10 Essential Accessories & Upgrades for Your Bambu Lab Printer

Here’s the nice thing about Bambu Lab accessories: half the best ones are free. Your printer can make its own upgrades, so before you spend a cent, you can print spool holders, organizers, and quality-of-life parts straight off MakerWorld. Then there’s a short list of cheap physical tools that genuinely make printing easier. This is everything worth having — sorted into print it free and worth buying.

Heads up: some links below are affiliate links. If you buy through them, NoFailPrints may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you — see our affiliate disclosure. The free printable picks are exactly that: free.

Print these first (free upgrades)

1. A purge / “poop” collector

Bambu printers eject little filament purges when switching or priming. A catch-bin keeps your desk clean and is the single most popular first upgrade owners print.

🔗 Bambu A1 / A1 mini Poop Collector on MakerWorld

2. A bed scraper / part remover

Turn the included blade (or a standard one) into a comfortable scraper for popping prints off the plate.

🔗 A1 / A1 mini Compact Scraper on MakerWorld

3. Spare spool clips and holders

The small parts that hold filament in place are easy to lose — so print spares. A five-minute job that saves a future headache.

🔗 A1 mini Spool Holder Slider Clip on MakerWorld

4. Cable clips and desk organizers

Tidy the cables around your setup with print-in-place clips, then organize tools, nozzles, and SD cards with a custom desk tray.

🔗 Cable Organizer Snap Clip on MakerWorld

5. A filament swatch / sample holder

Once you own a few colors, a swatch rack helps you pick combinations at a glance. Search MakerWorld for “filament swatch holder” and grab whichever style fits your shelf — there are hundreds, all free.

Worth buying (cheap tools that pay off)

These are inexpensive and make a real difference. None are required to start, but each one removes a common frustration.

6. A glue stick (for stubborn first layers)

A plain washable glue stick gives extra grip for tricky prints and protects textured plates. The cheapest insurance against a failed first layer there is.

7. Digital calipers

The moment you want to design or resize anything to fit, calipers become essential for measuring in millimeters. A basic digital pair is inexpensive and lasts forever.

8. Flush cutters

For cleanly snipping filament ends and trimming little support nubs off finished prints. Far better than scissors.

9. A spare build plate

Having a second plate means you can pop one print off and start the next immediately, instead of waiting. A different texture (smooth PEI vs. textured) also expands what finishes you can get.

10. A hardened steel nozzle (only if you go abrasive)

Standard nozzles are fine for PLA and PETG. But the day you try a carbon-fiber or glow-in-the-dark filament, switch to a hardened steel nozzle — abrasive filaments wear out brass fast. Skip this until you actually need it.

What you don’t need yet

Plenty of “must-have” lists pad themselves out. To keep it honest, you can skip these as a beginner: enclosures (unless you’re printing ABS/ASA), exotic adhesion sprays, and most “performance” hotend mods. Bambu printers are well-tuned out of the box — chase upgrades when a real problem appears, not before.

The bottom line

Start by printing the free upgrades — they cost nothing and teach you your printer. Then add a glue stick, calipers, and flush cutters, which together cost less than a couple of spools and quietly make everything smoother. That’s genuinely all most people need.

Looking for more free prints? Here are the first 10 things to print on your new printer.