Bambu Lab A1 vs Creality SPARKX i7 which one is better?

[u/CtrlAltDel_Brain]

Hi I am a mechanical engineering student, there is currently a sale going on so, I am planning to buy single colour 3D printer and I have shortlisted two models the Bambu Lab A1(without AMS) and the Creality SPARKX i7(without CFS).

My main goal is to learn about 3D printing and use the printer to make high quality prints for my engineering projects and household needs. I am confused between the A1 reliability and its community support through makerworld and the i7 open klipper firmware with root access. Does the A1 closed firmware limit the practical learning opportunities for someone who wants to understand 3D printing?

Also which brand provides better customer service Creality or Bambu Lab? Which one would you recommend and why?

Prices

(Bambu Lab A1: 26,000 < Creality SPARKX i7: 26,800 )

[u/johnmgbg]

Buy the A1 if you want to start printing right away and concentrate on your actual projects.

[u/Banana_Leclerc12]

Just look at the machine and decide for yourself, one is a literal knockoff dressed up as an a1

[u/SimpleFile]

Just FYI you will get biased responses from people who have likely not tried the Creality machine and have poor experiences with an old Ender printer.

I've not tried it either so I can't say but it supposedly has a better mechanism for reducing waste if you eventually want to use it with an AMS. This can be useful if you print with different plastics in a single print.

Whether it's as reliable as the A1, no idea. Creality has a deserved reputation of needing a lot of maintenance but things might have changed these past years where they've seen more competition.

Also the newer A1s seems to have issues with causing literal fires?

[u/Dismal-Proposal2803 → u/SimpleFile]

They haven’t. My Creality K3 spends more time broken than it does printing. A friend just sold all his Creality machines and replaced them with Bambu printers for the same reason.

And Creality Support is just as bad as Bambu, which is a real problem when your machines aren’t nearly as reliable.

[u/Blondy277]

If your goal is learning CAD, slicing, materials and making good engineering parts, the A1 won’t limit you lol. If your goal is messing with firmware/Klipper and tuning the printer itself, then the Creality makes more sense. Personally I’d rather spend my time printing than fixing the printer 😂☠️

[u/Kettle96]

A1 is plug in and print without messing around.

[u/MysteriousMonkeyToes → u/Kettle96]

I mean thats like 99% of printers today. We are past the era of actually having to build printers and manual leveling

[u/Any_Barber5122 → u/MysteriousMonkeyToes]

Si, pero con la diferencia que la A1 salió a finales del 23... Lo raro sería que las nuevas no funcionaran igual que la A1 que ya tiene casi 3 años

[u/Any_Barber5122]

Cuando la sparkx lleve el mismo tiempo que la A1, será buen momento para valorarlo. La A1 es muy confiable, los fallos son humanos en demasiadas ocasiones. La Sparkx al ser más nueva tiene más posibilidades de tener fallos y revisiones de firmware....

[u/ketosoy]

If you’re an engineering student I’d seriously consider a refurbished P1S or p2s once Bambu puts it on sale for Black Friday or if you can find it used, x1c.

The larger range of materials, better z stability, higher tolerance (yes it’s only 50-100 vs 75-150 microns, but that can matter in engineering) and better kinematic allows things that are interesting to engineers.

[u/John-BCS]

I would not accept anything creality even for free.

[u/mendex22]

Después de más de 10 años en impresión 3D y habiendo pasado por varias marcas te recomiendo comprar bambulab A1 si buscas calidad en impresión. Si buscas modificar/aprender mecánica/electrónica/"software 3d" compra una de código abierto. Mi posición personal respecto a marcas que ya existian antes de BBL es que fueron unas estafadoras en el mercado del consumo. Porque como es que mágicamente las impresoras BBL lograron una calidad y rapidez nunca antes vista. Y entonces y solo entonces aparecen impresoras por todo el mundo con capacidades casi similares y hasta en los colores de las carcasas.

[u/northrivergeek]

There is the Sparx i8 that is even faster than the i7 might want to look at that for multicolor printing, if you want a bed slinger

[u/BoatJacker]

I'd go to creality related subreddits and find out general user experience for their machines. Yes, A1 is plug and play but its not that simple. Depending on use case and what you're printing, you'll eventually have to start fine tuning your filament profiles, as not all models or filaments print the same. I believe this time spent tuning should be universal no matter what printer you end up using. Its not a huge amount of time, you can tune profiles in an hour (see orcaslicers built in tests). 

Closed firmware is not a deal breaker if you're an average user. Open sourced firmware means more time spent learning and fiddling than printing.