Once you have a reliable printer, the workflow is mostly to slice -> send to printer -> wait and check on it every couple of hours until it's done ime. Imo it no longer super matters how much better the on-screen ui or webcam are.

Mutli-color though is where Bambu has a good leg up.

(Diluted) Vision Miner Nano Polymer Adhesive and a good bed leveling probe has done a lot to make my printer set and forget, no matter which print sheets I use.

It may not have been a feature then, but you can run updated firmware and still keep it offline by using Developer Mode.

https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/knowledge-sharing/enable-develo...

I'm also in the same boat of regret, but for other reasons. Their support team is beyond awful. I purchased an H2S AMS combo just shy of two months ago (mostly because I saw it being praised by HNers a while back) and found out recently that the AMS they've sent me is defective. It's been truly a bizarre experience trying to deal with customer support. They told me to disassemble the AMS and swap a couple of modules that they mailed me. I did, provided them evidence that I did, and provided evidence that it didn't fix the problem. Their response was to claim that I didn't actually swap the modules and that because of that my warranty no longer applies, and then they said they'd give me a free roll of filament for my troubles (lol). At that point I began the process of invoking the consumer protections afforded to me. Called my credit card company and opened a dispute, invoked Massachusetts law M.G.L. c. 93A, and I'm about to contact my AG.

It's a shame they're going in such an anti-consumer direction, both with their gaslighting customer support and the lawfare against Orca.

After my initial Ender 3v2 (which was my entry point to 3D printing, but a terrible printer otherwise), we bought a Prusa even thought it was much more expensive than Bambu because we wanted to support a European company and because as a European company they are under the GDPR.

It has been absolutely great and low-effort. I haven't needed it yet, but their printers seem to be focused on easy maintenance by their owners.

I bought a Prusa several years ago that I had a rollercoaster of feels on. It's reliable, works great, but also cost me $900. For the next 3 years or so I was wondering whether I should have just bought a $250 Bambu and gotten almost same results. Now I'm happy I didn't.

And the yet again I got told over and over again that Bambu didn't really mean to, and if they did they learned their lesson, and after all you can still keep them offline. And spending more for a prusa obviously is silly.

I'm really getting too old dealing with morons who didn't learn anything after the same patterns repeating for decades now.

As a matter of fact he's a never-ending source of drama and outrage, all of which are his own opinions. His repair channel isn't even about repair anymore, it's all drama, all the time. I can hardly believe people fall for his shtick anymore.

> I don't think he gets it right 100% of the time, but when you are that vulnerable (and what appears to be authentic)

Saying anything less than glowingly positive about Rossmann is dangerous due to his fan base, but I think this mentality of pre-forgiving his misinformation is not healthy.

Being passionate and putting on a vulnerable schtick shouldn’t excuse someone from misleading their large audience.

Rossman is a drama YouTuber, like many others. This is an entire YouTube genre. Most of them have the same schtick where they appear to be the most passionate, vulnerable, on-your-side narrator of a story. His schtick is common in the drama YouTuber genre.

You shouldn’t develop such a parasocial relationship with a person that you reflexively defend every topic they engage in. Discuss the topics each on their own factual merits and be prepared to look for second sources. Don’t align yourself with someone because they are passionate and appear “vulnerable”. At the end of the day, you need to remember that putting on this display is how he makes his money. It’s a show.

It would help if he wouldn't throw fits like a high schooler in a lot of his videos. For his brand and for the causes he champions. Its almost only drama on his channel now.

Bambu's proprietary networking plugin uses the agpl libraries from slic3r/prusaslicer, by not releasing the source code they're violating the AGPL.

> I’m not going to sit through another angry Louis Rossmann video

Try https://youtu.be/0tdZ5Z7nRDY?si=vjnJ90p6ba_Xik9B for a less emotive take on this specific case, and the closely related matter of Bambu's attempt to circumvent some of AGPL's protections.

Some time ago the printers were able to communicate over both cloud and local protocols. Then, in a firmware update, they created distinct modes for those. You can still use the printers with OrcaSlicer, but in a mode that prevents being controlled by cloud too.

Very useful comment. I’ve had an A1 Mini for a year now and it has been my favourite purchase in years. Like when I got my first mobile phone, I feel like I’ll have some sort of 3d printer for the rest of my life. Bambu made it super easy and inexpensive for this to happen.

I’m completely against bullying and attempts to lock out open source software from using 3d printers directly; if they locked out OrcaSlicer from direct control I’d have a big problem with that.

But trying to interact directly with Bambu’s private infrastructure/APis seems reasonable for Bambu to block. I think a cease and desist might backfire on Bambu but i don’t think it’s unreadable. (Didn’t watch the video. Just getting context from parent comment. )

Although local LAN control is still unhindered, browsing the filesystem on the printer from the slicer is locked behind cloud mode.

Getting cloud mode means using Bambu Studio. Getting Bambu Studio means one more notch in slowly getting locked into the walled Bambu garden.

Josef Prusa also commented on this last year: https://www.josefprusa.com/articles/open-hardware-in-3d-prin...

The motive appears to be to get tax credits as opposed to becoming a full-on patent troll, though with how quickly China is speedrunning their version of capitalism I would not be surprised if it turns into patent trolling.

Their behaviour overall is really giving me mixed feelings, because the Bambu A1 I have is an absolutely amazing machine for the price, and I've been casually in this since the Printrbot days.

There's some drama, and they did some wrong calls. But the hardware is still really fantastic (as a X1C owner). If you want to have some things printed and don't necessarily want fine tuning your printer as a hobby, I highly recommend it.

RE: 3D printer as a tool, I recommend Teaching Tech's video (1) as a guide to choosing the right 3D printer. His first question is "Will you use your 3D printer as a tool or a hobby?", followed by the priorities that flow from that choice, e.g. pretty looking prints, or accurate parts that fit together.

1: https://youtu.be/JCHUOQ7yby0

It is definitely a philosophy you have to buy into, in the same way that people accept the iPhone's walled garden. (I have several Bambu Lab printers and have been an iPhone user for 17 years)

You can use Bambu printers fully offline. All this vitriol about them is severely misplaced IMO.

You can put your printers in LAN Mode to not use their cloud. You just have to choose one or the other, and the software in question enabled features they didn't want unless you ran off their cloud.

The upcoming Prusa support for INDX (by Bondtech) is going to be interesting, especially for business use cases where waste is a primary concern.

https://www.prusa3d.com/product/indx-conversion-kit-8-toolhe...

The main thing keeping me from making the multi-material jump is the waste. I have a couple Vorons and would love to be able to print with different materials at the same time, but the waste with the current solutions is so egregious.

I don't know what the A1S is (did you mean the A1 or the P1S?) but the Snapmaker U1 is on my wishlist. More expensive than either but eliminates the AMS waste by using multiple toolheads. Open firmware, most of Bambu's convenience features.

To steelman their use case, Bambu has marketed themselves as the most approachable way to get into 3D printing. In addition to their low prices, that includes ease of setup, and ease of going from a model on their website to a physical object in your hand. If you're already getting the model from their website (and realistically, the overwhelming majority of 3d prints are downloaded), then having their online software ecosystem handle everything for you just reinforces that approachability.

But realistically, because if they control how you use your machine, they can start skimming profit off of those digital services every time you print something. That's only works if they have control over how you use the machine in your house.

To outward appearances, they seem to be trying to recreate the printer ink/razor blade business model on 3d printers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor-and-blades_model#Printer...

Remote device control allows for running and monitoring prints from another networks with zero effort, but more importantly local device control can't be monetized. It's just about the money.

This isn't defending Bambu, and it's not an ELI5 because, whether you meant it sarcastically or not, the easy answer to your question is "you do not need to connect to a cloud service to use a 3D printer".

Bambu Labs however, has chosen to market their printers with an app that provides a "one-stop shop" for all things 3D-printer. You can browse their version of Thingiverse (or Printables or Cults 3D) and send jobs directly to your printer. You can also access your printer remotely (read outside your home network without tunnelling/port-forwarding/VPNs) to monitor prints, get notified when a print is done, get notified you've run out of filament, watch the printer work if it's equipped with a camera, etc. etc.

Bambu has been attempting to remove features that enable easy local (not-internet-connected) use cases and force everyone to use the cloud, etc. Or at least make it as painful as possible to skip the cloud.

Relevant context: X1C owner who did not update the firmware that forced bambu's "secure printing" workflow on users that previously used their local network "plugin".

I stopped using Handy, blocked the printer's access to the internet, and ultimately, did not miss a thing. The printer continued to work fine with my slicer of choice (softfever's fork of Bambu Lab studio's fork of Prusa Slicer's fork of slic3r, now known as OrcaSlicer).

Like most things these days, they make a decent printer, but are part of tech's steadfast march to control everything. The twist is that they're in a space defined very much by breaking control.

You don't really, but the entire ecosystem is quite ergonomic for people who don't want to fiddle with software, connections, config, permissions, etc. and Just Print something.

Not defending Bambu. The UX is quite straightforward and easy, however.

Should we start with an explanation of why you would need to communicate with an IP network to use a 3D printer? Is it impossible to just plug in a USB connection and print?

So obviously it's not necessary at all, but Bambu built their entire brand on ease of use - the app allows you to pick from thousands and thousands of premade models and send them to your printer directly from the app. Judging by the Facebook Bambu groups, most people never bother with installing PC Bambu Studio. And because phones don't necessarily have the raw power to slice the model on device, it's sent to their servers for slicing to fit your printer and filament type.

So it's a nice to have thing, but it could have very easily been optional. Instead they made it so that every print, even ones sent from Bambu Studio, has to go through their servers(unless you enable Lan mode)

A slicer is software that takes a 3d model file and "slices" it for 3d printing. It outputs a series of instructions for a 3d printer to build up a physical object, layer by layer (slice by slice). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slicer_(3D_printing)

Particularly relevant for this discussion is this part of that page, showing the lineage of the various software involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slicer_(3D_printing)#List_of_s...

He's just like Steve nowadays - he built his entire brand on being angry, so he has to be angry or his core audience will leave. And if that's what you like then fine, but for me it's just not interesting anymore.

I would have said Prusa a year or two ago but they've reneged a little on their open-ness. That was probably in response to Bambu being fully closed and gaining so much market share.

The Core line of printers seems promising and a big leap towards closing the gap towards Bambu's corexy printers but haven't used one yet and I've been out of the game a little. Bambu though is probably more of a high-end appliance type than Prusas more utilitarian feel.

I'd say Prussa.

I am not going to say they are perfect, but I think they have a good balance of ethics, openness, product quality, innovation, availability and price. By that I mean their are the best in none of them, but I don't think of anything better as a combination.

I just bought a qidi printer. It arrives in a few days, so I can’t speak to the machine’s quality beyond saying it’s reviewed pretty well - but the software is all open source klipper with no locks preventing you from modifying it. The hardware itself is closed source, but if you want an open hardware machine in 2026 you need to build your own voron.

I have a Prusa MK3S and it has been very very reliable. There's also a ton of mods you can download and print, which modify or extend the printer for specific use cases. They are a bit more expensive then their Chinese counterparts, but in my opinion, it's definitely worth the extra cost for the peace of mind.

Prusa. And my Raise3D E2 has been solid for ~5 years. I can't directly compare it to Bambu, but it was a massive step up from the Creality Ender it replaced. It's a "Just works" machine.

Obviously it depends on what you’re doing and what is importante to you. It’s hard to beat Bambi Labs H2D or X2D for versatility, practicality, and price. Engineering filaments are getting a lot cheaper as the market expands so it helps to have a printer than can handle those. Given Bambi Labs is so cheap compared to the alternatives customers would probably be better off putting aside the savings to buy a second printer from a different supplier when one starts to catch up.

Prusa is the most open of the printer manufacturers. They did have to backtrack a bit because Bambu copied their slicer to use for themselves and undercut them, but they're still as open as you can get in a capitalist economy.

I have the A1 Mini as well. Mostly having sat unused since I bought it a few years back, I'm now wondering if the thing will function normally again. Any advice on basic "cold boot" maintenance? It's been a year since I last turned it on.

This is part of the reason their attempts frustrate me so much. I love my A1 Mini but I do not want to support this kind of behavior so I will probably go to another company if I ever upgrade.

Have you owned any other printers?

So much of this opinion sounds like a Bambu ad read from YouTube, as if they're the only ones making printers that just work now, like a Prusa can't crank out perfect first layers without breaking a sweat.

Bambu Labs is completely ignoring their legal duties under the AGPL code they used while trying to make others comply to their licensing terms through abuse of the legal system.

Nobody forced them to use said code, they chose to when it was in their best interest and now they renege on the part in the license (the only thing that gives them a right to use and build on said code) when they deem it not in their interest any longer and think they're big enough to squash individuals protesting.

Nothing wrong there, right, chairman?

If you are referring to his video from May 2023, "Why I deleted GrapheneOS", it is about the team lead, Daniel Micay, not about GrapheneOS itself. He, in fact, praises GrapheneOS to no end in the very same video.

So just don't comment?

he projects a lot of is emotional issues into his work. I support what he does, but he appears to make himself miserable in the process.