Sunlu AMS Lite Heater Review: Dry Filament While Your A1 Prints

Bambu Lab’s AMS Lite holds four spools out in the open, so drying them has meant a separate dryer. Sunlu’s $130 AMS Lite Heater closes that gap by wrapping the AMS Lite in a heated enclosure that dries filament before and during a print. Make:’s review calls it a clever, easy-to-use upgrade that works well, with a catch for anyone who keeps different materials loaded at once.

Why This Category Matters

Most filament dryers are separate boxes: dry a spool, then move it to the printer. Make:’s review describes Sunlu’s unit as integrating with Bambu’s hardware instead, so the AMS Lite becomes fully enclosed and can keep drying while the printer runs. On its product page, Sunlu says it works only with the Bambu Lab AMS Lite, lists the A1, A1 Mini and A2L printers, and notes the AMS Lite itself isn’t included.

What Makes It Different

Installing it means splitting the AMS Lite apart and fitting the Sunlu unit in the middle. That looked daunting to the reviewer, Craig Couden, but in practice it took swapping a few screws and plugging in two wires. A couple of screw holes didn’t quite line up, and one plastic cover was fussy to replace. The AMS stays powered by the printer, so it can print without heat, and the heater can run with the printer off.

In use, the unit was warm to the touch but not hot enough to burn, didn’t leak heat into the office, and was fairly quiet. Sunlu adds that its design uses dual-channel airflow, an automatic moisture vent and a door sensor.

The Catch / Who It’s For

Print quality didn’t change much in Make:’s testing, across Polymaker PETG and PLA Pro, Bambu Lab PETG HF and Sunlu PLA+ 2.0. But the reviewer lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and hadn’t had big humidity problems to begin with. Makers in more humid places may see more benefit, especially since the heater keeps drying during a print.

The bigger limit is that all four spools share one heated space. Different materials need different temperatures, and Make: warns that heating a spool of PETG to its recommended setting could make a loaded spool of PLA melt and fuse. Owners who keep mixed materials loaded, as the reviewer usually does, need to plan around that. The heater doors also fold down, so the unit needs clear space at the side; with Bambu’s short PTFE tubes, the reviewer had to turn the whole unit to reach the door facing the printer. The footprint stays about the same as the A1 and AMS Lite combo.

For a standalone option that dries ten spools at once, see Stack Archive’s Sunlu i10 filament dryer review, and for choosing the printer itself, the Bambu A1 vs A1 Mini guide.

Source: Make:

Content created with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy.