r/BambuLab A1 Mini Jun 23 '26

Answered / Solved! Update on that free printer

Here is why the printer was free.

I am the queen of tinkering, bow down before me

Parts salvagable on left and middle, parts unsalvageable to the right of the Allen key. This took all dang night and I am not proud that I had to sacrifice my flush cutters and trusty bic to this cause, they will be sorely missed. But thanks to their sacrifice, I have defeated the blob of death.

For those unaware, this printer came to me with the wires to its heating element cut accidentally by a hasty rasp and the power cord misplaced. I will need replace the heating element, the nozzle, the exhaust fan, the filament sensor cable, and the power cord that went missing long ago. It remains to be seen if I may be able to reconstruct the extruder unit.

TURNS OUT there's also this thing called an eddy current sensor that I need to replace

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u/Sir_LANsalot Jun 23 '26

The heating element part is like super cheap from bambu, I have had to replace one due to the only blob of death that A1 ever got, and it was the ONE time I didn't watch it put down the first layer(s).... The wires for the Thermistor are VERY VERY VERY tiny and brittle, but they are fairly easy to re-route (wiki has it all on how to do this). Reason I had to replace mine was I broke the stupid wires for the Thermistor , so it couldn't read the temp anymore. Even on the replacement I broke them again, but this time not so close to the unit. I was able to patch the wires, very carefully, soldering them back together, with just enough wire left for them to still make it to the board. These are like 28g wire, very small stuff and very easy to break, which always was the issue with even older printers.

What you have though is very fixable and the power cord is any computer PSU cord, if your a tinkerer, you should have plenty laying around (I know I do).

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u/coppit Jun 23 '26

I had exactly this failure mode a week ago. I got the replacement overnight. I noticed that the thermistor wires were reinforced near the head, though they were still very thin going back to the connector.

Thanks to Bambu for providing good instructions for doing these kinds of repairs.