Bambu Lab A1 vs Elegoo Centauri Carbon: Which Budget 3D Printer Wins?

Two enclosed-vs-open budget 3D printers keep coming up in the same breath: the Bambu Lab A1 ($299, open-frame bed-slinger) and the Elegoo Centauri Carbon ($309, fully enclosed CoreXY). Both undercut $310, both list a 500 mm/s top speed, and both are now common enough on the used market that eBay listings for each show up daily. This guide compares them on confirmed specs and pricing only, and points at what's actually purchasable — new or used — right now. AunChecked is a used-goods marketplace first, so every pick below links to the live used market, not just retail.

At a glance

The two printers

Bambu Lab A1 — $299, the ecosystem pick

The A1 launched December 14, 2023 at $399 and has settled at $299 solo / $399 combo with AMS lite on Bambu's US store as of 2026 — about $100 below its launch price. It's an open-frame bed-slinger with a 256×256×256 mm build volume, an 8.3 kg steel-and-aluminium chassis, and a 3.5-inch touchscreen. Bambu's spec sheet lists a 500 mm/s max toolhead speed, 10,000 mm/s² acceleration, a 300°C hotend, and a 100°C bed — with a quick-swap all-steel hotend that changes nozzles in under 30 seconds with no tools. An electromagnetic eddy-current sensor gives active flow-rate compensation during printing, and full auto-calibration (bed level, Z-offset, flow, vibration) runs before every job, which is the feature reviewers credit most for the A1's "it just works" reputation.

The trade-off is the open frame: without an enclosure, Bambu itself and most reviewers agree ABS, ASA, and PC aren't reliable on the A1 — that's what the enclosed P1S is for. Buyers should also know about the June 2024 CPSC recall (24-264): roughly 12,800 units sold through Micro Center and Bambu's US store between December 2023 and January 2024 had a heatbed cable that could short-circuit and spark when bent. Bambu offered a full refund plus an $80 voucher, or a free heatbed/cable replacement plus a $120 voucher and six extra months of warranty; units built since about April 2024 ship with a reinforced cable. Since the A1 is exactly the kind of printer showing up used on eBay right now, checking the 6th digit of the serial number for an "A" is a five-second step worth taking before buying secondhand.

Elegoo Centauri Carbon — $309, the enclosed pick

Elegoo's first fully enclosed CoreXY FDM printer was revealed at RAPID + TCT 2024 and released commercially in February 2025 at a $299.99 launch price that has barely moved since — Elegoo's US store lists it at $309 today, with sale prices dipping to $279 and the official Elegoo eBay store running around $281. Reviewers have consistently framed it as a direct, much cheaper rival to Bambu's own P1S: How-To Geek gave it 9/10 and an Editor's Choice award, calling it "market-disrupting" and suggesting buyers get two Centauri Carbons for the price of one P1S; PCMag scored it 4.0/5 "Excellent."

Spec-for-spec, it out-runs the A1 on paper: the same 256×256×256 mm build volume, but on a CoreXY gantry with 20,000 mm/s² acceleration (double the A1's 10,000), a 320°C hardened-steel nozzle standard, and a 110°C bed. The enclosed chamber (tempered glass door, passive heating to roughly 45°C during prints) plus that hardened nozzle is what unlocks ABS, ASA, PLA-CF, and other abrasive or high-temp filaments Elegoo officially recommends — something the A1's open frame isn't built for. The catches: chamber heating is passive only, not actively controlled; the firmware is Klipper-based but closed, with no Mainsail, OctoPrint, or plugin access; and while Elegoo advertises 500 mm/s, independent testing (VoxelMatters, 3D Printing Industry) found the real-world quality sweet spot closer to 200 mm/s before flow can't keep up and surface finish drops.

Head to head

Which one should you buy

Buy the Centauri Carbon if you want an enclosed printer that can run ABS, ASA, or carbon-fiber filaments without adding your own enclosure — it's cheaper today than the A1's combo price, faster to accelerate, and hotter at both the nozzle and bed. The trade-offs are a closed Klipper firmware you can't extend and passive-only chamber heating that won't match a true heated-chamber machine.

Buy the A1 if you print almost entirely PLA and PETG and want Bambu's zero-tuning ecosystem — the auto-calibration routine and 30-second hotend swaps are still the easiest onboarding of the two. Adding AMS lite for $399 total also gives you a real multicolor path the Centauri Carbon doesn't have on its own. Just verify the serial number if you're buying a used unit from the recall window.

Either way, check the used market first. Both printers are budget-tier enough that used units — including recall-era A1s with replaced heatbeds — are already common on eBay. Our other 3D-printer guides apply the same used-first check to every pick.

Verdict

FAQ

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