Great move by Snapmaker. In considering buying a new printer soon I am very annoyed by how difficult it is to know beforehand how much functionality of a printer is locked behind cloud connectivity that can be remotely disabled at any point. I know Bambu is to avoid absolutely thanks to the very public backlash they got but what about the others?
I know Prusa is a shining example of letting their customers own their devices but they are pricy. I didn’t know Snapmaker had the same kind of mentality until now thanks to that move.
You might check out the Consumer Rights Wiki, also started by Rossman. It’s crowd sourced, and lists anti-consumer BS like forced cloud subscriptions for a lot of companies.
Just find a printer, look up the company there, and see how legit they are. There’s even a browser plugin that pops up on any website that has an entry on the wiki.
Wish they had the opposite. I feel like most people want to know who to go to, less so on who to avoid. I can see the usefulness in the list, but it’s backwards when people want to find someone
My Prusa was tucked in between the cushions of my couch for a cross country move, left in storage for one year, and moved again before I just blew the first off and smashed out a perfect print from an SD card. That’s a solid enough performance I don’t think I’d consider any other brand.
I pulled mine out of storage after four years. Same thing, blew the dust off, plugged it in, expecting the worst. Nope, it just lit up and ran through the setup procedure. Set the z and printed perfectly, just like I had it set up when I put it in storage. I didn’t expect such a sensitive machine with such tight tolerances to just work.
I knew about the problems with Bambu long before I bought my new printer back in December. I ended up going with an Elegoo Centauri Carbon. It works out of the box without ever requiring you to set up an account, install an app on your phone, or connect to a cloud service. I just use mine with a USB stick.
I wanted to go with Prusa but the cost difference was too great for me at that time (I’m sure it still is).
I got the DIY kit Prusa MK3S+ a few years ago during covid, and it has been a workhorse. I love it, but I also don’t have experience with many other 3d printers. I worked a bit with them in like the early 2010s but things have changed so much, so I don’t know what to compare it to.
I loved it, but there was one particular part that wasn’t clear in the instructions so I had to do some research. There were tons of threads about that one step but I assume they’ve fixed it from 5 years ago.
Great move by Snapmaker. In considering buying a new printer soon I am very annoyed by how difficult it is to know beforehand how much functionality of a printer is locked behind cloud connectivity that can be remotely disabled at any point. I know Bambu is to avoid absolutely thanks to the very public backlash they got but what about the others?
I know Prusa is a shining example of letting their customers own their devices but they are pricy. I didn’t know Snapmaker had the same kind of mentality until now thanks to that move.
You might check out the Consumer Rights Wiki, also started by Rossman. It’s crowd sourced, and lists anti-consumer BS like forced cloud subscriptions for a lot of companies.
Just find a printer, look up the company there, and see how legit they are. There’s even a browser plugin that pops up on any website that has an entry on the wiki.
Wish they had the opposite. I feel like most people want to know who to go to, less so on who to avoid. I can see the usefulness in the list, but it’s backwards when people want to find someone
Knowing what I know now, I’ trade my Bambu P1S for a Prusa. Buy once, cry once.
My Prusa was tucked in between the cushions of my couch for a cross country move, left in storage for one year, and moved again before I just blew the first off and smashed out a perfect print from an SD card. That’s a solid enough performance I don’t think I’d consider any other brand.
any printer will do that.
Some require retentioning belts, readjusting the bed level, or other maintainance items before you can get a perfect print again.
Not in my experience. They are tools like any other tool.
And some tools are worse than others.
I pulled mine out of storage after four years. Same thing, blew the dust off, plugged it in, expecting the worst. Nope, it just lit up and ran through the setup procedure. Set the z and printed perfectly, just like I had it set up when I put it in storage. I didn’t expect such a sensitive machine with such tight tolerances to just work.
Smart move by Snapmaker, for the price of one hardware unit they get a lot of exposure to exactly the kind of people that they’re marketing towards.
I knew about the problems with Bambu long before I bought my new printer back in December. I ended up going with an Elegoo Centauri Carbon. It works out of the box without ever requiring you to set up an account, install an app on your phone, or connect to a cloud service. I just use mine with a USB stick.
I wanted to go with Prusa but the cost difference was too great for me at that time (I’m sure it still is).
I got the DIY kit Prusa MK3S+ a few years ago during covid, and it has been a workhorse. I love it, but I also don’t have experience with many other 3d printers. I worked a bit with them in like the early 2010s but things have changed so much, so I don’t know what to compare it to.
I really want the DIY kit. How was your experience actually building it?
I loved it, but there was one particular part that wasn’t clear in the instructions so I had to do some research. There were tons of threads about that one step but I assume they’ve fixed it from 5 years ago.
The U1 is amazing by the way