this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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32
Bambu Labs starts to spring the trap that their printers have been all along (hackaday.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I called it

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

who could have predicted this!?!?!?

honestly shame on anyone who bought a Bambu Lab printer. the desktop 3D printing space was built on open source and collaboration, shame on anyone who gave money to these schmucks whose only goal was to turn the 3d printing space into the kind of shithole that 2d printing is. i hope the print speed was worth selling out the very community-oriented basis, of the 3D printing. have fun with your black box. hey, at least you get your treats faster right?

prusa printers are like 300$ cheaper on average and are completely open source, hardware and software, and same goes for certain printers from certain Chinese brands, like the Creality Ender 3. if you're gonna get a 3D printer, get one either from Prusa or an Ender 3 from Creality.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Prusa printers are much more expensive than an equivalent Bambu. They're better, but definitely not cheaper.

The problem with Bambu is that for the price, they were the best and nothing ran nearly as conveniently. I had an Ender 3 for years, learned how to take apart and rebuild and customize every single part. Every step of the way, if I wanted to print something, I would have to fiddle with my settings and tram the bed and all that setup. My A1 mini works like an appliance - it just prints whatever I tell it to with no fuss. This is the level other companies need to get to, because right now in order to avoid Bambu's walled garden you need to either pay substantially more, or settle for less.

When I upgrade, I probably won't be getting a Bambu because of this. Now where else do I get an enclosed printer that can handle carbon fiber nylon and is compatible with multicolor systems for less than a $600 P1S? Because I want one.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

That's how a trap works, it has to be well baited. For Bambu to be able to sell their printers for their prices, they have to have a plan to get that money back through subscriptions with their locked firmware and through locked down materials with their encrypted nfc tagged filament rolls.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

let me put it this way. if you pick a cheaper, but proprietary option, once it breaks you're DONE (and believe me, it will break). you won't be able to make any repairs, any of your own replacements, you'll proboably have to shell out $600 more for a new one. and god forbid the printer stops receiving official support or the company goes out of business and the printer becomes a brick. or even if the printer is just outdated and you need a more modern one, forget upgrading the one you already have. you'll have to shell out even more for the new one.

if you go with a more expensive Prusa option, you'll have to shell out more money today but you will be able to make cheap repairs tomorrow, 5 and 10 years down the line, and really whenever. if something breaks, you'll be able to make cheap individual part replacements instead of replacing the whole and going bankrupt. plus, Prusa always sells cheap upgrade kits for their old printers when a new one comes out, so that extra money now will essentially pay double for your next 2 printers, 5-10 years down the line.

at the end of the day, it's all about the long-term vs. the short-term. comrade, i hope you make your choice wisely. ♥️

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Legit didn't know anything about bambu except their printers go brr faster and you can do the thing with printing from different spools / colors / materials? And that I could possibly afford one at some point in the future.

One of my few non-crashout "plans" is to do something productive and useful and local which would involve 3d printers, but this news is an absolute dealbreaker on using their stuff obviously.

Thanks for the reminder of who the better 3d printer companies still are and why.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is where proprietary firmware always leads. Before Bambu, the home/hobbyist printer space was one of the few categories of technology free from it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, I used to pay heaps of attention to it then my hah, material conditions, changed and so it is not something I have much time to pay attention to at the moment.

I suppose I like to think I would have figured it out before making a purchase since that's a ways off still. And besides the "new and actually worthy of being released as a distinct product" ender is available fairly cheaply so I would start there anyway. I was just wooed by how the bambu looked like a good balance of cost vs time/productivity if I proceeded with my weird plan to start a co-op biz.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

I have two Ender 3 printers, a V2 and V3SE. Both work fantastically with Octoprint running on little RPI Zeros (with a trick, they benefit from "power blocker" USB adaptors to avoid the RPis sending power to the printers' motherboards). Assuming their new models are as open, I highly recommend the brand.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Literally saved up for a Bambu and was going to buy yesterday, then I saw the news drop and noped the fuck out! I ordered a Qidi instead to replace my Ender 3... Please tell me Qidi is not this same type of tom-fuckery...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I've never heard of Qidi before, but it looks like their firmware is GPLv3 and forked from Klipper, so you should be good.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Lot of bang for the buck for their cheapest model - 350c for the extruder with hardened tip stock, heated chamber, 120c bed temp, enclosed, 245x245x240mm print volume.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, looks like a pretty solid package from their site, and the firmware is right there on github

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Coolio! I look forward to printing nylon out of the box!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Prusa has some excellent timing releasing the Core One this month.

I hate to be like "I fucking told you so", but with how Bambu has acted with Makerworld, it seemed pretty obvious that this was coming.