Clash of the Cantilevers: the Bambu Lab A1 mini vs

Clash of the Cantilevers: the Bambu Lab A1 mini vs. the Prusa Mini+

Cantilever 3D printers are cartesian XZ-head printers with a twist: there is only one Z upright supporting the extruder arm. The fact that the extruder arm is supported on only one side limits its length - any arm flex gets amplified the longer the arm is. That limits bed size, so cantilever printers are small. But they’re less expensive because they require less hardware, and they have a smaller footprint.

Some examples include the Creality Ender 2 Pro, the Kingroon KP3S, the Tronxy X1 and the Tronxy CRUX1. There has been a lack of development of the cantilever printer - there have been numerous Creality Ender 3 clones and now most manufacturers are focused on speeding up these clones, but there have been comparatively few new cantilever 3D printers.

Veteran manufacturer Prusa Research released their cantilever Prusa Mini in October 2019, intended to be a Prusa printer anyone could afford. The Mini was replaced by the Mini+ in November 2020 and this is the model that is currently available.

The cantilever printer design was resurrected in September 2023 when upstart manufacturer Bambu Lab surprised the 3D printing world once more with their announcement of the A1 mini, a new cantilever printer from a company that had only made extremely fast CoreXY printers up to that point - and vowed never to make a bedslinger, which the A1 mini definitely is.

How do these two 3D printers compare?

Shared Features

These two 3D printers obviously share some features since they have the same fundamental design. Let’s go through them.

Cantilever Design

As we’ve mentioned earlier, these printers both use the relatively rare cantilever design. They only have one Z upright and the extruder arm is cantilevered off it. This design creates other similarities.

Size

Both printers have a small 180 X 180 X 180mm print volume. The cantilever design limits the extruder arm length. This seems to be as large as cantilever 3D printers can get - no other cantilever printer is larger.

Linear Rails

Both printers use linear rails - the Prusa Mini+ uses linear rods and the Bambu Lab A1 mini uses linear rails. Almost all cantilever printers use linear rails because the extruder arm cannot have any free play, which would cause print quality issues when the extruder is near the end of the arm. This is where linear rails have a great advantage - the bearings grip the rails very tightly, allowing virtually no free play.

Bed Material

Both printers use a magnetic, flexible, removable PEI bed. The Bambu Lab A1 mini comes with a textured PEI bed, with an optional smooth PEI bed. The Prusa Mini+ comes with a smooth PEI bed, with textured and satin PEI beds optional.

Quiet Motors

Both printers use quiet motor drivers. The Prusa Mini+ uses quiet TMC2209 motor drivers. Bambu Lab uses proprietary motor drivers that feature active noise cancellation.

Network Control

The Bambu Lab A1 mini can be controlled over a network, either locally or through the Internet. The Prusa Mini+ can also be controlled over a local network or the Internet using Prusa Connect.

Input Shaping and Pressure Advance

The Prusa Mini+ added input shaping and pressure advance as of its latest major firmware. The Bambu Lab A1 mini uses active vibration compensation, which is a different implementation of input shaping. It also uses active flow monitoring as a form of pressure advance.

Differences

There are some significant and not-so-significant differences between these two printers, despite their obvious similarities.

Extruder

The main difference between these two printers is the extruder. The Bambu Lab A1 mini uses a direct extruder, while the Prusa Mini+ uses a Bowden extruder. A direct extruder offers better filament control and much shorter retraction moves, improving print quality. But with a Bowden extruder, the moving mass is often lower, reducing ringing and potentially increasing speed. While the Prusa Mini+ has to push filament up a PTFE tube like all Bowden extruders, the Bambu Lab A1 mini is not totally free from this issue - it has long PTFE guide tubes in a “reverse Bowden” arrangement. With the AMS lite, these are very long guide tubes - so long that Bambu Lab does not recommend TPU be printed from the AMS lite due to the potential of TPU jamming inside the tubes.

Multi Material Compatibility

The Bambu Lab A1 mini has easy multi material/multicolor/multifilament compatibility with the AMS lite, which is available at a discount at the time of purchase as a combo or later as an add-on unit. The Prusa Mini+ has no multi material capability aside from pausing at a certain height and a manual filament change, like all 3D printers.

Network Connections

The Bambu Lab A1 mini has wireless networking included. The Prusa Mini+ has wired Ethernet networking included and wireless networking as an optional upgrade.

Wired Connections

The Prusa Mini+ has two USB ports, allowing connection to a computer for local control through OctoPrint, for example. The Bambu Lab A1 mini has no wired connection at all.

Open Source

Prusa Research is well known for making their designs open source, and the Prusa Mini+ is no exception. All designs, parts and firmware are open source and available online. Bambu Lab has gone the opposite route and all of their printers and source code is closed-source and proprietary - including the A1 mini.

Material Compatibility

The Prusa Mini+’s maximum nozzle temperature is 280°C. The Bambu Lab A1 mini’s maximum nozzle temperature is 300°C. So we would think that material compatibility would be identical, with the A1 mini possibly having even greater capability. But this is not the case because the A1 mini’s maximum bed temperature is 80°C while the Mini+’s maximum bed temperature is 100°C. Both printers are fully capable of printing PLA, PETG, TPU and PVA but Bambu Lab does not recommend printing ABS, ASA, PC, PA or PET while Prusa Research encourages printing these materials as well as CPE, BVOH, PVB, HIPS, PP (polypropylene), Flex, nGen, Nylon, woodfill and other filled materials.

Styling

The two printers couldn’t be more different when it comes to appearance. The Prusa Mini+ is open frame and all parts are exposed. Trim pieces are in Prusa’s trademark orange. As a point of interest, all plastic components are actually printed on other Prusa printers.

The Bambu Lab A1 mini has all parts in shrouds and covers. All edges are rounded. The screen is integrated into the printer base rather than in a separate enclosure. The color scheme is light gray with a few darker gray parts and darker gray lettering in Bambu Lab’s signature font.

Footprint

The Prusa Mini+’s footprint is composed of 2 squares - one square is about the same area as the 180 X 180mm print bed and another small square acts as a base for the upright and as an enclosure for the mainboard. The Bambu Lab A1 mini is very minimalist and only as large as it needs to be. Under the bed, the base is only as wide as the linear rail supporting the bed, meaning the bed overhangs by a considerable margin on the left. Proceeding to the right, the base gets shallower, then deeper to encompass the touchscreen, with the long, narrow mainboard behind the touchscreen and the extruder arm upright behind. It has a smaller footprint than the Prusa Mini+ and may be able to fit in slightly smaller spaces.

Print Resume, Filament Sensor, Filament Tangle

The Bambu Lab A1 mini has a print resume function - it will resume a print in the event of a power failure. It has a filament sensor to detect filament runout or breakage. It also has a sensor which detects a filament jam or tangle.

The Prusa Mini+ does not have a print resume function. A filament runout sensor is optional. It does not have a filament tangle sensor.

Controls

The Bambu Lab A1 mini has a 2.4” 320 X 240 IPS full color touchscreen. The Prusa Mini+ has a 2.8” 65K color screen, controlled by a rotary knob.

## Bed Leveling

The Prusa Mini+ uses a SuperPINDA non-contact inductive probe to measure bed height for leveling.

The Bambu Lab A1 mini uses a bed strain gauge built into the nozzle assembly to determine bed height by contact.

Auto Z Offset

The Bambu Lab A1 mini uses its contact bed leveling method to set Z offset automatically. Because the Prusa Mini+ does not use a contact method, it can’t set its Z offset - the inductive probe has no way of measuring the distance of the nozzle tip to the bed. The Prusa Mini+ does have a “live Z offset” procedure which allows the user to adjust Z offset while the printer is printing and see the effect of any change as it occurs.

Print Speed

The Bambu Lab A1 mini is prominently advertised as having a print speed of 500mm/s, although that is peak speed - typical speed is 200-300mm/s. The Prusa Mini+ was released with typical print speeds of the time of 40-80mm/s, but their most recent firmware update which adds input shaping makes the Mini+ much faster. Prusa Research themselves do not commit to a single number, insisting it’s complicated. But since they were able to print a Benchy in 16 minutes versus the Bambu Lab A1 mini completing a Benchy in under 13 minutes, the speeds are now comparable, although just a little slower.

Assembly

The Bambu Lab A1 mini arrives fully assembled. It can be up and running in about 5-10 minutes. The Prusa Mini+ is available semi-assembled, taking about 30 minutes to fully assemble. It is also available as a kit for some cost savings and takes several hours to assemble. However, the instructions are excellent and the user gains a lot of knowledge about 3D printers in going through this.

Verdict

The Bambu Lab A1 mini is newer and benefits from new technologies that Bambu Lab developed. It was made from the start to be fast. It also costs far less, a little more than half what the Prusa Mini+ costs - the price of the Bambu Lab A1 mini combo with the AMS lite multi material unit is the same as the semi-assembled Prusa Mini+. On the surface, the Bambu Lab A1 mini is the winner.

However, the Prusa Mini+ has a long track record and is very well-regarded. It is made of extremely high quality components and its design is open, enabling 3rd party upgrades, customization and easy repair. The fact that Prusa Research engineers were able to speed up this older printer to almost the same level as the very new Bambu Lab A1 mini is a testament to their ingenuity and excellence and shows that Prusa should not be counted out of the cantilever printer race.

Click here to view the Prusa MINI+ on Prusa3d.com.

Click here to view the Bambu Lab A1 Mini on the Bambu Lab website.

You can find a side-by-side comparison of the specifications for these two printers in the table below: