Listened to your advice and got the combo. Should ve a neat upgrade from a larger Voxelab Aquila
Good choice
Having 4 filaments on hand is a massive timesaver, plus auto rollover will mean you will have less random spools with tiny bits of filament on it
Nice! I dint know about rollover feature!
@HungryRussian: Another good use is to have different materials for support
E.g. PETG for support interface layer for PLA prints
Bought! Very, very excited. Perfect entry price for me.
Thanks OP, you've made my Christmas
Wouldn't mind a mini to go along with my A1
Two printers is very manageable and cuts multi part print times in half.
I might have to bite if it drops close to $250 on amazon
A1 Mini combo is about the price I paid for the AMS for my P1S.
Amazing value
my experience with this printer is not as nice as all the reviews I saw on the internet.
Just unboxed the printer and it has failed calibration, and keep getting an error message about the nozzle abnormal temperature.
So much for the printing out of the box experience.
imahippy on 04/12/2024 - 06:22 Comment score below threshold.