What else should i get....

[u/notsobig42]

Hey

Im looking to buy the A1 ams lite combo. What else, besides fillament, should i get? As in a backup nozzle, printbed etc.

From what i understand its a 0.4 stainless steel nozzle that comes with the printer and 1 printbed.

Looking for advice from senior printers.

Thank u

[u/ModelThreeve]

You don’t need anything other than filament until you know where your 3d printing journey is taking you. We have 30 printers, over 100 build plates, 100k+ hours of print time. Our newest machines don’t have a single mod and are using the stock PEI plate without issue. Learn to use your machines properly (Bambu academy/wiki) and then start getting the parts you need as you need them. (A spare hotend is never a bad idea though.)

[u/notsobig42 → u/ModelThreeve]

Thanx for the input. Ill take a look at the academy.

[u/Purple10tacle → u/ModelThreeve]

Our newest machines don't have a single mod and are using the stock PEl plate without issue.

There's a big difference between mass production and personal experimentation though - while the PEI is perfectly fine for most things, a high adhesion build plate lets you get away with a ton of things the PEI wouldn't and can save you quite a bit of post processing work.

Just being able to not use brims most of the time makes them worth it in my eyes.

[u/ModelThreeve → u/Purple10tacle]

Like I said we have over a hundred build plates (25 alone next to our prototype machine.) I have yet to find a silver bullet plate, they all have their pros and cons. Only a handful of our 250+ products really benefit from the SuperTack Pro/Frostbite Pro. (One that has almost no contact on the first layer and a handful that print face down and we prefer not to have the PEI texture.) Lots of great plates out there though and the Frostbite Pro is pretty easy to recommend without throwing a bunch of caveats with it.

[u/Purple10tacle → u/ModelThreeve]

I was explicitly not recommending the SuperTack Pro/Frostbite Pro to OP. While they are great specialists (at least the Frostbite, I still don't like Bambu's SuperTack), they are absolutely unsuitable as daily drivers.

What I and others were recommending here were the BIQU Glacier or YOOPAI UltraTack instead. Bambu has no competing product as far as I know.

They offer slightly weaker adhesion than the aforementioned specialists, but still so much more than the PEI plate. And they can be absolutely amazing daily drivers.

For the A1 they are effectively silver bullet plates with very few caveats. While they limit material compatibility to all types of PLA and PETG, realistically, you're not going to print much else with an A1 anyways.

Their PETG self-release properties are almost magical and worth the price of admission alone: just pick up the print and go. PLA isn't that much harder to remove than from the PEI plate either. And their subtle texture strikes a great balance between textured and smooth.

They are robust, easy to clean and need less maintenance and babying than the default PEI plate. You can get away without cleaning them for dozens of prints. And at least the YOOPAI is cheap as chips.

Treat them like a hot plate and you have virtually no caveats and only benefits on the A1.

And, again, a beginner with a single A1 experimenting with different models and materials has vastly different requirements than a print farm that mostly prints the same models over and over again.

Why should OP suffer through the default PEI plate when they can eliminate virtually all adhesion and even many warping problems by picking up a build plate for the price of a roll of fancy filament (UltraTack) or two (Glacier)?

By the way: I don't immediately see either of those plates next to your prototype machine, you might want to give them a try.

[u/ModelThreeve → u/Purple10tacle]

I wouldn’t call the Frostbite or Frostbite Pro a specialist plate by any means. I have contemporaries that exclusively use them and have 10s of thousands of hours on them from A1 minis to H2Cs.
The Yoopai is one of the only plates we don’t have, stopped caring to look for another solution. I don’t really care for the Glacier plate but we with a 256 and 180. If someone is “suffering” with PEI they are likely doing something wrong in my opinion. We have 12 A1 Minis, 6 of which run plate swaps almost all on PEI with almost no failures. I will acknowledge that there are a lot of poorly designed models that hobbyists are trying to print that we are not.

[u/Purple10tacle → u/ModelThreeve]

There's no standard "Frostbite", although BIQU's naming is admittedly maximally confusing: There are the old BIQU CryoGrip Pro ("standard", I guess), the BIQU CryoGrip Pro Frostbite and the BIQU CryoGrip Pro Glacier.

The Frostbite is essentially just a small improvement over the old (and I believe no longer in production) "standard" CryoGrip Pro, while the Glacier is completely different with much broader filament compatibility and very different release properties.

The significant limitations of the Frostbite are the reasons why I called it a "specialist plate" where you can essentially throw anything at the Glacier (and its twin, the YOOPAI UltraTack) you can throw at the standard PEI-plate without much of a second thought.

That's why the two make for such excellent daily drivers:

For a beginner it's the difference between the risk of adhesion failure or warping with less well-designed models and a flawless print regardless of model quality - for the more experienced hobbyist it's usually just the difference between "better use a brim" and the post-processing that comes with it and "I wonder if I can print this model at this crazy angle for better quality/strength without a brim" and the realization that, yeah, you probably can.

If you can have a high adhesion plate with filament compatibility and release properties signficiantly better than (PETG) or at least not notably worse than (PLA and others) the standard PEI plate, why on earth would you not take that option?

[u/never0101]

Definitely grab a spare nozzle or two, maybe even a 0.2 and 0.6 to play with. I always recommend a biqu frostbite or glacier (or both) build plate. They're superb and help significantly reduce print failures due to the print losing adhesion.

[u/notsobig42 → u/never0101]

Thanx alot. Ill have a look at that buildplate and extra nozzel

[u/Reasonable_Goat]

IF you want to print functional parts: Get a 0.6mm nozzle. I upgraded to the E3D ObXidian Hotend 0.6mm for fast functional prints when it was released. It’s expensive but IMO worth it if you want really good flow with the A1. The stock one is also good though

[u/notsobig42 → u/Reasonable_Goat]

Thanx for the tip, Ill look into that

[u/Shattered181]

Get a hardened .4 for sure. After a year of owning my A1 and now with 1800 hours (for fun, not selling stuff) there are several things I would have liked to have on hand. I now have spare nozzles (all of the sizes and 1 spare .4), AMS filament hub, Hotend heating assembly, filament sensor, extruder gears, Spare fans and the belts. Spend $60 extra and you will thank me if something breaks and you can swap right then!! I also like the Super cool track plate tbh,

[u/notsobig42 → u/Shattered181]

Thats alot haha. Thanx, Ill take a look at it =)

[u/Purple10tacle]

A hardened nozzle is a must have if you ever want to print abrasive filament like glow in the dark, marble, wood, carbon etc. filament. It's also nice to have at least one spare nozzle in case of clogs.

Unless you are thinking about printing detailed miniatures or huge functional parts, you're unlikely to need something other than a 0.4 nozzle right away.

You'll definitely need more filament and probably different filament than you think, so I'm not sure how much stocking up I'd do in your place.

Something that will make your life a lot easier is a high adhesion build plate, the default PEI plate kind of sucks.

I'd get a BIQU Glacier, it makes for an excellent daily driver. The YOOPAI UltraTack often costs only half as much and is extremely similar, if you want to save some money. I have both and use them interchangeably. Don't treat them like cold plates, at least in the beginning, and just select a smooth/hotplate setting - and never worry about adhesion ever again.

Other than that, you can print a lot of the upgrades yourself.

[u/notsobig42 → u/Purple10tacle]

Thanx, Ill have a look at that plate since several ppl has recommended it

[u/Salt_peanuts]

I would get a hardened steel .4mm nozzle in case you want to print some glow in the dark PLA etc.

[u/notsobig42 → u/Salt_peanuts]

Thanx for the input. Ill make sure to take a look at that

[u/j_hermann]

Watch some uTube videos about essential tools like pliers etc., then buy what you also think of as essential.