That absolutely is a game changer! already saw another video from another youtuber who has got amazing results with your settings and already printed dozens of incredible looking minis i guess its also possible to print minis who are not exclusive modelled for fdm printing, just need some tinkering with support settings no toxic fumes, no isoprol, no need to heat resin, no extra space needed for curing and washing station, thats a long list of + for me and many others
You can’t even imagine how long I’ve been waiting for a minis printing video like that about A1 mini. Now there’s not even a doubt it will be my first 3d printer
This has reinvigorated my interest in 3D printing. I got into resin a few years ago but never got comfortable with it and it eventually kind of caused me to forget about modeling and printing. Thank you as always for the incredible work you do for the community.
for a fdm printer, these look really great!, ofc resin would give you higher quality stuff, but the amount of safety and post-pro it needs is not for everyone great video too! thanks a lot
Thank you for your work on these profiles. I’m so glad to see you expand into Bambu. I always appreciate your work and I support every kickstarter you launch.
Got your profile ages ago. Already had a P1S. Just got a A1 Mini during the sale. The profile worked really well, nice to have two printers. P1S for large, functional and exotic filaments. A1 mini for fun stuff like mini's. Thanks for the profile, appreciate the effort you put into your channel :)
A1 is my first 3D printed. I was skeptical about printing minis with an FDM printer but decided to try your settings. I printed a couple of buildings at 6mm or 'epic' scale with your settings, just added some ironing and they came out absolutely incredible! I could not believe it achieved that level of detail on A1!
Interesting fact I just discovered after 3d printing for 12 or so years: the general advice for overhangs that curl up (which I think is what is happening at 12:45) is to reduce your print temperatures, reduce print speed, and increase fan speed. I have actually found that if your overhangs are curling up, you want to increase your print temperature, not reduce it. You want to print the outer perimeter faster (so the nozzle doesn't overheat any areas and stick to the molten plastic, causing stringing), and the inner perimeters and infill slower (you can set this in Orcaslicer by choosing "don't slow down outer walls" in the filament settings). And then you still want to start with high fan speeds, but for maximum strength reduce the fan speeds until you start to see the overhangs droop, and then turn it up a little past that.
Love my A1 so much that an A1 mini (space and wanted to try out the AMS) is coming next week and it will be doing double duty in son's 6-8 grade class. Thanks so much for working on these profiles and figuring this out. I resin print, but the more I can do with FDM, the happier I am.
Resin is such a messy process - printing, cleaning, washing, drying. And you don't always notice you have a failure until it's too late. And with FDM you can pretty much handle the end product straight away without worrying that toxins are leaking in to your skin. I love the quality of resin but everything else about it sucks.
Are you able to get the same success using these settings on your A1? I have an A1, but all the good dnd mini profiles I see are for the A1 Mini, and I wonder if they'll work as well on the A1.
Thank you SO much! I got my mini a couple of weeks ago and was really disappointed that all of the mini figure profiles were for all the Bambu printers except for the mini. This was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for all your hard work tweaking the settings!
Thank you! I got into fat dragon games a few years ago when I was doing paper terrain. As I got into 3d printing It was cool to hear your name dropped again for your great profile. I just bought the A1 (after doing resin the last 12 months) and just printed my first model, using your profile (and elego PLA+). BLOWN AWAY BY THE RESULTS! Thanks again :)
Sunlu PLA Meta is my go-to PLA as well, been using it almost a year. Keep up the good content, I basically learned the entire trade of printing minis from you when I started.
Really great video and settings. This is my first 3D printer and so I purchased the profile; it was perfect for getting me started with my A1 mini for printing miniatures. I've played about with the settings some more and found some improvements for fine details I wanted to share: Layer height 0.04 mm Initial layer height 0.2 mm (improves adhesion issues I was having) Outer wall 0.16 mm Top surface 0.16mm Wall generator Arachne, with min wall width 30% and min feature size 20% (the wall width changes are key and this showed better behavior than classic in my tests) I also had to play around with the filament settings a bit as I was getting significant stringing even with Sunlu Meta at your default settings. I reduced temp to 205, put retraction to 5 mm and retraction speed to 45 mm/s (as suggested in a blog post created by Sunlu on their website) and this has mostly solved the issue. If you were interested in trying these settings I'd love to hear how you find the results. I'm getting phenomenally detailed prints for FDM with them. Thanks for getting me started with your awesome guide!
Well, thanks for forcing me to finally bite the bullet and jump into the Bambu A1! Never wanted to deal with resin and the toxicity, space, and cost (of peripheral tools and such) requirements, and was really tempted by the A1 when I saw Fauxhammer review it. This pushed me over the edge!
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Ah, I figured the quality difference between them was negligible, but is the A1 worse for minis, due to the larger print volume, or better than the A1 Mini? Haven’t actually picked between the two yet, but I figured the A1 just offered an overall better experience. Might opt for the mini if it’s likely better for smaller prints.
@@Loriborn a single z screw is better than dual (they can 'fight' each other) and also the Mini has a linear rail for the Z axis, that combined with the smaller bed (less Y axis inertia) is giving better results on miniatures in my testing. I'll be posting a video on the full size A1 print quality in a few weeks once I finish all of my testing.
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrorsI appreciate the response! I did end up opting for the Mini based on these findings, and since this is my sole intended use case, but I did grab some of Bambu's own PLA basic filament. I noticed there weren't any test images of custom profile with the Bambu filament in the video. Is there a significant difference in print quality between the Sunlu Meta and the Bambu Labs PLA basic with the custom profile? I figured I'd ask as the former is still on sale for the time being.
@@Loriborn yes, the difference between the two filaments is pretty significant when printing minis. Stick with Sunlu PLA Meta or Hatchbox PLA (standard, not plus) for minis.
Wow. I downloaded the newest profile version, installed a .2 nozzle in my A1 mini & loaded up the Sunlu Meta gray. The very first print is much better by far than any other miniature figure FDM print that I've previously done. Thanks. :)
Thank you so much for this! I am super new to 3d printing and don't have a ton of time to tinker right now. I've experimented with your settings and the default bambu and yours are amazing. Thanks for sharing!
Just bought the A1 mini over black Friday weekend. It should be arriving today! I am super excited to try it out and give this profile a try!!! Thank you so much!!!
I really appreciate your videos on this topic, it's given me the confidence to jump into the hobby knowing there's community support for beginners. Thanks!
Arachne has issues with tiny details on the walls, regardless of the print. It's not so much an issue with the process itself, but if you have a lot of fine details, you want to use the Classic still.
There settings for Arachne to increase the minimum detail size. With this bumped down to super small numbers, you get much better details. The default values are set to smooth out small details, to keep gcode size down apparently. Bollocks if you ask me. I need to compare to the classic wall setting, that I have not done yet.
My god thanks for this video! I have jsut stumbled onto FDM printing as a whole and it blows me away. I was waiting for years for an affordable low budget way of getting into 3D printing and this seems to be it! I love those prints and they are perfect for a casual player who isnt totally obsessed with detail. thanks again. you have made my decision wich printer to buy very easy
Wow great to see. I’m loving my a1 mini. I got a 0.2mm nozzle with the mega combo but not tried it out yet. You’ve given me new motivation to try it out!
Have been printing terrain 24/7 on my A1s over the last few weeks, the 0.4 nozzle at 0.08LH is almost completely without layer lines but the tolerance for horizontal resolution is higher vs on minis. A few 0.2 nozzles should be arriving tomorrow and excited to try the profile, thank you for sharing great info!
Just want to give a big thanks to you! I stumbled on your channel many years ago and used your advice and ender 3 profiles to get into 3d printing. Was so helpful then and it’s amazing to see these results you’re getting now! Thanks again for your expert advice!
Awesome work - I agree I spent years tuning various printers for FDM minis - and the a1 mini got the same if not better results with almost 0 tuning - friggin amazing
Thank you so much for all your efforts and hard work! I have tried out your printer settings, in combination with Sunlu PLA Meta, on my Bambu Lab P1S. I tried an Ork mini from Puppetswar Miniatures and it turn out marvelous. My ever growing Ork army will be thanking you and I will integrate the "fat dragon" somehow into it :)
Normal the bambu needs more heat because the speed. When you print slower you can lower the temp i read in forums. It would of course be interesting to find out whether the settings would also work on the A1.
Gonna like and sub just for this video. Really needed a good FDM printer for minis cause I have no room nor want to handle a resin printer, and I want to get into OPR since it seems like the most reasonable way for me to get into a large scale sci-fi wargame that isn't GW, but wasn't having any luck for a while as I search the RUclips for videos on the subject matter. Was honestly gonna give up the idea of printing minis until I came across this video. Thank you, Fat Dragon Games and the Tomb of 3D Printed Horrors!
I've found that the Polymaker PolyTerra line of filament produces buttery smooth prints. Layer lines are practically nonexistent unless inspected closely.
I’m someone who got into 3d printing for minis, I got an A1 mini recently and I have a couple questions for you 1) how does overture’s matte filament compare to the Sunlu pla meta 2) I noticed you use grey for all your prints, is there a reason for that or just personal preference? 3) what are your thoughts on using supports when printing minis? Is it worth it? Or does it ruin the quality too much?
Maybe the temperature issues are down to the ambient temperatures of the individual rooms you and your friends have the printers in? Also, have you tried aiming a fan across the print bed surface to see if that helps any? I know with their bigger printers you can get a fan that does that and it is supposed to help improve quality by cooling the printed filament quicker.
Filaments matter a lot. Speed and layer height matters a lot. I've been getting decent results on 0.2 nozzle, 0.04 and 0.06 layer height. Arachne slicer is almost always good. You can lower external wall thickness by 1/4 (0.16) in order to improve overall quality, but be warry that it can result in underextrusion with some extreme angles. Compare classic+arachne line thickness in slicer to see what's up with the mini you liked more. I use sunlu pla+ instead of meta. It just feels that with higher temp I have better control over flow. Set minimal layer time for ~10 seconds maybe to help with top thin parts
your in-depth review just convided me to get an a1 mini and sunlu meta, will be downloading your profile as soon as I receive them. Keep up the amazing work!
i was always interested in 3d printing, but the resin printers were simply too much hassle for me: they need too much space (because all the extra stations you need) and the toxic fumes were also a big thing that prevented me from getting into it. with this printer it looks pretty easy to print some minis with good results. and the prize looks also good. i think machines like this could be the breakthrough, to make 3d printing more accesable for people. i always wanted to create my own bits to modify my minis or even create some completly new ones. and i have seen so many cool minis from designers out there i always wanted to to try out. this printer could make it possible.
Many resin printer are even smaller than FDM printers, the "toxic fumes" are almost a myth specially with new resins, and you dont need more "work stations" than a pot of clean water and a UV lamp (or simply the sun).
Got the free dwarf model from your site and printed it, so cool. First miniature I've printed and love it. Instantly removed any plan to get a resin printer in the near future. Now I just need to find some nice models... in the meantime I'm printing one that needs supports just to see how it goes.
I ordered an A1 mini today, I'm glad I found this video. I ordered a roll of their filament, I wish I had seen this first so I could have just ordered the Sunlu. Oh well. I ordered the Sunlu as well I'm excited to try both.
Bought an X1C earkier this year, but also just bought an A1-mini just for minis. Thanks a lot for the tips! I will download your settings to stay current.
Hermano muchísimas gracias y felicitaciones por todo tu empeño se ve la calidad en tus minis y espero te haga muy feliz Se lo que es estar haciendo test de calibración y es una flojera pero te agradezco de antemano por todo el esfuerzo conociendo tu equipo y el conocimiento que me transmite
Wow, just saw this video last night, downloaded the profile and bam, realllllly nice miniatures. So happy I found this video Nd thanks for sharing the profile!
Damn. I just pulled the plug earler today on the a... and then came across your channel and video on the a1 mini w .2 mm nozzle.. I am hopeful it will come somewhat close w tweaking.
Thank you. I've been looking at printers and I want to do miniatures, but I have kids and pets and chemical sensitivities myself so have worried about resin. I think I now know what my birthday present is going to be.
@@Dangoow Hey mate, finally swapped to my 0.2 nozzle on the P1S and printed a Xenos-esque Talon for Space Bugs that I would normally print in ABS-like resin, and it came out remarkably close in detail, albeit slightly more fragile. Definitely a good starting point for you to test a supported mini and adjust from thee based on your likes/dislikes. I used a slightly different filament, Sunlu Matte.
I’m very excited for this, I think a huge amount of my obsession with FDM printed minis is due to your original Cura videos but obviously swapping to a P1P it didn’t transfer spectacularly. I’m also excited to test out your fix for the Meta PLA overhangs, I really enjoyed that filament but ended up avoiding any prints with harsh overhangs with it for just that reason.
Fantastic video, this is awesome, for USD 299.00 you get table quality minis. Sure these are not high quality 8K resin prints, but you also don't have the overhead of goop, chemicals, fumes, wash stations, curing stations, waste etc. Quick and dirty!
I really wish I'd waited a few more years before getting into 3d printing, these modern machines are making my temperamental and unreliable Ender 3 look worthless and obsolete.
yeah its nuts how good the new stuff is, I have a couple of p1ps, and coming from an ender 3 as well, being able to slice on my computer, hit print, it wirelessly going to my printer and never having to mess with bed leveling or anything has been amazing. plus it'll print something that takes my ender 3 24 hours in like 6
Besides my advice below I want to thank you for your skeletons about 5 years ago you put up. I still have those , they came out good on my mini delta which still stand up to todays scrutiny and I do DLP resin printing as well. I have 3 bambus by the way if you need another tester......
Hi, just testing your profile with my A1 mini and it gives amazing results! Thanks for that! I would be even interested on how you se up the supports and the technique and tools you use to clean up the minis !
I never do any cleanup on the minis except if there is a strand of filament at the very top where the print finished, I cut that off with an Xacto knife. Supports? Never use them, I only sculpt supportless models!
I will never go back to FDM to printing minis after discover the resin, but for bigs projects, like terrain or vehicles, a would really lika a good FDM printer.
Such a great video. Thanks Tom. One thing I would like to know is how your settings work on non- FDG minis, I.E. minis that are not optimized for FDM printing and need greater supports.
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Got it. Sorry if my question offended you. Wasn't my intention. Been a huge fan of FDG since the early days of Copper Dragon Tiles.
@@deanm375 no offense at all. For a miniature to print well it's 50% engineering of the sculpt for the intended print method, 50% settings. If a sculptor doesn't design for tolerances of the mechanical printer (such as ensuring parts that need support are engineered to be mechanically strong enough to withstand separation of the support) there's no amount of slicer setting adjustment that can fix that. :)
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Thanks Tom. I appreciate the feedback. I just purchased some .2m nozzles for my Anycubic Mega S hoping to improve my print quality. I'm going to try an duplicate some of the settings you were mentioning on Bambu A1. I've used the settings you spoke about several months ago to improve mini printing and I got decent results. Hoping the .2mm nozzle improves it.Thanks.
I already have a P1S and ive trying to decide for a while if i should get an AMS or the A1 mini combo. And now that my play group is starting a campaign for the first in DnD im definitely going to get the A1 mini combo, thanks so much for such an informative video. Now i need to go through and watch all your other videos.
Just bought one. I have or will soon at least have two printers. Ender 3 v3 SE and the A1 mini w/AMS. Pretty excited. Both are "budget" printers but I feel like the feature rich A1 mini wins hands down.
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Both choices were actually inspired by your channel. I think something understated for some is that as much as I would like a resin printer I live in an apartment and it isn't feasible in a safety sense. So having something that's close enough to a resin printer while not needing to deal with the amount of cleaning and the fumes of a resin printer is a godsend.
Great video. I've been looking forward to seeing your results. I bought an A-1 mini on your recommendation and it's on the way. Can't wait. Thanks very much for all of the hard work you do for the community. It is much appreciated. Do you have plans to release any new minis for use with this printer and those settings?
I ended up ordering an A1 mini and Sunlu PLA Meta Grey based off your videos! Bambu needs to give you an affiliate link or something. It's my first 3D printer and it's been great, but I do have some questions: I downloaded your print profile and it has a nozzle temp of 220C, while the spec sheet and online discussions recommend printing PLA Meta at lower temps of 185-195C (at least on 0.4mm nozzles). Is there a reason you've set a higher nozzle temp? I read that people will set higher nozzle temps at higher print speeds, but your profile's layer speeds don't seem high enough to warrant that. Also, what's the purpose of the "A1 mini cap.stl" in the downloaded profile files?
Just got my A1 mini looking forward to trying your settings to see what I can do. I have a lot of bambu lab pla to work through before swapping, though.
Now that I've got an A1 Mini, I've bought your settings files and I appreciate all the work that went into them! I'd love to have some settings for supports, though. Do you plan to work on that, or do you know anyone who has figured out how to get some good supports that are easier to remove? They basically ruin the back of my print at this point.
Same exact issues with Arachne vs Classic wall here ... haven't seen a good explanation for it. .....you can see it in the layers preview so now that I know about it I'm trying to train my brain on what to look for. Hatchbox won't get any more of my money, I want to like them, we have a good history ....but nothing has been coming out clean lately from brand new filament dessicant dried in anboven for a week prior. Thanks for the tip on Meta filament from Sunlu... I was getting ready to test Anycubics fast pla so maybe I'll compare and repost. Cheers all.
Thanks! My X1Carbon will arrive any day now. Do you have any plans for profiles for it? I'll definitely take a stab at your A1 Mini profile ad tweak it. I'd be glad to share my findings back to you.
Have you used 0.2 mm nozzle previously with other printers? I'm interested in what's result of smaller nozzle in general and what Bambu Lab brings in 🤔 It's interesting to see how much -better- different the meta filament looks. We obviously need _Wargamer_ (Fauxhammer loves that resin) type of matte miniature filament 😅
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Coming back to A1 Mini: We have resin printer (Mars 4 9k after Voxelab Proxima 2k display went bad and replacement was even worse) and modified Voxelab Aquila (Ender 3 V2 clone with dual Z lead screws, Orbiter 2 extruder and A1 nozzle and heating block for easy/fast swaps and Octoprint). Printing, even with A1 0.2 nozzle, didn't bring good results for my son's gunpla parts (guns, accessories, service platforms etc) and for some reason A1 nozzle made it seem as if 1st layer came closer every print - though heating block and BL-touch are rigidly mounted. Of course resin is superior, even mandatory for 1:144 human figures, but workflow is different, messy, random reasons, etc... So I bit the bullet and bought A1 Mini from summer sale for his use. Results? Powder-coated bed is not super-adhesive for small footprints (not exclusive to A1), supported surfaces are not too clean (not exclusive to A1) and it poops fair amount of filament before printing (no AMS, but it doesn't know if nozzle might have been changed?), but otherwise it's easier to use, 1st layer is always pretty good and print quality with 0.2 nozzle, default profile and generic PLA, is closer to resin that I thought it could. And it is ridiculously fast when it gets up to speed :) It doesn't make me Bambu Lab convert in general, but being practical, A1 Mini prints really, really good 👍
To do that I would have to create a complete new custom slicer profile designed for a .4 nozzle, which would be a waste of my time. The topic of the video is to show the absolute best quality miniatures the BL A1 Mini is capable of producing, which means using a .2mm nozzle which is far superior to a .4 nozzle when printing tiny details.
the fact that many people does 3d videos about bambu a1 for minis right now is funny, because if people noticed how the 3d printers brands works, they always compete with each others, so they ALWAYS release another "new machine". So, now, everybody wants a bambulab like that's the key, but bambulab is one printer of one brand in the competition, imagine how it will be even more perfect in less than 1-2 years... This is why, once again, people should break this recurring pattern of consumption which is to rush to buy and wait for technologies to evolve further. Your video is very good, but given the mentality of people in general, for me, it comes out too early. (Well i know it's about 10 month already xD but all videos coming around bambulab these times treat same subject, so 10 months earlier was even more early :p)
![How to Print AMAZING FDM Miniatures! | A Complete Guide to FDM Minis [CHECK DESCRIPTION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UDxM9VsQrtM/mqdefault.jpg)
![How to Print AMAZING FDM Miniatures! | A Complete Guide to FDM Minis [CHECK DESCRIPTION]](/img/tr.png)
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
That absolutely is a game changer! already saw another video from another youtuber who has got amazing results with your settings and already printed dozens of incredible looking minis
i guess its also possible to print minis who are not exclusive modelled for fdm printing, just need some tinkering with support settings
no toxic fumes, no isoprol, no need to heat resin, no extra space needed for curing and washing station, thats a long list of + for me and many others
Which RUclipsr?
@@trivalentclan nope, not for printing gaming miniatures.
loriborn, he hs like 100-200 subs@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors
The youtubers name is loriborn, he has 160 subs or so
You can’t even imagine how long I’ve been waiting for a minis printing video like that about A1 mini. Now there’s not even a doubt it will be my first 3d printer
Bro 1000% understand. I been interested in the A1 Mini but not completely sure, now I have 2 about to be paid for with the smaller tip
This has reinvigorated my interest in 3D printing. I got into resin a few years ago but never got comfortable with it and it eventually kind of caused me to forget about modeling and printing. Thank you as always for the incredible work you do for the community.
for a fdm printer, these look really great!, ofc resin would give you higher quality stuff, but the amount of safety and post-pro it needs is not for everyone
great video too! thanks a lot
Thank you for your work on these profiles. I’m so glad to see you expand into Bambu.
I always appreciate your work and I support every kickstarter you launch.
Thank you!
Just picked up a Bambu a1, I’m really pleased with it as well. Glad I waited a couple of years before I got into fdm
Got your profile ages ago. Already had a P1S. Just got a A1 Mini during the sale. The profile worked really well, nice to have two printers. P1S for large, functional and exotic filaments. A1 mini for fun stuff like mini's.
Thanks for the profile, appreciate the effort you put into your channel :)
Thanks! :)
A1 is my first 3D printed. I was skeptical about printing minis with an FDM printer but decided to try your settings. I printed a couple of buildings at 6mm or 'epic' scale with your settings, just added some ironing and they came out absolutely incredible! I could not believe it achieved that level of detail on A1!
Interesting fact I just discovered after 3d printing for 12 or so years: the general advice for overhangs that curl up (which I think is what is happening at 12:45) is to reduce your print temperatures, reduce print speed, and increase fan speed. I have actually found that if your overhangs are curling up, you want to increase your print temperature, not reduce it. You want to print the outer perimeter faster (so the nozzle doesn't overheat any areas and stick to the molten plastic, causing stringing), and the inner perimeters and infill slower (you can set this in Orcaslicer by choosing "don't slow down outer walls" in the filament settings). And then you still want to start with high fan speeds, but for maximum strength reduce the fan speeds until you start to see the overhangs droop, and then turn it up a little past that.
Love my A1 so much that an A1 mini (space and wanted to try out the AMS) is coming next week and it will be doing double duty in son's 6-8 grade class. Thanks so much for working on these profiles and figuring this out. I resin print, but the more I can do with FDM, the happier I am.
Resin is such a messy process - printing, cleaning, washing, drying. And you don't always notice you have a failure until it's too late. And with FDM you can pretty much handle the end product straight away without worrying that toxins are leaking in to your skin. I love the quality of resin but everything else about it sucks.
Are you able to get the same success using these settings on your A1? I have an A1, but all the good dnd mini profiles I see are for the A1 Mini, and I wonder if they'll work as well on the A1.
Thank you SO much! I got my mini a couple of weeks ago and was really disappointed that all of the mini figure profiles were for all the Bambu printers except for the mini.
This was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for all your hard work tweaking the settings!
I'm glad it helped you! A part 2 for this video is coming soon with even better settings :)
Thank you!
I got into fat dragon games a few years ago when I was doing paper terrain. As I got into 3d printing It was cool to hear your name dropped again for your great profile. I just bought the A1 (after doing resin the last 12 months) and just printed my first model, using your profile (and elego PLA+). BLOWN AWAY BY THE RESULTS!
Thanks again :)
Great!
FDM is getting close to Resin. Is incredible to see! Nowhere near but those minifigs look fantastic for an FDM printer
Just want to leave a comment that I appreciate the work you have put into this.
Sunlu PLA Meta is my go-to PLA as well, been using it almost a year. Keep up the good content, I basically learned the entire trade of printing minis from you when I started.
Hi,
Do you print the Sunlu meta at the profile temp or the lower temp recommended by Sunlu?
I understand they differ?
@@TheDarkplace I print at 195, going lower I noticed the layer adhesion suffers. Do not confuse PLA with PLA Meta, they are different.
Really great video and settings. This is my first 3D printer and so I purchased the profile; it was perfect for getting me started with my A1 mini for printing miniatures.
I've played about with the settings some more and found some improvements for fine details I wanted to share:
Layer height 0.04 mm
Initial layer height 0.2 mm (improves adhesion issues I was having)
Outer wall 0.16 mm
Top surface 0.16mm
Wall generator Arachne, with min wall width 30% and min feature size 20% (the wall width changes are key and this showed better behavior than classic in my tests)
I also had to play around with the filament settings a bit as I was getting significant stringing even with Sunlu Meta at your default settings. I reduced temp to 205, put retraction to 5 mm and retraction speed to 45 mm/s (as suggested in a blog post created by Sunlu on their website) and this has mostly solved the issue.
If you were interested in trying these settings I'd love to hear how you find the results. I'm getting phenomenally detailed prints for FDM with them. Thanks for getting me started with your awesome guide!
How about support settings?😊
Well, thanks for forcing me to finally bite the bullet and jump into the Bambu A1! Never wanted to deal with resin and the toxicity, space, and cost (of peripheral tools and such) requirements, and was really tempted by the A1 when I saw Fauxhammer review it. This pushed me over the edge!
Just to be clear, this video is on the A1 MINI, not the full size A1, there are differences in print quality between them.
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Ah, I figured the quality difference between them was negligible, but is the A1 worse for minis, due to the larger print volume, or better than the A1 Mini? Haven’t actually picked between the two yet, but I figured the A1 just offered an overall better experience. Might opt for the mini if it’s likely better for smaller prints.
@@Loriborn a single z screw is better than dual (they can 'fight' each other) and also the Mini has a linear rail for the Z axis, that combined with the smaller bed (less Y axis inertia) is giving better results on miniatures in my testing. I'll be posting a video on the full size A1 print quality in a few weeks once I finish all of my testing.
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrorsI appreciate the response! I did end up opting for the Mini based on these findings, and since this is my sole intended use case, but I did grab some of Bambu's own PLA basic filament. I noticed there weren't any test images of custom profile with the Bambu filament in the video. Is there a significant difference in print quality between the Sunlu Meta and the Bambu Labs PLA basic with the custom profile? I figured I'd ask as the former is still on sale for the time being.
@@Loriborn yes, the difference between the two filaments is pretty significant when printing minis. Stick with Sunlu PLA Meta or Hatchbox PLA (standard, not plus) for minis.
Wow. I downloaded the newest profile version, installed a .2 nozzle in my A1 mini & loaded up the Sunlu Meta gray. The very first print is much better by far than any other miniature figure FDM print that I've previously done. Thanks. :)
Thank you so much for this! I am super new to 3d printing and don't have a ton of time to tinker right now. I've experimented with your settings and the default bambu and yours are amazing. Thanks for sharing!
I'm glad they helped! :)
Just bought the A1 mini over black Friday weekend. It should be arriving today! I am super excited to try it out and give this profile a try!!! Thank you so much!!!
I really appreciate your videos on this topic, it's given me the confidence to jump into the hobby knowing there's community support for beginners. Thanks!
Thanks for watching! :)
Arachne has issues with tiny details on the walls, regardless of the print. It's not so much an issue with the process itself, but if you have a lot of fine details, you want to use the Classic still.
Huh I've been printing super high detail 75mm minis on my p1s and haven't noticed anything weird with details on robes or armor
There settings for Arachne to increase the minimum detail size. With this bumped down to super small numbers, you get much better details. The default values are set to smooth out small details, to keep gcode size down apparently. Bollocks if you ask me.
I need to compare to the classic wall setting, that I have not done yet.
@@JamesPound Can you please share?
Just finished my first print with your profile (A1mini) and your Ranger model: absolutely fantastic results and design, thank you so much!
My god thanks for this video! I have jsut stumbled onto FDM printing as a whole and it blows me away. I was waiting for years for an affordable low budget way of getting into 3D printing and this seems to be it! I love those prints and they are perfect for a casual player who isnt totally obsessed with detail. thanks again. you have made my decision wich printer to buy very easy
Very helpful indeed. Great that you will continue to share your updated profiles and share them.
Wow great to see. I’m loving my a1 mini. I got a 0.2mm nozzle with the mega combo but not tried it out yet. You’ve given me new motivation to try it out!
Have been printing terrain 24/7 on my A1s over the last few weeks, the 0.4 nozzle at 0.08LH is almost completely without layer lines but the tolerance for horizontal resolution is higher vs on minis. A few 0.2 nozzles should be arriving tomorrow and excited to try the profile, thank you for sharing great info!
Just want to give a big thanks to you! I stumbled on your channel many years ago and used your advice and ender 3 profiles to get into 3d printing. Was so helpful then and it’s amazing to see these results you’re getting now! Thanks again for your expert advice!
Just want to say thank you.
I tried the profile with some elegoo on a simple benchy test, and it's incredible.
Great!
Just in time with the Kickstarter villagers drop. Time to get some Meta and make some dragon fodder. Thank you for all you do Tom.
Awesome work - I agree I spent years tuning various printers for FDM minis - and the a1 mini got the same if not better results with almost 0 tuning - friggin amazing
Thank you so much for all your efforts and hard work! I have tried out your printer settings, in combination with Sunlu PLA Meta, on my Bambu Lab P1S. I tried an Ork mini from Puppetswar Miniatures and it turn out marvelous. My ever growing Ork army will be thanking you and I will integrate the "fat dragon" somehow into it :)
Thanks. Try one of my miniatures when you get a chance :)
Normal the bambu needs more heat because the speed. When you print slower you can lower the temp i read in forums.
It would of course be interesting to find out whether the settings would also work on the A1.
Gonna like and sub just for this video.
Really needed a good FDM printer for minis cause I have no room nor want to handle a resin printer, and I want to get into OPR since it seems like the most reasonable way for me to get into a large scale sci-fi wargame that isn't GW, but wasn't having any luck for a while as I search the RUclips for videos on the subject matter.
Was honestly gonna give up the idea of printing minis until I came across this video.
Thank you, Fat Dragon Games and the Tomb of 3D Printed Horrors!
Thanks!
I've found that the Polymaker PolyTerra line of filament produces buttery smooth prints. Layer lines are practically nonexistent unless inspected closely.
Brilliant work, like everyone else I really admire and appreciate the work investigating and creating these profiles.
I just picked up an a1 mini, orinted a couple of items and its prints are surprisingly smooth out of the box
I’m someone who got into 3d printing for minis, I got an A1 mini recently and I have a couple questions for you
1) how does overture’s matte filament compare to the Sunlu pla meta
2) I noticed you use grey for all your prints, is there a reason for that or just personal preference?
3) what are your thoughts on using supports when printing minis? Is it worth it? Or does it ruin the quality too much?
Maybe the temperature issues are down to the ambient temperatures of the individual rooms you and your friends have the printers in?
Also, have you tried aiming a fan across the print bed surface to see if that helps any? I know with their bigger printers you can get a fan that does that and it is supposed to help improve quality by cooling the printed filament quicker.
Filaments matter a lot. Speed and layer height matters a lot. I've been getting decent results on 0.2 nozzle, 0.04 and 0.06 layer height.
Arachne slicer is almost always good. You can lower external wall thickness by 1/4 (0.16) in order to improve overall quality, but be warry that it can result in underextrusion with some extreme angles. Compare classic+arachne line thickness in slicer to see what's up with the mini you liked more.
I use sunlu pla+ instead of meta. It just feels that with higher temp I have better control over flow.
Set minimal layer time for ~10 seconds maybe to help with top thin parts
My A1 is on the way, can't wait
your in-depth review just convided me to get an a1 mini and sunlu meta, will be downloading your profile as soon as I receive them. Keep up the amazing work!
Great! Don't forget to order a .2mm nozzle too :)
Really great video - thank you for the effort working out the print profile with the 0.2 nozzle.
Buying this printer is because of you. And bought the Ender year ago.
i was always interested in 3d printing, but the resin printers were simply too much hassle for me: they need too much space (because all the extra stations you need) and the toxic fumes were also a big thing that prevented me from getting into it.
with this printer it looks pretty easy to print some minis with good results. and the prize looks also good. i think machines like this could be the breakthrough, to make 3d printing more accesable for people. i always wanted to create my own bits to modify my minis or even create some completly new ones. and i have seen so many cool minis from designers out there i always wanted to to try out. this printer could make it possible.
Many resin printer are even smaller than FDM printers, the "toxic fumes" are almost a myth specially with new resins, and you dont need more "work stations" than a pot of clean water and a UV lamp (or simply the sun).
Got the free dwarf model from your site and printed it, so cool. First miniature I've printed and love it.
Instantly removed any plan to get a resin printer in the near future.
Now I just need to find some nice models... in the meantime I'm printing one that needs supports just to see how it goes.
I ordered an A1 mini today, I'm glad I found this video. I ordered a roll of their filament, I wish I had seen this first so I could have just ordered the Sunlu. Oh well. I ordered the Sunlu as well I'm excited to try both.
These videos are so great. My one-stop-shop for things 3D
Thank you for watching! :)
Bought an X1C earkier this year, but also just bought an A1-mini just for minis. Thanks a lot for the tips! I will download your settings to stay current.
Hermano muchísimas gracias y felicitaciones por todo tu empeño se ve la calidad en tus minis y espero te haga muy feliz
Se lo que es estar haciendo test de calibración y es una flojera pero te agradezco de antemano por todo el esfuerzo conociendo tu equipo y el conocimiento que me transmite
Wow, just saw this video last night, downloaded the profile and bam, realllllly nice miniatures. So happy I found this video Nd thanks for sharing the profile!
Glad it helped!
watching with tremendous interest... my Bambu Labs P1P will arrive in a month or so.
Nice video. I really want to get a Bambu Lab A1 after seeing your video...
I am still testing the A1 for minis. So far it's not quite matching the A1 Mini.
Damn. I just pulled the plug earler today on the a... and then came across your channel and video on the a1 mini w .2 mm nozzle.. I am hopeful it will come somewhat close w tweaking.
Multicolor is my dream as a bad painter T.T
Bamboo is killing it.
Thank you. I've been looking at printers and I want to do miniatures, but I have kids and pets and chemical sensitivities myself so have worried about resin. I think I now know what my birthday present is going to be.
I don't use resin printers for the same reasons, so this printer (and .2mm nozzle) has been an incredible purchase for me :)
Hello, thanks so much for the profiles, just testing it out!
Will be trying this on my P1s! I have a resin printer, but hate dealing with the mess and failed prints, at least compared to my FDM printing journey.
Wondering if the profil worked on the P1s?
@@Dangoow haven't tried it yet; been printing some larger prints with a larger nozzle size currently.
@@Dangoow Hey mate, finally swapped to my 0.2 nozzle on the P1S and printed a Xenos-esque Talon for Space Bugs that I would normally print in ABS-like resin, and it came out remarkably close in detail, albeit slightly more fragile. Definitely a good starting point for you to test a supported mini and adjust from thee based on your likes/dislikes. I used a slightly different filament, Sunlu Matte.
@iamaraindog385 thanks for letting me know and perfect timing(just got my 0,2 nozzle)
I’m very excited for this, I think a huge amount of my obsession with FDM printed minis is due to your original Cura videos but obviously swapping to a P1P it didn’t transfer spectacularly.
I’m also excited to test out your fix for the Meta PLA overhangs, I really enjoyed that filament but ended up avoiding any prints with harsh overhangs with it for just that reason.
Fantastic video, this is awesome, for USD 299.00 you get table quality minis. Sure these are not high quality 8K resin prints, but you also don't have the overhead of goop, chemicals, fumes, wash stations, curing stations, waste etc. Quick and dirty!
For the next two weeks the A1 Mini is only $199!
I really wish I'd waited a few more years before getting into 3d printing, these modern machines are making my temperamental and unreliable Ender 3 look worthless and obsolete.
yeah its nuts how good the new stuff is, I have a couple of p1ps, and coming from an ender 3 as well, being able to slice on my computer, hit print, it wirelessly going to my printer and never having to mess with bed leveling or anything has been amazing. plus it'll print something that takes my ender 3 24 hours in like 6
It is
I retired my ender3 last year. They were not designed to last forever. Like your phone.
He's done his life, it's time to move on 👍 technology goes forward
Retired my ender 3 last month I get my bl A1 next Wednesday
Thanks for all you do . Great help over the years . Especially if your new .
Glad to help :)
Great video, looking forward to seeing your test results regarding the quality difference between A1 and mini for minis before I buy my printer.
Besides my advice below I want to thank you for your skeletons about 5 years ago you put up. I still have those , they came out good on my mini delta which still stand up to todays scrutiny and I do DLP resin printing as well. I have 3 bambus by the way if you need another tester......
Hi, just testing your profile with my A1 mini and it gives amazing results! Thanks for that! I would be even interested on how you se up the supports and the technique and tools you use to clean up the minis !
I never do any cleanup on the minis except if there is a strand of filament at the very top where the print finished, I cut that off with an Xacto knife. Supports? Never use them, I only sculpt supportless models!
@ thanks 👍🏻
Looking forward to trying this profile. Thanks.
I will never go back to FDM to printing minis after discover the resin, but for bigs projects, like terrain or vehicles, a would really lika a good FDM printer.
Looking forward to trying these settings on my new A1. My previous Voxelab Aquila X2 sometimes had great results, but was inconsistent.
I just ordered mine. Suuuper excited
NICE VIDEO, detailed and informative with out filler. I'm subscribing
Thanks! :)
Such a great video. Thanks Tom. One thing I would like to know is how your settings work on non- FDG minis, I.E. minis that are not optimized for FDM printing and need greater supports.
You need to ask those designers for their recommended settings, I can only provide tech support for my own products.
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Got it. Sorry if my question offended you. Wasn't my intention. Been a huge fan of FDG since the early days of Copper Dragon Tiles.
@@deanm375 no offense at all. For a miniature to print well it's 50% engineering of the sculpt for the intended print method, 50% settings. If a sculptor doesn't design for tolerances of the mechanical printer (such as ensuring parts that need support are engineered to be mechanically strong enough to withstand separation of the support) there's no amount of slicer setting adjustment that can fix that. :)
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Thanks Tom. I appreciate the feedback. I just purchased some .2m nozzles for my Anycubic Mega S hoping to improve my print quality. I'm going to try an duplicate some of the settings you were mentioning on Bambu A1. I've used the settings you spoke about several months ago to improve mini printing and I got decent results. Hoping the .2mm nozzle improves it.Thanks.
@@deanm375 for the Anycubic Mega S, I'd recommend my Cura Ender .2mm nozzle settings as a better starting point.
I already have a P1S and ive trying to decide for a while if i should get an AMS or the A1 mini combo. And now that my play group is starting a campaign for the first in DnD im definitely going to get the A1 mini combo, thanks so much for such an informative video. Now i need to go through and watch all your other videos.
Thank you very much for this video. That changed my view on miniature printing.
Your description for the video is just me 😆
Great video as usual. Thanks! Please keep them coming.
Keep up the great work Tom!
Just bought one. I have or will soon at least have two printers. Ender 3 v3 SE and the A1 mini w/AMS. Pretty excited. Both are "budget" printers but I feel like the feature rich A1 mini wins hands down.
I have both and the A1 Mini is, by far, the best 3D printer I have ever tested.
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Both choices were actually inspired by your channel. I think something understated for some is that as much as I would like a resin printer I live in an apartment and it isn't feasible in a safety sense. So having something that's close enough to a resin printer while not needing to deal with the amount of cleaning and the fumes of a resin printer is a godsend.
Great video. I've been looking forward to seeing your results. I bought an A-1 mini on your recommendation and it's on the way. Can't wait. Thanks very much for all of the hard work you do for the community. It is much appreciated. Do you have plans to release any new minis for use with this printer and those settings?
Yep! Keep an eye out for our upcoming Kickstarter :)
Outstanding!@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Yahoo! Take my money please!]
Thank you Tom! This helped my buying decision. GREAT CONTENT
Thank you for being a so good resource on all things 3d!
I ended up ordering an A1 mini and Sunlu PLA Meta Grey based off your videos! Bambu needs to give you an affiliate link or something. It's my first 3D printer and it's been great, but I do have some questions:
I downloaded your print profile and it has a nozzle temp of 220C, while the spec sheet and online discussions recommend printing PLA Meta at lower temps of 185-195C (at least on 0.4mm nozzles).
Is there a reason you've set a higher nozzle temp? I read that people will set higher nozzle temps at higher print speeds, but your profile's layer speeds don't seem high enough to warrant that.
Also, what's the purpose of the "A1 mini cap.stl" in the downloaded profile files?
Running one at home and one at work, Thanks a lot for the help...
this will be my first 3d printer im so ready!!!!
This is super handy! cant wait to give it a try (although ill be trying with Bambu filament for the moment)
Lovely, thanks for yet another very informative and helpful video!
Just got my A1 mini looking forward to trying your settings to see what I can do. I have a lot of bambu lab pla to work through before swapping, though.
Amazing job, keep up the awesome work. Thanks
What you've done for the 3D printing community is fantastic. I would like to know how long these models took to print. Thanks.
Each one is different, the cleric was around 90 minutes IIRC.
Cheers
Thank you, this answers so many questions I had!
great video! can't wait to get the 0.2 nozzle and try this out.
Now that I've got an A1 Mini, I've bought your settings files and I appreciate all the work that went into them!
I'd love to have some settings for supports, though. Do you plan to work on that, or do you know anyone who has figured out how to get some good supports that are easier to remove? They basically ruin the back of my print at this point.
Thanks for your knowledge share Tom!
Same exact issues with Arachne vs Classic wall here ... haven't seen a good explanation for it. .....you can see it in the layers preview so now that I know about it I'm trying to train my brain on what to look for. Hatchbox won't get any more of my money, I want to like them, we have a good history ....but nothing has been coming out clean lately from brand new filament dessicant dried in anboven for a week prior. Thanks for the tip on Meta filament from Sunlu... I was getting ready to test Anycubics fast pla so maybe I'll compare and repost. Cheers all.
Thanks! My X1Carbon will arrive any day now. Do you have any plans for profiles for it? I'll definitely take a stab at your A1 Mini profile ad tweak it. I'd be glad to share my findings back to you.
Nope, I can only develop profiles for printers I own.
Any thoughts on the bambu AI and whether the profiles work on it?
I am testing that now, look for a video on that soon.
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Thanks, I'm sitting on the fence which one to buy. Also - your results are incredible!
Have you used 0.2 mm nozzle previously with other printers? I'm interested in what's result of smaller nozzle in general and what Bambu Lab brings in 🤔
It's interesting to see how much -better- different the meta filament looks. We obviously need _Wargamer_ (Fauxhammer loves that resin) type of matte miniature filament 😅
Yes, check out my Ender-2 Pro video on the .2mm nozzle. It does great, but not as good as the Bambu A1 Mini.
@@Tombof3DPrintedHorrors Coming back to A1 Mini: We have resin printer (Mars 4 9k after Voxelab Proxima 2k display went bad and replacement was even worse) and modified Voxelab Aquila (Ender 3 V2 clone with dual Z lead screws, Orbiter 2 extruder and A1 nozzle and heating block for easy/fast swaps and Octoprint).
Printing, even with A1 0.2 nozzle, didn't bring good results for my son's gunpla parts (guns, accessories, service platforms etc) and for some reason A1 nozzle made it seem as if 1st layer came closer every print - though heating block and BL-touch are rigidly mounted. Of course resin is superior, even mandatory for 1:144 human figures, but workflow is different, messy, random reasons, etc... So I bit the bullet and bought A1 Mini from summer sale for his use.
Results? Powder-coated bed is not super-adhesive for small footprints (not exclusive to A1), supported surfaces are not too clean (not exclusive to A1) and it poops fair amount of filament before printing (no AMS, but it doesn't know if nozzle might have been changed?), but otherwise it's easier to use, 1st layer is always pretty good and print quality with 0.2 nozzle, default profile and generic PLA, is closer to resin that I thought it could. And it is ridiculously fast when it gets up to speed :)
It doesn't make me Bambu Lab convert in general, but being practical, A1 Mini prints really, really good 👍
thanks for sharing you knowledge, but let me ask something,...and what about support?
None of the miniatures I design require slicer supports so there's no need for me to develop settings for them. :)
Good info, would have been nice to see the nozzle comparison though.
To do that I would have to create a complete new custom slicer profile designed for a .4 nozzle, which would be a waste of my time. The topic of the video is to show the absolute best quality miniatures the BL A1 Mini is capable of producing, which means using a .2mm nozzle which is far superior to a .4 nozzle when printing tiny details.
I’m going to try this on my P1 or X1. Thanks for the tips
did it work? i have a P1S and im interested on printing some minis but note sure if the profile works
I've had to manually input because I can't transfer the profile from A1 mini to P1P, going to test it out now
the fact that many people does 3d videos about bambu a1 for minis right now is funny, because if people noticed how the 3d printers brands works, they always compete with each others, so they ALWAYS release another "new machine". So, now, everybody wants a bambulab like that's the key, but bambulab is one printer of one brand in the competition, imagine how it will be even more perfect in less than 1-2 years... This is why, once again, people should break this recurring pattern of consumption which is to rush to buy and wait for technologies to evolve further. Your video is very good, but given the mentality of people in general, for me, it comes out too early. (Well i know it's about 10 month already xD but all videos coming around bambulab these times treat same subject, so 10 months earlier was even more early :p)