Boldly Printing Where My A1 Mini Hasn't Gone Before!

As several recent blog entries will testify, I've been spending quite a bit of time learning the art of printing miniatures on my Bambu Lab A1 Mini. Up until now, most of my experiments have involved models sourced from MakerWorld, which makes sense given that many of those designs have been specifically created, tested, and optimised for Bambu FDM printers.

While that has been an excellent way to learn the basics, it only answers part of the question. The real challenge, and the next step in my 3D-printing education, is whether a standard FDM printer can successfully handle commercial STL files that were originally designed with resin printing in mind.

Resin printers are, after all, the preferred choice for miniature enthusiasts. Their ability to reproduce incredibly fine details, sharp edges, and delicate features makes them ideal for character models. FDM printers have traditionally struggled in this area, particularly when it comes to faces, weapons, thin limbs, and other small details. However, with advances in printer technology, slicer software, and community-created profiles, there seems to be a growing movement dedicated to proving that FDM printers can produce surprisingly good miniatures if you're willing to put in the effort.

To put this theory to the test, I turned to some familiar figures from RavenX. A few years ago, I had several of their Star Trek miniatures professionally printed in resin, which conveniently gave me a benchmark against which to compare my own efforts. The question was simple: could my A1 Mini produce something recognisable and usable on the tabletop, even if it couldn't quite match the quality of resin?

Armed with the Fat Dragon Games FDM miniature printing profile, which has become something of a secret weapon in my printing toolkit, I loaded the files into Bambu Studio and began experimenting. One of the advantages of the Fat Dragon profiles is that they remove much of the guesswork. Rather than endlessly tweaking settings and hoping for the best, they provide a well-tested starting point that allows you to focus on the model rather than fighting the printer.

Even so, printing resin-designed miniatures on an FDM machine is not a simple "click print and walk away" process. Supports need careful consideration, orientation can make a huge difference to the final result, and there is always the risk that features which look fantastic in a resin render simply won't survive the translation to an FDM print. Every model becomes a small experiment in what is and isn't possible.

With that in mind, I set the printer to work and waited to see whether the result would be a Starfleet officer... or an unexplained transporter accident.

The results, as the photos below show, were surprisingly encouraging. While the figures cannot match the crispness and fine detail of their resin counterparts, they are immediately recognisable as the characters they represent and are more than good enough for tabletop gaming. In many ways, that's the key test. These are gaming pieces rather than display pieces, and if they look the part from normal viewing distance then I consider that a success.

32mm and 28mm versions of a Vulcan Officer

28mm Human Officers

28mm and 32mm versions of an Andorian Officer

Encouraged by the initial results, I decided not to stop with Star Trek. If the goal was to determine whether commercial resin-designed STL files could successfully make the jump to FDM printing, it made sense to broaden the test sample. As a result, I also picked up a selection of Star Wars models from both RavenX and AnvilRage. Star Wars miniatures often present their own challenges, with blasters, lightsabers, antennas, and other thin details providing plenty of opportunities for an FDM printer to show its limitations. From an educational perspective, they seemed like an ideal way to push the A1 Mini a little further and discover where the practical limits really lie.

Peli Motto

Having models from multiple sculptors is also useful because every designer approaches miniature creation differently. Some figures are naturally more "printer friendly" than others, while certain sculpting styles seem better suited to the realities of FDM printing. By comparing RavenX and AnvilRage models alongside the Star Trek figures, I'm hoping to develop a better understanding of what types of commercial STLs are most likely to succeed on a filament printer and what compromises, if any, need to be made along the way.

So, while this started as a simple experiment with a handful of Starfleet officers, it has quickly evolved into a broader investigation into just how far modern FDM miniature printing can be pushed. If nothing else, it's given me a growing pile of Star Trek and Star Wars characters to evaluate, which is hardly the worst problem for a sci-fi gaming enthusiast to have!

Perhaps most importantly, the exercise demonstrated just how much the technology has moved on. A few years ago I would never have considered printing detailed commercial miniatures on an entry-level FDM printer. Today, thanks to improved hardware, community knowledge, and profiles such as those from Fat Dragon Games, it is becoming a genuinely viable option. Whether it will completely replace resin for miniatures is another question entirely, but it's certainly proving capable of pushing far further than I ever expected.