Bambu Lab A1 Beginner's Guide: Filament, First Prints, and Two Years of Lessons

We've been running Bambu printers for a couple of years now — an A1 Mini first, the A1 not long after — and between the two of them they've printed everything from desk toys to pool equipment. This guide is the short version of everything we've learned: what to buy first, what actually matters, and what you'll realistically make.

What filament should I start with?

PLA. Full stop. It's the most forgiving filament: low printing temperature, minimal warping, no enclosure needed, and it produces crisp, clean details. Almost every model on MakerWorld is designed with PLA in mind. Buy a couple of spools of basic PLA in colors you like and don't overthink it.

PETG is the next step up when you need durability — parts that live outdoors, get flexed, handle heat, or see real abuse. It's a little fussier to print (bed adhesion and moisture matter more) but the A1 handles it well once you use the built-in filament profile. Our rule of thumb: if a part lives on the desk, PLA. If a part lives outside or gets force applied to it, PETG.

The Bambu filament cheat code: Bambu's own spools have an NFC chip inside, and when you're printing through the AMS the printer reads the chip automatically — material type, color, even remaining settings, all detected with zero manual entry. You drop the spool in and go. It sounds like a small thing; it's genuinely one of the most convenient parts of the ecosystem. Third-party filaments work fine too — you just select the material manually.

Where do I find things to print?

Start on MakerWorld. It's Bambu's model library, it's free, and it's the path of least resistance to a successful first print: find a model, hit print, done. Most models include the exact print settings, so there's very little to learn before your first print comes off the bed.

The barrier to entry here is shockingly low compared to what 3D printing used to be. No slicing knowledge required for most models, no tuning, no failed first month. We've watched multiple friends go from "I've never 3D printed" to running their own queue within a day — several of them have since bought their own machines and kept going deeper into the hobby. That's the strongest endorsement we can give: people who try it, keep it.

Do I really need the AMS?

Yes — get the Combo. If you're already committing to the printer, the AMS lite is what makes the whole thing feel unlimited: four spools loaded at once, automatic color changes mid-print, and no swapping spools between models. Running from a single spool works, but it's genuinely inconvenient — every new color or material means pausing, unloading, reloading, re-checking settings. With the AMS you stop thinking about it.

Practical note: multicolor prints use extra filament for purging between colors and take longer, so single-color jobs still make sense for functional parts. But for anything visual — figurines, gifts, fidget toys with contrast — multicolor straight from the machine is where the AMS earns its keep.

What maintenance does the A1 need?

Very little, in our experience — and we're speaking from a couple of years of regular use. The routine is: lubricate the rails occasionally, keep the build plate clean, and that's most of it. We've tightened a belt once in all this time. There's no constant tuning ritual, no firmware fights, no "weekend of maintenance" — which is exactly why it works as a beginner machine. You spend your time printing, not wrenching.

What do we actually make?

The honest answer: a little bit of everything. The A1 quietly becomes household infrastructure.

• Pool equipment. We've printed replacement and upgrade parts for our pool aerator sprinkler — a part that would've been a special-order headache was a 40-minute print.
• IKEA upgrades. Our coffee station runs on an IKEA Skadis pegboard, and the entire attachment ecosystem — hooks, holders, organizers, pod dispensers — is printable. Half our Skadis setup is custom-printed.
• Desk organizers. Cable holders, trays, stands, drawer dividers.
• Fidget toys. Naturally — half the fidgets we feature on this site exist because someone designed them for a printer exactly like this one.
• Gifts. Custom, thoughtful, and cheap to produce. Birthday and holiday shopping has never been easier.

The bottom line

The Bambu Lab A1 Combo is the rare gadget that lowers the barrier to an entire hobby. Start with PLA, get the AMS, print your first model off MakerWorld the same day it arrives, and expect the machine to mostly maintain itself. We'd buy it again — and in a sense, we did, since we started with the Mini and came back for the full-size A1.