As per a recent Bambu Lab blog post, its FDM printers in the X1 series will soon receive a firmware update that adds mandatory authentication for certain operations, starting with the firmware upda…
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.
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.
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.
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. ♥️
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. ♥️
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.
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.