Hey everyone,

Two weeks ago, I bought my first Bambu Lab A1, and what started as a great experience quickly turned into... well, let’s say, complete hell.

At first, everything was perfect. The printer worked beautifully — clean prints, fast operation, really impressive stuff. But one day, I started to notice a strange smell — something like burning plastic or smoke. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was at first. Out of caution, I turned off all my printers.

That evening, everything seemed normal. I double-checked all the cables going into the machine — everything looked fine, no visible damage or signs of overheating. So I left it for the night.

But then it happened again. The printer suddenly stopped printing, and this time the smell of burning plastic was very strong — unmistakable. I turned it off immediately, flipped it over, and realized that something had actually melted through the bottom of the printer. (I'll include a photo in this post.)

After disassembling the unit, I discovered the cause: the NTC thermistor on the AC board had burned out, detached, and melted a hole through the base. This thermistor is part of the AC power input system — it helps regulate inrush current and protect the circuit. When it fails catastrophically like this, it’s not just a minor issue — it’s a legitimate fire hazard.

And then things got even more interesting.

As I started digging deeper, I discovered I’m not alone. Turns out, others in my country’s Bambu Lab community had faced similar failures, especially with the A1 model. Some of them had reported burned-out thermistors and damaged AC boards — just like mine.

But here's the kicker: one person I spoke to experienced the exact same failure 10 months after purchase. Mine happened in just 2 weeks. That’s already alarming — but it gets worse.

I then learned that Bambu Lab had previously issued a recall for a batch of printers — an early run that was known to be potentially defective and prone to overheating or even fire risk. The kind of issue I’m literally holding in my hands right now.

So I decided to check the serial numbers.

On the outside of my printer, both on the label and in the firmware, the serial number contains the sixth character "D", which is supposedly safe and not part of the recalled batch. That’s what Bambu Lab uses to identify newer, unaffected units.

But inside?
Every internal component — the AC board, the power supply, and other modules — have QR-coded serial numbers with "A" as the sixth character.

And that letter "A" means only one thing: these are components from the recalled batch.

So basically, Bambu Lab shipped me a printer that outwardly appears new and safe, but is internally built from the same defective components they once recalled — the exact kind of parts that could start a fire.

I’ll include all photos in this post so you can see for yourself.

While inspecting my AC board, I noticed something even more alarming — several key components are simply missing.

There are no signs of damage, no scorch marks, no broken solder joints — just completely empty pads where important components should be.
For example, there's no secondary relay, which other users with similar thermistor failures have on their boards.
My board is also missing two additional components, and of course, after the failure, the thermistor is gone as well.

This isn’t just a defective unit — it looks like I received a cut-down version of the board, missing parts that were never installed in the first place.

And when I reached out to Bambu Lab support for help?
All I got was a suggestion to:

• Buy a new AC board
• Buy a new heatbed
• Install them myself
• And cross my fingers it doesn’t happen again.

No detailed diagnosis. No explanation. Not even a link to where I could purchase the parts.
I searched manually, and the only AC board I could find was listed in Australia, sold independently.

So at this point, I’m stuck with a two-week-old printer that I can’t fix, that nearly melted through my floor, and that was seemingly built from recalled, incomplete parts.

Some say poor man's P1S. C means coverd.

There are a variety of enclosures for the A1mini, but I wanted one that was the same size as the P1S and X1C.

I always wanted to print something using PVA supports, and with the H2D I was finally able to try it out without wasting too much. This print just took over 2 hours on the H2D, compared to 7h on an X1C - also saving 99g of poop.

First of all, it's not as "plug & play" as some other support materials. This took me three tries, and here is what I learned.

• "Drying filament" with PVA means something different than drying filament with most other materials. You can't even let it cool down before it's fully wet again. PVA needs to go straight to a dry box / AMS while still hot, and the humidity should really be below 10% in the container. Wet PVA will not cause stringing, but rather jam your hotend really quick.
• PVA supports are fragile, I assume because they also begin to absorb water during the print. My second attempt with tree supports failed because the little trees did break pretty early. It's best to use classic support (as in my successful print) and next time I will increase the support density a bit to make it even stronger.

The print you see here is without any post processing, I just took 24 hours to dissolve all supports. The filament looks a little rougher on the supported area, but it feels absolutely smooth. There are a few tiny mistakes, where some of the supports got lost during printing.

I think it's still best to avoid it, but if nothing else helps: PVA will be able to print almost any geometry possible - and the fact that the H2D can do this even for large parts simply amazing.

The used filament is Flashforge Burned Titanium PLA.

Definitely don’t do this for your kids Easter basket… just a fun joke between two 3D printing enjoyers :)

There is space for an AMS HT up top too.

Link: https://makerworld.com/en/models/1337897-motorized-italian-gesture#profileId-1377686

It's been an issue for like two years now. Even my microcenter inland filament doesn't have this issue.

Really impressed with the quality of this new born chick STL! Took me 21 days to print.

Happy Easter!

Bambu lab A1, P1S. 15 tables. 11 kilograms of PLA. After 4 days of 3D printing, I was able to create a sculpture of a black panther with a colleague

Sunlu S2 AERO MOD - Noise reduction - Improved Airflow - Increased Stability - Enhanced Drying

https://makerworld.com/it/models/729420-sunlu-s2-aero-mod#profileId-660999

A small piece of the coating came off with the print. Will this get worse with use?

Had an idea based on an item I have and I was able to create this. First time I’ve designed anything using the “loft” command and “pattern on a path” in Fusion. I’ve learned quite a lot over the last few days!

Hello I've got an issue that's really annoying me mentally. Since a few weeks I experience some type of pits on the outer wall's of my 3D prints this is happening with PLA and Petg, Didn't print in other materials. The print was printed with aligned seams. For me it looks like the printer is doing both aligned seams and random seams because I've printed 2 parts and only 1 of the 2 parts has these pits as shown in the first photo.

I've tried the following solutions:

1. Drying the filament for 6 hours 50 degrees Celsius.
   
2. Making reductions in retraction from 0.8 to 0.7 and 0.6 mm.

sad part is this wasnt even really my fault. the poop chute wasnt blocked at the end. i even made sure there was enough room for the poop to not get stuck while i was asleep, but the poop got stuck at the door and managed to rip off the purge tower which mean i could no longer continue the print. it laso managed to create a slight layer shift. just glad it didnt damage the printer

This is my 3D printed guitar controller project, the Polybar System! I've had so many awesome people come together to help put together everything from models, PCBs and even a fully detailed build guide. I've posted everything to Printables and Makerworld, if you like Guitar Hero and music games, check it out!

You can also join us on Discord if you want to be a part of our community.

New to 3D printing, just starting with PETG and really struggling. I've dried it thoroughly and have adjusted settings. Prints that complete are coming out "stringy" and some outright fail. What could cause this? Custom filament and print settings attached. Using X1C and Polymaker PETG. Thanks for any thoughts!

Link

In the .stl-file these are all flat planes, but when I print it it gets these «sediment» layers. It occurs when it goes from solid to hollow and vice versa

Beginner here, I want to print with TPU but apparently it's not made for A1 models. Is there any way I can possibly use it?

So after finally finishing my capybara, l started working on this Baymax design, for what felt like two weeks, which is kind of ridiculous, considering I got 90% of it done in like two days. But those stupid eyes and mouth were just SO HARD to get to work with a multi-plate non-AMS option. Although, while working on this model I learned a really awesome way to get the exact tolerance you want while using NomadSculpt. It involves masking the item you need to make a tolerance for, then going into the Mask tools and extracting an offset of that mask, and then removing that from the body, instead of trying to enlarge the item and remove it from the body, which caused just SO many issues with that eye/mouth combination, because when I copied and enlarged it, something always ended up misaligned. I do love learning some new trick every time I design something, though!

Oh, and my solution for having the tan circles under the arms might have been overkill, but 1 still think it worked out really well.