Definitely gives me second thoughts about getting one. They look like easiest way to get into 3d printing as a tool (rather than another hobby), but their recent attitude just makes me think I should suffer a bit less advanced product just to not have to deal with that shit.

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comboy 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

	▲	Salgat 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Same. I don't care about the online connectivity or whatever, I just print a few personal things every month so the convenience and reliability far outweigh any cons for me.

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0x38B 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

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herbst 44 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Honestly I don't regret going with Bambu. Yes they suck in a way I get it. However the time and money I spent into my ender to keep it barely alive is all wasted compared to these machines that just run perfectly out of the package.

Sure prusa is fine too, and other brands might are getting there too. But if you want to print as a tool I would recommend to just use the tool nearly everyone is agreeing on.

I didn't regret it once, and have 3 printers at this point (2 of which free thanks to Bambu points)

Also I am still amazed that my $150 A1 mini is basically just as good as the X2D or P2S.

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bdcravens 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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)

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vitaflo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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

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HowTheStoryEnds 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Where can I get the source code they modified?

	▲	quietsegfault an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That seems to be an issue between you and Bambu. Go ask them for it.

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stavros 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That comes with a big caveat. You can either choose to use the printer offline, or online, with no ability to use both. If you want the ability to monitor or pause a print when you're not home on the off chance something goes wrong, you HAVE to send every print through their cloud, there's no middle ground.

That's not Bambu being open, that's them doing the absolute minimum to allow people to say "you can use Bambu printers fully offline" in comment sections.

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bdcravens 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Monitoring is still possible with Tailscale and Bambu Companion (or a number of third party apps you can put on a Raspberry Pi or similar)

https://testflight.apple.com/join/VXBxZYNr

https://bambuddy.cool/

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PunchyHamster 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Till they block that too. Which given their previous actions is definitely in cards

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stavros 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

OK. This doesn't change my view that Bambu is not open, and just does the bare minimum so people can't say it's completely closed.

	▲	bdcravens 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		For most people, it is definitely a closed ecosystem, similar to the iPhone. But they do give people the escape hatch if they're willing to take ownership of the software they run. (To be fair, they only enabled this after a lot of backlash)

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Toutouxc 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wait, that’s still just about their phone app. When you disable the cloud features, you lose the phone app, but otherwise the printer is fully usable. You can still connect to it through Bambu studio, you just have to roll your own networking (e.g. a VPN), right?

	▲	CSSer 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yes and no, it seems. Yes in Developer Mode. With that configuration, which confusingly requires you to turn on LAN mode first, you can use your own software to control all features of the device. In LAN mode it’s more complicated. LAN mode requires you to still use their slicer because the majority of functions beyond the extremely basic are still restricted by their authorization layer. This means using their SDK/network plugin for anything you develop, effectively coercing developers into their ecosystem for use-cases by the majority of users. It seems pretty clear, in my opinion, that what they’re trying to communicate by using the “developer mode” language is that owning your device end-to-end is big, scary, and only for professionals. Oh, btw, developer mode leaves your device completely open and introduces various UX friction points to the experience related to constantly needing to rebind. Effectively it’s malicious compliance on their end. They’re giving the middle finger to anyone who wants to cut them out, and it’s hard to say anyone who feels that way is imagining it.
	▲	stavros 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You can only connect to it from the same LAN, yes, except you can't connect locally to it unless you disable the cloud features first.

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greggsy 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Can you access all that on you local lan though?

If so then you could access it over a reverse proxy like Tailscale.

Its trivially easy to set one up these days.

	▲	stavros 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Trivially easy to set up Tailscale, if you have a machine on 24/7 at home.