The whole Bambu Lab situation isn’t really a surprise. Always stay away from companies that want to be the “Apple” of their niche.
Start “open-ish”, gain traction, start abusing market position, start closing things off, become hostile to your customers…
I never bought a Bambu in the first place because all of this was foreseeable. Bambu costumers simply didn‘t care at the time.
Oh yeah? Well I’m never buying one in the first place because these problems were obvious.
I never let mine on the internet and use lan only using Orca slicer too so I don’t have to worry about Bambu Studio pushing an update to it which probably wouldn’t be an issue cause it was always garbage at connecting via lan anyway.
I sold my x1c at a loss and got a core one when they announced Indx. It is less polished and I need to tinker. But it is ooensource all the way through and that is worth it. To me.
Can I get a tl;dr for someone who isn’t into 3d printing (yet)? I like to know about companies to avoid and why, but it’ll still be a while before I get into 3d printing.
Bambu lab a while ago came out with printers and an ecosystem that was very easy to use compared to other printers for the price. However, there were a few red flags like proprietary parts, software which required the cloud, and DRM chips in filament. Bambu lab promised they weren’t gonna exploit any of that and that they will keep their printers and ecosystem open and all the red flags were just used to aid in user experience like automatic print settings for DRM chipped filament, easy to swap parts, and cloud monitoring and notifications. Despite the promise, they’re still a corporation and thus went against their word and closed off 3rd party slicers and firmwares so you must use their cloud and their software.
You do not own the printers, Bambu does. So now you cannot install third party firmware on your Bambu 3d printer or use a different slicer. Everything you do on your Bambu printer goes through their cloud unless you take countermeasures and use old versions of software and firmware before the lockdown happened and you completely block internet access to the printers.
People saw these big red flags early on and called them out on it saying they’re gonna lock down their ecosystem later on but people kept buying into Bambulab since they were so easy to use and got amazing prints out of them.
Tl;Dr, Bambulab released printers and software that were so easy to use for the price but came with many red flags. Bambulab ended up closing down their entire ecosystem so they have full control of the printers and you are at their mercy if you wanna keep using it.
They never promised to keep anything open. It never was open.
Have to admit I’m out of the loop. If I do have a Bambu printer, can I still use it in LAN mode with OrcaSlicer? Can I still use current firmware or do I need to downgrade?
This video from Louis Rossmann will get you caught up with the topic quickly: Bambu Lab: I’m reposting your code & I dare you to sue me. / Louis Rossmann / YouTube.com
This guy modified the OrcaSlicer code so that you could still use it without being in LAN mode, over BL servers. Bambu sent him a c&d based on complete nonsense and he took the code down. Rossmann/FULU has since reuploaded it and told Bambu to come at him.
Haha was just about to buy one. Whats a good alternative hassle free printer that is still open?
Whats a good alternative hassle free printer that is still open?
AFAIK, Prusa is the leader in balancing openness, quality and ease of use.
Of course, since they’re in the EU and pay their staff living wages, they are also more expensive.
Prusa or make your own corexy
Snapmaker U1 has been great
I don’t keep up with 3D printer news or releases but I have a bottom of the line anycubic resin printer. Literally the cheapest I could find, and the thing is excellent. Prints great detail, invisible layer lines if I dial in the settings, really easy to setup and I can use any slicer, just load up the file on a USB stick and plug it into the printer and it goes.
I’ve really enjoyed my Elegoo printers. I have both an SLA and an FDM from them. Never really had any complaints in the few years I’ve had them.
is he often buying 3d printers?
I’ve had an X1C for a few years now. My router blocks my printer from communicating outside of my home network and my firewall blocks the slicer. I haven’t had any problems. It sucks that the company is being shitty but they really do make exceptionally good printers. I’m glad Prusa is at least sort-of keeping up with them. I had a Prusa Mk3S for several years before I got my Bambu, they’re extremely reliable.
As a fairly recent current A1 Mini user (too late to return), ouch. Guess I’ll have to get used to it until I can afford a different brand when I upgrade lol
Unpopular opinion but. A company doesn’t owe you open access to their tech or software.
Bambu spends an enormous amount of money on r&d.
They have incredibly high quality printers that are intuitive and easy to use.
They collect data to improve their machines.
You can opt out of that collection.
The replacement parts are cheap. Comparable to other brands.
And you can buy non Bambu parts. That fit. But why when official high quality parts are available for same price.
I don’t know why everyone is so mad that Bambu won’t let them tinker with the software. Or “jail break it”.
Why would you want to on a Bambu. ? It already works optimally.
if you want a tinker printer than get one that’s open.
Most people don’t need that. They just want to print things.
I get that people think “it’s my device and I should be able to jail break it if I want”. Ok
Then buy a device that lets you.
It would be different if Bambu printers were crap and needed tinkering but wouldn’t allow it. Or they lied about being open. But that’s not the situation.
Bambu has been up front since the begining that their printers would not be open.
They never mislead about that.
Why are you mad about something they made clear from the begining ?
And yes I know they used open source data to base a lot of their tech on. (Yeah and Linux is used a lot for proprietary stuff too. It is what it is). But they have proprietary software and hardware now that was a result of their own investments into research and development.
You can’t hold it against a company for not giving away advancements they made to their competitors.
With so much unethical and anti-privacy , companies blocking right to repair. And all the shitty tech companies out there, it’s hard for me to take the complaints against Bambu as anything other than grifting and online created drama.
Their products were always closed. They never said they would be open.
Use a different brand if that’s a problem for you.
Didnt they sign a contract to make it open the moment they used open source Code as their base?
I don’t think so. Open source stuff doesn’t usually require that for using it as a base.
Android OS is based on open source.
Did Microsoft or whoever owns it, sign a contract saying they promise to keep it open since it’s based on linux ?
I don’t think it works like that.
Open source base just means you can’t charge money for it.
Please look up ooensource because it is a lot more nuanced than that and there are a lot of different approaches and even definitions of open source.
Okay but we are talking about Bambu using a specific open source code for creating their software and firmware.
Have they violated the use of that specific open source code in some way ?
Their software is free to use.
Creality firmware is based on open source but they make it hard to jail break their printers too.
Why aren’t you going on tirade about creality?
I just got this Info from a Youtube channel yesterday, so take it with a grain of salt, but they said that the license indeed includes that clause.
Seems like the owner would be suing them if that was the case.
Honestly it all sounds like manufactured drama to me.
If you don’t like Bambu product limits. Just use a different brand. There are many other companies. No one is forcing people to use bambu products.
It would be like me complaining a company doesn’t sell the shoes I want. And then trying to sue them because of that and start drama in shoe comunities. Saying they are in the wrong for not running their company and offering services or products I want.
Suing is expensive, but it’s all speculation from my side, so I don’t want to lean heavily into the argument.
I agree that it got some vibes to it that wants me to agree with you.
Did they recently implement a “feature” that doesnt allow the printing of guns or something?
Not using it is a way of distancing yourself. I agree. But the bigger issue to me Is that they are making money from the work of others without giving back. It’s an ethical question for me and I want to change that behaviour not just in regards to me as a customer but as a whole for the industry to foster the advancement of the technology itself.
Afaik the firmware is self developed and closed source, so not free. as in freedom of code and free as in beer.
The software slicer is based on prusa slicer which is based on slic3r which uses the agplv3 which dictates that all works derived from the original code needs to be published as code under the same license. They do that. But the trick is that they add closed source modules that are essential for the whole system to work and therefore control their devices and ecosystem via restrictive licenses or plain unavailability of sources.
Regarding creality : the last time I used a creality printer it used marlin as firmware and it was trivial to compile and flash and modify.
But in general you don’t need to make your product easy to jailbreak under most ooensource licenses, you need to publish the code. Those are two different things.
Much of Android is open source. That’s why AOSP, LineageOS, Graphene, etc can exist. Google Play Services is not part of the kernel.
Windows existed long before Linux. Or do you think MS develops Android?
Open source base just means you can’t charge money for it.
That is very inaccurate. GPL3 specifically says all derivative work is also open source.
No one is arguing that Bambu has the right to keep their sources closed. That is NOBODY’s argument. Instead, you’ve not addressed the main argument and the point stated by Jeff - they threatened the open source developer with lawsuit and asked him to remove the code. The code doesn’t violate anyting. At the same time, THEY based their whole product on opensource software. That makes them hypocrites and shitty people. That’s the argument. Your post is long and doesn’t address it at all.
But let me also push back on some of the things you said.
Bambu spends an enormous amount of money on r&d.
So does Prusa. And Creality. And many others. They were all open source. They are now being very cautious about what they publish. It may not be Bambu’s fault, but they certainly started the trend. It looks a lot like the ol’ microsoft eee tactics again.
The replacement parts are cheap. Comparable to other brands.
They are also non-standard and not accessible to others to make and thus - the only guarantee they will stay cheap is their good word. Which is not worth much IMO. Cause I don’t think they will allow competition to make the replacements without licenses.
Why would you want to on a Bambu. ? It already works optimally.
To customize it for your needs? What if you have no internet access on your print farm for a day and you require Bambu cloud services to work to be able to manage it? What if when you bought the printer, you could use it in LAN mode, but now after an update, you no longer can? Is it your fault still? This really happened already.
if you want a tinker printer than get one that’s open. Most people don’t need that. They just want to print things.
Fair point. But they did change the terms of usage after the sale once before. They’re gonna do it again. This alone makes them shitty and unfit for a new printer purchase for me.
Use a different brand if that’s a problem for you.
I hope most people will. But again, this wasn’t the original argument. Though even without the original argument, there are still reasons not to buy Bambu.
