533
Bambu Lab Firmware Update Forces Cloud Dependency & User Lock-In - AVOID THEIR 3D PRINTERS! (youtu.be)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/3dprinting@lemmy.world
138 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 22 points 2 years ago (9 children)

I wonder how easy would it be to swap the controller for something more open like the BTT boards? That way you'd get the nice design and an open platform. I'm not sure how much of their wiring could be repurposed for this though.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 9 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (8 children)

    The controller, at least in the A1 and A1 mini, is an ESP chip. Probably an ESP32S3. You don't need to swap any hardware, just open it up and find its UART pins to flash it.

    (I know they're ESPs because the device name shows up as espressif on my router)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (7 children)

    That doesn't mean it's the board actually controlling the printer though. It could just be used as an interface component because they're easy to use as the middle-man on network connected devices.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (6 children)

    I am fairly sure it's what is controlling the printer.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (5 children)

    Looking at the board, I think you're right but it's definitely a custom board so exposing the UART might be fairly difficult.

    Although it looks like it wouldn't do much good (no klipper support for esp32)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (4 children)

    You'd be surprised how often the UART is already exposed for factory programming.

    As well, what I gathered from that thread is that they aren't supported, because it's a bit of overhead, and because they aren't supported no one makes ESP32 printer boards. I think if suddenly a whole bunch of folks with A1s wanted to replace the firmware that might be a good userbase to add support for?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

    Maybe, maybe not it's hard to say. I think most BL printer owners don't really care or don't want to mess with soldering tiny wires to tiny pads on their board and mess with flashing the device. The people buying these are generally not the tech-fiddling type.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'm the tech-fiddling type and I bought one, my housemate is the tech-fiddling type and she bought one, our friend is the tech-fiddling type and she bought one. We all bought them because we wanted to spend our tech-fiddling time on the projects themselves and not on the printer.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Great, then you can band together and make the klipper version and use it...easy peasy

    Your own little bubble doesn't say much about the general buyers of BL printers.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    I think it says more about the echo chamber in this thread that no one can conceptualise why anyone (that's a tinkerer) would want to limit tinkering on one thing, so they can enjoy tinkering on another.

    Edit: Like, that was the case for me, but now they shit the bed so I've got to tinker with it to keep the features I prefer.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent