I'm in the market for a new 3D printer. My old Ultimaker 2 is still going strong, but it's from a different generation and doesn't fit my needs anymore. Looking purely at features, I really want a Bambu Lab X2D. However I hate what that company is doing, don't want to give them my money and don't want to lock myself into their increasingly locked down ecosystem.
Features I want:
- 2 nozzles (print parts with a different support material or a combination of solid and TPU)
- make simple 2-color prints without manual intervention (to add labels on parts, only a few layers require two colors)
- hassle-free filament storage (protected from dust and moisture, multiple spools ready to print at all times)
- a choice of different nozzles (e.g. 0.8 mm) which can be swapped easily
- able to print ABS reliably (or another material that is more heat resistant than PLA), the Ultimaker 2 with its open chamber is not good at this (parts lift off and warp)
Don't need:
- cloud stuff (I print everything locally, my own models)
Serious question, I have a Bambulab printer now. What is a good next printer option? Prusa is way too expensive without a decent AMS alternative. Flashforge is doing some sketchy stuff with their maker site + AI. Is Creality or QIDI the best next options?
I’ve owned half a dozen printers (Prusa, Bambu, and Creality) and help manage a hackerspace with a print farm of mixed brands, and I won’t personally touch any brand other than Prusa now for actually getting prints done.
There’s plenty of other printers that can do the same or better and/or cheaper if you want “building and managing the printer” to be half the hobby, which is a totally fair thing and can be lots of fun if you’re into tinkering, but for a printer that just prints things as a tool there’s absolutely nothing close to Prusa and they’re worth every cent.
That used to be the case. Less so now - the Chinese brands tend to work right out of the box.
I run an Elegoo Centauri Carbon ar home, and the building and managing process was unscrewing couple transport bolts and clicking "self calibrate" button. From what I've seen, Creality is the same way now too.
Yes, the old Ender 3 I used to have demanded attention every other print. But it's not the norm now.
I'm sure Prusa makes a better product, and it probably starts to make economic sense if you run a print farm. But for home use, a 300€ box that happily melts plastic into whatever shape I need is a sweet deal. It even has a 50€ multi material extension box now, however that's on months long backorder.
I don't know about other brands or even models, but I can attest that the Bambu A1 Mini "just works".
I precisely wanted to avoid another hobby, of which I have too many already. 3D printing as a hobby doesn't appeal to me, I just wanted something that solved the problem and was relatively cheap. The A1 is this for me, it's as close as a fire and forget appliance as I could find.
Not saying there aren't better alternatives, just that it simply works for me.
I assume you're into multi-material printing and want a true multi-extruder setup. Then, quality wise your remaining options are: Prusa, Flashforge, and Snapmaker. Snapmaker very recently just shot themselves in the foot in a similar way that Bambu did, so you're left with Prusa and Flashforge. Of the two remaining, I really only trust Prusa.
Yes you pay a lot more, but I guess that's some sense voting with your wallet... I'm personally going to buy a Prusa after I stabilize where I live.
INDX is an up and coming option that will probably change how multimaterial printing done, hopefully. I bought the founder edition but it will be a long time coming.
As an aspiring business owner, I am looking to transition to a more open printer as the OCL isn't something I want to rely on.
I think that you're just asking for printers that are strictly offline -- and by "offline," I mean: They don't connect to any mothership, ever, nor do they have any facility by which to do so.
There's a ton of printers that are strictly offline. Some are older and some are newer, but there's a ton of them either way. That "offline" part is simple to accomplish.
Can you talk more about what else are you looking to achieve so the field can be pared down a bit?
It's sort of ironic that all the money going to "teach Bambu a lesson" is ultimately defending a guy who is building free tooling that specifically adds value to the Bambu platform. In a sense they win either way.
On one hand, sure. On the other hand, it seems Bambu Lab's intentions are to lock down their ecosystem and extract rent (ala HP and printer ink).
So, if the Vizio case works out for OSS licenses, then Bambu Lab's likely won't be able to lock things down in the way they're intending (unless they expend significant effort to rewrite code).
That'd "stop" them from winning in the way they'd like, to the benefit of the wider Community of Bambu Labs users.
Thanks. This sounds a LOT like the bullshit Anker does with their (now largely abandoned) 3d printers. They forked a slicer and locked people out of the devices unless you’re using theirs.
So Bambu's argument hinges on "impersonation" claim of Jarczak's modified client using the same user agent string?
If a user compiles official BambuStudio from source, does BambuLabs then also claim their non-bit-identical client is also impersonating the "real" BambuStudio?
Or are they abusing user agents strings as authentication mechanism?
If they don't consider it abuse, but rather legitimate use of agent strings as authentication mechanism, then are they effectively openly arguing they left the user-agent-as-credential in the public repository? BambuLabs is going to claim in court that it publishes login credentials to its network in its open source BambuStudio, and then complaining that people actually use them?
If I bring my post-it with all my computer passwords to CCC and wave it in front of any camera I find, can I then sue the CCC and others filming, because they are spreading my credentials?
I mean if you do enter a legal case, they cannot just laugh away and be like "oh DoctorOetker such a silly case". They will have to take it seriously and follow all legal procedures. I don't know why people think law is some commonsense topic when it's highly technical and domain-based.
Me and a buddy, victor teisller, hacked the most popular 3D printer a few years ago (flashforge) to turn it into a major fire hazard through reverse engineering the firmware update remotely. Changed the max temp of the extruder to the temp of the Sun lol. These things are a fascinating security target because they're an easy place to turn abstract digital hacking into physical repersussions that can literally murder.
I'm not in the community, so I'm taking this article at face value. If I read correctly, he made software that possibly exploited a security gap, they asked him to remove it, then he demanded free hardware. They said no, and the conversation turned sour.
Why is everyone mad at them? I'm not blaming either side, but it sounds like a rather typical failed negotiation.
I'm in the market for a new 3D printer. My old Ultimaker 2 is still going strong, but it's from a different generation and doesn't fit my needs anymore. Looking purely at features, I really want a Bambu Lab X2D. However I hate what that company is doing, don't want to give them my money and don't want to lock myself into their increasingly locked down ecosystem.
Features I want:
- 2 nozzles (print parts with a different support material or a combination of solid and TPU)
- make simple 2-color prints without manual intervention (to add labels on parts, only a few layers require two colors)
- hassle-free filament storage (protected from dust and moisture, multiple spools ready to print at all times)
- a choice of different nozzles (e.g. 0.8 mm) which can be swapped easily
- able to print ABS reliably (or another material that is more heat resistant than PLA), the Ultimaker 2 with its open chamber is not good at this (parts lift off and warp)
Don't need:
- cloud stuff (I print everything locally, my own models)
What should I buy?
There’s plenty of other printers that can do the same or better and/or cheaper if you want “building and managing the printer” to be half the hobby, which is a totally fair thing and can be lots of fun if you’re into tinkering, but for a printer that just prints things as a tool there’s absolutely nothing close to Prusa and they’re worth every cent.
I run an Elegoo Centauri Carbon ar home, and the building and managing process was unscrewing couple transport bolts and clicking "self calibrate" button. From what I've seen, Creality is the same way now too.
Yes, the old Ender 3 I used to have demanded attention every other print. But it's not the norm now.
I'm sure Prusa makes a better product, and it probably starts to make economic sense if you run a print farm. But for home use, a 300€ box that happily melts plastic into whatever shape I need is a sweet deal. It even has a 50€ multi material extension box now, however that's on months long backorder.
I precisely wanted to avoid another hobby, of which I have too many already. 3D printing as a hobby doesn't appeal to me, I just wanted something that solved the problem and was relatively cheap. The A1 is this for me, it's as close as a fire and forget appliance as I could find.
Not saying there aren't better alternatives, just that it simply works for me.
Yes you pay a lot more, but I guess that's some sense voting with your wallet... I'm personally going to buy a Prusa after I stabilize where I live.
As an aspiring business owner, I am looking to transition to a more open printer as the OCL isn't something I want to rely on.
There's a ton of printers that are strictly offline. Some are older and some are newer, but there's a ton of them either way. That "offline" part is simple to accomplish.
Can you talk more about what else are you looking to achieve so the field can be pared down a bit?
So, if the Vizio case works out for OSS licenses, then Bambu Lab's likely won't be able to lock things down in the way they're intending (unless they expend significant effort to rewrite code).
That'd "stop" them from winning in the way they'd like, to the benefit of the wider Community of Bambu Labs users.
If a user compiles official BambuStudio from source, does BambuLabs then also claim their non-bit-identical client is also impersonating the "real" BambuStudio?
Or are they abusing user agents strings as authentication mechanism?
If they don't consider it abuse, but rather legitimate use of agent strings as authentication mechanism, then are they effectively openly arguing they left the user-agent-as-credential in the public repository? BambuLabs is going to claim in court that it publishes login credentials to its network in its open source BambuStudio, and then complaining that people actually use them?
If I bring my post-it with all my computer passwords to CCC and wave it in front of any camera I find, can I then sue the CCC and others filming, because they are spreading my credentials?
Or should I be laughed away in court?
Palm devices pretended to be iPods so that users could use iTunes to copy music to them. Apple threatened legal action and Palm backed down.
https://www.theregister.com/security/2020/04/13/how-to-make-...
Why is everyone mad at them? I'm not blaming either side, but it sounds like a rather typical failed negotiation.
It set a HTTP user agent string...