Creality Cloned Bambu's Bestseller (and made it better?) - SparkX i7 vs Bambu A1

This is the Bambu Lab A1.

And this isn't.

It sure looks a lot like it though.

It's the new SparkX i7 from Creality.

It was only a matter of time before Creality cloned Bambu's best seller, and, well, here we are.

They cloned the P1 and gave us the K1.

Then they copied the X1 and gave us the K2, and now we've got the i7 standing in for the A1.

The A1, in my opinion, is the Goldilocks of 3D printers, it's not too big and not too small, not too expensive and not too cheap.

I don't have any data to back this theory up, but it only makes sense that this would be the model that Bambu moves the most units of, it's a good beginner printer when you're just getting started, but it also grows with you, it's very popular option for print farms.

There used to be a different printer altogether dominating this segment, the Creality Ender 3.

Which is still around, recently being refreshed for the fourth generation, but it's lost considerable market share thanks to these guys.

With the i7, Creality is introducing a new brand, SparkX, which is meant to more directly compete with Bambu.

They've placed a strong emphasis on ease of setup and advanced AI features.

At face value, it looks like a near exact replica of the A1, but the closer you look, the more differences you'll see.

And spoiler alert, the i7 outperforms the A1 in almost every way, almost to the point of being petty.

As if they wanted to one up Bambu on all fronts, starting with the build area, being 260x260 as opposed to 256x256.

The build height appears taller, but it's actually the exact same, it's just a chunkier base.

And with the i7's launch price of $339, $60 off regular retail of $399, it comes in $60 cheaper than the retail price of $399 for the Bambu A1.

So we're going to go through this step-by-step, comparing the features of each of these two printers.

Starting with the motion system.

Now you may have already noticed that these are essentially mirror images of one another.

This one has the purge chute on the right, and the camera and purge actuator on the left.

The opposite of the setup on the A1.

Now interestingly, the X-axis on the i7, in addition to being mirrored, is also rotated 90 degrees.

The linear rail is on the top, as opposed to being on the front.

And the belt is on the front, as opposed to being on the top.

The belt is exposed all the way around, whereas on the A1, it's only visible on the top.

And this is a theme throughout, as you'll see.

Many more components are exposed on Creality's version, whereas on Bambu's model, they've basically buttoned everything up and obscured them.

Another difference is the location of the tensioner.

On the i7, we have the X-belt tensioner right here on the side.

And on the A1, the tensioner actually moves with the print head.

Now let's move on and have a closer look at the Y-axis.

The i7 uses smooth rods and bushings, all of which are exposed.

The A1 uses metal guide rails, which are hidden away under a plastic cover.

The aesthetic is cleaner, you don't see any components when you're looking at it from the front.

But it's more likely to trap debris inside this enclosure.

The bed is another area of subtle differences.

Keeping with the theme, the i7 bed has more exposed components.

You can see that it's an aluminum frame mounted on springs.

I don't see any obvious way to adjust the leveling, however, which isn't ideal because the bed is not very level, as you can see from the mesh.

The same could be true of the A1, but without access to this data, because of Bambu's proprietary firmware, we can't see it.

We don't know just how bad it is.

But the printer was able to compensate accordingly.

The first layer result was very much on par with that from the A1.

No significant high or low spots, which is good.

The bed on the A1 uses fixed magnets to hold down this spring steel sheet.

And on the i7, it uses a magnetic sticker.

You can see comparing the build plates, there's a 4 mm difference on both the X and Y axes.

With the i7 having the edge.

And I'm glad to see that they have proper strain relief on the bed cable.

Clearly, they've been paying attention and took note of Bambu's blunder, where they released the A1 with a poorly strain relieved bed cable.

Resulting in a recall because of the potential fire hazard.

Both printers use lead screws for the Z-axis, making them virtually identical in this regard.

So now that we've compared the motion systems, let's have a closer look at the print heads.

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Alright, where were we?

Both print heads have an extrusion indicator that rotates to show motion.

And both have quick swap hot ends.

The design is very similar, but not quite identical.

The clip system differs slightly between the two.

Creality also claims to have a quick swap cutter blade with easy access for replacement.

You can access it without tools, just by unlocking this little piece here.

The A1, on the other hand, requires that you first remove a screw.

Creality's printer also provides easy access to the idler door to clear any broken filament at the top of the extruder.

On the other hand, the A1 requires significant disassembly in order to access the extruder gears.

So now that we've talked about the hardware, let's have a look at some of the quality of life features.

Both printers have a built-in camera and light, but Creality's version has a much higher frame rate.

Bambu's camera runs at less than one frame per second.

Making the feed very choppy.

In combination with the low-end processor, the A1 is incapable of image processing, as is required for spaghetti detection.

On the other hand, the i7 uses its camera for both the detection of print failures and the presence of the build plate.

Which are two quality of life conveniences which are very nice to have.

Continuing on the theme of one-upping Bambu, Creality has incorporated a full-length status bar.

Which is user configurable and shows print progress as well as error conditions.

It flashes red when things go wrong.

The A1 features a much smaller status light, which we cannot configure ourselves.

But while the LED may be smaller, the screen is considerably larger on the A1 than it is on the i7.

Although the resolution, relative to its size, is a little bit low.

It looks like they took the A1 mini display and just scaled it up.

Meanwhile, the i7 display is quite sharp.

Despite being a little bit smaller.

As for ports and peripherals, the A1 has a micro SD card slot.

Whereas the i7 has a full-size USB.

But it only has one accessory port as compared to the two accessory ports on the A1.

And that's already occupied by the CFS Lite.

Speaking of the CFS Lite.

Don't let the name fool you.

It's actually an upgrade over the original CFS, in my opinion.

They've turned the design on its head, so the filament feeds towards the top instead of towards the bottom.

Which intentionally or not, seems to solve the biggest problem facing these units, incompatibility with cardboard spools.

Because the feed motor is pulling up and gravity is pulling the spools down, they don't lift off the rollers or get jammed like they did in the original CFS or Bambu's AMS.

And compared to the AMS Lite, it's fully enclosed.

And there's a spot for desiccant to help keep the filament dry.

A major advantage over the open-air design.

And now we've arrived at perhaps the most important comparison of all.

Firmware and software.

The i7 runs Klipper and has root access enabled by default.

You can send print jobs through Creality Print or Orca Slicer.

And monitor them through the Fluid web interface, Creality's mobile app, or a third-party one like Mobile Klipper.

The A1 is restricted to use Bambu's firmware and Bambu's software.

Which does work well, but might feel a little bit limiting for power users who like to have more control and configurability.

So now that we've gone through all of that, let's run some tests to see how they compare in practice.

I put the two printers head-to-head in a few different scenarios.

This is a four-color PLA print.

Creality claims that their printer generates, and I quote, 50% less waste.

They don't specify who they're comparing to.

But I think we could take a wild guess.

And, well, it may not be 50% less, but in this test, it did generate significantly less waste.

But why?

The printers themselves are virtually identical.

So what's the difference?

Well, if we watch closely, we can see that the i7 does a long retraction before it cuts the filament.

Reducing the amount of material that needs to be purged.

This allows the flush multiplier to be reduced accordingly, generating less waste.

On the other hand, the A1 cuts first and retracts second before flushing the old filament with the new one.

But the A1 can be made to operate the same way as the i7 by simply enabling this setting in the slicer.

So Creality's claim may be true, but it's a little deceptive.

Any printer can do it.

They've just chosen to make it the default.

Now unfortunately, the print on the i7 failed about three quarters of the way through, three times in a row.

Meanwhile, the A1 finished without issue on the first attempt.

To make it a fair comparison of print time, I reduced the flush multiplier on the Bambu to 0.8 in order to match that of Creality's i7.

But I didn't enable the long retraction.

So that's why you see some color bleed here.

It wasn't until after the third print failure on the i7 that I understood why I was experiencing layer shift and around the same point in each print.

It turns out that the tool head wire was getting caught on the top of the frame.

So fortunately, that's an easy fix.

We just need to bend it forward to prevent that from happening again.

In the next head-to-head comparison, the Bambu is the one that experienced the failure.

The model detached from the build plate.

And because there's no spaghetti detection, the printer was none the wiser, it just kept on printing as if everything was okay.

The print on the i7 completed successfully and looked very clean all around.

And because of the advanced filament changing strategy, it generated significantly less waste.

As far as speed is concerned, the two printers are very comparable.

The slicer estimates have the A1 coming out ahead, but the i7 seems to come out ahead in practice.

Particularly for multicolor prints.

Which is probably because the purging takes considerably less time.

The start sequence for the i7 is considerably slower.

So for single color prints, the A1 tends to finish first.

Print quality overall is very comparable.

The only thing I'd call out is the need for some pressure advance tuning on the i7.

It's supposed to have a sensor in the print head to automatically calibrate pressure advance, the same way that the Bambu A1 does.

But it didn't seem to be enabled in this pre-sliced test file.

So all in all, the i7 from Creality is a very solid contender to the A1 from Bambu.

It improves on it in some meaningful ways.

At least, in my opinion.

Like the easier access to components, or the ability to keep filament dry during printing.

All while coming in at a lower price point and offering a more open ecosystem.

But I'd love to know what you think.

Do you think the i7 is a real contender, or is it just another clone in an already crowded market?

Let me know in the comments down below.

And while you're down there, make sure to check out today's sponsor at the link in the description.

Thanks for watching.

My name's Taylor.

This is YGK3D.

And until next time.

Happy 3D printing.