- cross-posted to:
- 3dprinting@lemmy.world
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- 3dprinting@lemmy.world
- linux@lemmy.ml
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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
Nnowing who’s bad is cool. Knowing who’s right is better.
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.
The worst thing about Prusa is the knowledge that no matter what you buy, there will be an upgrade available to an even better one WAY too quickly, and then you’ll want that one too. It’s a trap, I tell you!
j/k I still love my Prusa MK3S+, though the relentless upgrade temptation is real.
I thought tge worst part about Prusa was them partnering with an Israeli company.
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.
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.
Prusa is pricy because they make the de facto standards - including PrusaSlicer which is the base of OrcaSlicer/Bambu Studio.
Bambu can sell cheaper for two reason:
- limited research needed to make their own products - they’re just copying open patents and software, tuning it a little, and selling the package at manufacturing cost + profit margins
- the CCP pouring a shitton of money into companies to subsidise them and allow them to undercut western competition. Bambu makes a printer for $1000, CCP pays $600 of it, Bambu sells for $600 - $200 profit
PrusaSlicer is a fork of Slic3r.
limited research needed to make their own products - they’re just copying open patents and software, tuning it a little, and selling the package at manufacturing cost + profit margins
So you really have no idea about these printers. Bambu has a dozen patents for novel IP.
“copying open patents” no such thing as an open patent, IP is either patent, or open domain. All printer companies exploit expired patents, including Prusa.
Stratasys is suing Bambu over: Purge Towers, Force Detection, Networked Systems & Smart Spools, but Stratasys are cunts who try to sue anyone. How did they get a patent for purge towers.
Bambi’s contributions are marginal compared to all the prior IP they use (and wasn’t Prusa actually suing them for using a number of their patents without the rights?).
as for open patents: any patent that is expired or where the owner isn’t interested in enforcing uniqueness (many a things are patented yet in public domain!). by open I simply mean no licensing is required.
And yes, that’s precisely what Bambu does. Take open designs, public domain parts and bang them together until they got something working. Which is why I recommend people buy Prusa, not Bambu - reward with some extra spending the people who actually do the hard work, not the ones who swoop in at the end and try to undercut the actual innovators.
I didn’t know Snapmaker had the same kind of mentality until now thanks to that move.
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.
As the owner of a Snapmaker2 A150 (that is, one of their second-gen multifunction devices, fairly old now), I can say that my experience with it has been decent enough. It speaks a lightly modified Marlin dialect and can be run completely offline. New firmware requires user permission. They did release the source for the firmware and for their custom slicer (not worth it), and some of the more adventurous owners did manage to flash it with modified firmware. There were a few complaints at the time about the hardware not being as open as people had hoped, mostly because of custom connectors and the like.
Hardware-quality-wise, it was kneecapped by needing to be solid enough for CNC, so it’s slower and heavier than a purpose-built printer would need to be, but the prints are of decent enough quality for a device of its age and type.
Could you please give your thoughts on its milling and laser capabilities? Do you own the 4th axis rotary?
The A150 is too small to mount the rotary—you need at least an A250, but there were no longer any of the midsize units available by the time I hit the kickstarter and I didn’t have the space for the A350, so I opted for the smallest model.
Embarassingly, I’ve used it mostly as a 3D printer. The blue diode laser originally shipped with the unit is a decent etcher but too weak to cut through anything very thick (best I’ve heard of anyone managing was 1/4" of wood, and that took a lot of passes and patience on their part), and it has some limitations on what materials it will handle (I’d have to scour the forum for details, because it’s been a while). I didn’t buy the more powerful laser that later became available as an add-on. Unless their software has improved a lot since the last version I downloaded, you’ll need 3rd party software to make the most of it.
I never actually tried milling with it because of potential dust removal issues, but according to reports it once again suffers here from being a compromise device with limited software. The frame isn’t quite as rigid as a dedicated CNC, the bits are Dremel-sized and a bit fragile due to that, and the provided software I have won’t, for instance, handle what should be simple tasks like drilling all-vertical holes or doing multiple passes with different-sized bits. Unlike the laser, I can’t recall any reports of anyone using alternative CAM software for the CNC, but it’s been a couple of years since I last looked.
In the end it’s kind of like a Swiss Army knife: great if you have limited space (my issue) and just want to try stuff out, but if you can manage it you’re better off with dedicated machines for each function.
Thank you for the thorough response!
It’s unfortunate that the design compromises result in a tool with limited usability. I’m slightly interested in the desktop mills and lasers but haven’t done much research on them. Your comment about printing being slow actually perked my ears up as that suggests increased rigidity needed for milling. It sounds like if I ever do decide to get a tiny mill or laser, I’m better off with a purpose built machine.
As for software, G-code for a specific machine is all about the post at the professional level. Unfortunately, pro-grade CAM is around $20k a seat. A good post is often $4k or a lot of time painfully producing and testing it yourself. CAM/CAD is the only thing keeping me from Linux at work and on my primary home PC. I wasn’t impressed with the 1.0 release of FreeCAD. The UI still seems to be designed by aliens.
(Lemmy weirdness: I only received notification of your response last night.)
Another reason to avoid Bambu is that they use their own proprietary printer code file type (.bgcode instead of .gcode). Blatant attempt at userlocking/walled garden ecosystem.
I have an Anycubic and I never connected it to the internet. It calibrates offline and prints fine from a USB.
I don’t use their official apps, just OrcaSlicer which is open source (and “stealth mode” disables telemetry). The printer works great though.
The only functionality that seems to require internet (besides printing from the app or networking with the slicer) is the camera which is supposed to detect misprints and pause/cancel a project to avoid waste or skip an object so the spaghetti doesn’t ruin the rest.
But I don’t use that feature and it’s fine, just watch your first few prints so you know what tends to fail and what needs extra support, and watch any projects that might be iffy until you get a good idea of what doesn’t adhere well. But keeping your print plate clean goes a long way for good adhesion (avoid touching the center where projects print, and use dish soap to wash it when projects stop sticking).
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.
Took me about 8 hours, I was slow and careful. You can fuck it up, but only if you’re totally reckless and ignore the instructions.
Same, an ex and I were early Cupcake CNC adopters, but then I didn’t touch a 3D printer for a decade. When I got back into it the Prusa MK3S+ was the obvious choice for DIY/FOSS lineage, that thing is not fancy but it sure is a tank.
snapmaker has been really nice about that sort of thing. they sent out review units of the u1 early, got roasted, and fixed most of the things people didn’t like. i’ve run mine without any sort of account from the start. you can take it completely offline or run it in “lan mode”, and the only things that get more annoying are firmware updates and remote control. you can still do them, there’s just a bit more setup.
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).
that was basically my chain of purchase as well. I knew way in advance of bambus shady history. Elegoo came in with a fairly affordable option that doesnt constantly shit itself as some of the printers of yesteryears (not saying its 0 though, you can find cases of it all the time)
its under tollerate level because they dont mandate i have to use elegoo slicer (free to use orcaslicer), and so far at least allows for open source firmwares to exist.
The U1 is amazing by the way
Jarczak’s fork crossed the line by injecting falsified identity metadata into its network communication. “In simple terms: it pretended to be the official Bambu Studio client when communicating with our servers.”
If it’s easy enough to get access to your cloud infrastructure by just changing some metadata about the connection, then you really should re-think your authentication systems. If I were to publish the exact model and pinning of the lock on my house, it would be silly of me to be mad that someone used that to make their own keys.
The DMCA is literally written in a way that they could write “DO NOT USE” in a text file and include it with firmware and claim that using the firmware Ina way they didn’t like was “breaking a digital lock”
Honestly I’m perfectly fine with the DMCA just being entirely revoked at this point. It has enabled more bad than it has done good, even when things went “right”
what good has DMCA done???
There are even supposed to be safe harbor protections, but the reality is that individuals don’t have the legal resources for it to matter.
Where fork?
Thank you. Forked.
In case someone comes across this and doesn’t know, “forking” a repo by just clicking that button on github won’t preserve your copy if the upstream repo gets taken down. If you’re trying to preserve it, make sure you have a copy independent of github’s control. Like a local backup
Excellent point, thank you.
yeah all of the people in the comments of his video are so happy about their forks 😭 at least their heart is in the right place ❤️
I don’t even have a 3d printer and I just git clone’d the entire repo to my media server.
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I’m happy with my slightly modded Ender 3 Pro, but if I ever upgrade the Snapmaker U1 looks nice. I’ll only buy from a company that supports open source firmware. Bambu is trash, unfortunately every 3D printing related YouTuber seems to have happily taken a sponsorship from them so they are everywhere now. I hate it.
The problem with Bambu is they are not trash at all. Their printers are high-quality, and the way they integrate with their proprietary slicer (that they totally stole from the community before locking it down) and MakerWorld is genuinely excellent.
I have 3 Bambu printers. I don’t buy their products anymore (my newest printer is an SV-08 max), but I still use the ones I have and they’re excellent, easy machines. And if someone new comes to me wanting a starter “just click print and it works” solution, I’m still likely to point them towards an A1 mini. They’re cheap and work great out of the box with zero handholding from me required.
And that’s why I kinda hate them. They don’t have to be dickheads, but choose to be. Their products are fantastic, and I’d honestly be using Bambu Studio for them instead of Orca anyway.
their proprietary slicer
That’s the problem, it cannot be proprietary when based off slic3R. It’s not their property to lock down.
The slicer is not proprietary, but the networking plugin for printer communication is
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Apparently their dual extruder implementation works far better than any other on the market which is a huge deal for printing supports that don’t stick. Several of my friends have them and all love the print quality (it’s far better than anything I’ve gotten out of my printers). The pricing is admittedly great too.
I don’t have any issues with my i3 so won’t be getting one anytime soon, but I absolutely see why people new to 3D printing will go straight to Bambu. It sucks that they actively chose to be bad for the open source community they built their company on top of.
To be fair all of the companies in the 3D printing industry built their business on the backs of the open source community and pretty much all of them are some level of shitty towards the community. Creality and most others regularly violate licenses by dragging their feet and only complying when people really complain. Even Prusa has started to back away from open source.
Bambu is just catching shit for being the Apple of 3D printing. They are trying the hardest to build a walled garden.
I don’t know about walled garden they haven’t shown anything about limiting other filaments. That would be the big one. I admit I started buying their filament but it’s because where I live it is one of the cheapest options especially when buying bulk.
They are keeping tight control over with what software you can use to run your printer. They’ve only ever moved in a more restrictive direction. They’re turning up the temp little by little, some day their customers will be in hot water.
I’ve been interested in getting a 3d printer for a while now but am not deep into what’s out there, does the ender 3 pro require any cloud or services that I can’t run locally to function?
Edit: same question for the snapmaker U1.
Also, where do you source your fillament from? Any other ongoing maintenance requirements (material-wise)?
I want a 3d printer, not some new relationship with a corporation.
Ender 3 Pro is a completely offline printer. It has a microSD slot and a USB port, that’s it. No network connectivoty at all. It runs Marlin firmware which is a long-standing Arduino-based open source 3D printer firmware. It’s highly customizable and upgradable. I added a CR Touch bed probe to mine and rebuilt the firmware to enable the unified bed leveling features. It’s not the most user friendly but it’s a decent, cheap platform, fully open source, and puts out decent prints.
You can also run klipper on them if you want network connectivity. Granted you need a raspberry pi to run klipper so there is that.
After running klipper on my Ratrigs I can’t even consider Marlin anymore. Modifying a config file and restarting is less painful than having to compile and flash a bin for every modification or update.
That’s what I switched to about 2 months after getting my Ender 3 S1 Pro. Klipper running from a RPi, lets me push sliced files out over WiFi to the printer right from Orca. So much better than dealing with SD cards.
I’ve come from an ender 3 pro to a Bambu P1S with AMS. As others have said the Bambu environment makes it “apple-like” (for better or for worse) to print. Set up, to print is maybe an hour? You spend the majority of your time with the printer actually printing. Which is why everyone (I included) are so upset about how Bambu is handling this.
Meanwhile the ender you spend the majority of your time getting the printer settings right, adding mods, adding firmware, trying new slicers, bed leveling, etc. I spent so much more time tinkering with my ender than printing that i just gave up printing altogether.
If you want to just print things it’s really hard to beat a Bambu. If you want to tinker and actually learn what 3d printing does and how it works, other printers like an Ender is the way to go.
Thank you, this is very helpful information, too. Lucky for me, I like to reinvent the wheel from time to time for fun, so the more open option isn’t scary, though it does sound like there’s a decent chance my 3d printer will just be a dust collector what with all the other wheels I started reinventing but never finished. But I think I will add another hobby to the collection.
I don’t know much about the Snapmaker U1 other than what’s stated on this thread and on their site. Just looks like a more open alternative to Bambu if you need fancy features like multi filament printing.
I buy most of my filament from Micro Center (their Inland brand) and some I’ve gotten from Amazon.
Thanks for the quick replies! That snapmaker U1 looks great, but I do see that page referencing their app, so it could go either way, depending on whether their app is a mandatory part of the pathway.
The other one sounds like it might be a great way to get my daughter into more techy stuff, since she loves 3d printed stuff, so modifying it and needing to also modify the firmware might even be a plus for that.
I do see that page referencing their app, so it could go either way, depending on whether their app is a mandatory part of the pathway.
It looks like you can control it with vanilla Orcaslicer. See the last post in this Snapmaker forum thread, for instance. It may or may not be willing to take gcode through the USB port—the specs indicate it has one.
It looks to me like they’re continuing in their usual direction of fairly open software on mostly proprietary hardware.
I own a U1 and I use it completely offline from the internet. I upload files to it from OrcaSlicer or use the USB port. I can even use the smart phone app on my local wifi network.
I went with the Qidi Q1 Pro and I’ve been very happy with it. Orca Slicer’s built in profiles for it have worked great so I didn’t have to tinker. It runs Fluidd so once it was connected to the local network I could monitor and control it that way (and it will display directly in Orca Slicer).
There is a setting in the printer’s interface to restrict it to local network only (and just to be absolutely certain I blocked it in my firewall as well). There are no penalties for not connecting it to the internet.
I mean anyprinter can be offline even Bambus. Mine run in LAN mode and are blocked by the router so no internet access. iOS has a really nice handy replacement that works in LAN mode also. I’m not saying buy their printer just that every printer can work offline.
Jumping off of this, as someone who’s been adjacent to 3D printing spaces for over a decade now, what is a good beginner 3D printer for someone who would rather spend less up front and spend more time calibrating and tinkering? Is it still the Ender 3 Pro?
The thing is unless you need the slightly bigger bed size, the A1 mininfrom Bambu is simply a better product. It’s faster, easier, and often cheaper (I got mine for like 150-ish). And the full-size A1 is also bigger.
That’s the thing with Bambu. What’s made them such a disruptor and given them the opportunity to be shitty is that they make a really good product with excellent software at less than half the price of a comparable Prusa.
And with the new SnapMaker U1 slapping back, they dropped their prices again. The new X2D is half the cost of the last-gen X1 and has an extra nozzle.
So what would you recommend to someone who wants to get their hands a bit dirty and is reluctant to put anything on the network?
Also realistically the printer would live in my detached garage which I haven’t yet bothered to setup any sort of wifi in, so a connected printer would balloon the scope of such a project and cause it to intersect with and be blocked by other queued network projects, and sometimes I just don’t want to faff with networking after working how many hours faffing with networking professionally
In that case, for a random person I’d still recommend Bambu unless you’re boycotting on ethical grounds.
Their printers run just fine without a network. Just export the g-code to a microSD card, put the card in the printer, and select the model from the card. It also allows you to use whatever slicer you want that way.
It’s really only cloud printing that’s locked behind Bambu Studio.
If your don’t mind assembling the printer yourself, get a Voron 2.4 kit. It’s an open-source 3d printer, perfect for getting your hands dirty. Much easier to upgrade and repair than a Bambu.
Edit: I believe Voron printers are typically used over a network, but you should be able to just plug a monitor into it and do the slicing and printing on it directly. They typically have a Raspberry Pi or a Pi clone built into them for running Klipper.
Oooh I didn’t even know about Voron but I’m very intrigued now by what I’ve read about them
There is one thing everyone misses in this pissing contest. Bambu is a Chinese company. So any lawsuit will probably need to take place in China. It ain’t happening in the US or the Europe. So, guess who wins…
Josef Prusa wrote a blog post, recently about this. I have to apologize that I can’t seem to find a link to it right now. But the gist of it is.
Bambu forked Prusa Slicer and had to be threatened to publish the code for the fork by Prusa the company, “stealing” ideas and claiming it your own is just good business in China, because the code is all AGPL.
But Bambu has a problem now. The Chinese government requires access to their technology and cloud. Because one way or another, the Chinese government requires access to any industries tech under “National Security”. So Bambu can’t allow access to 3rd party actors in this case because the government can’t control the access of the outside code, which makes it illegal.
So Bambu has screwed themselves by forking an open source project that requires anyone to have access to the code and be able to use that code and make changes to that code. That the Chinese government doesn’t allow. And Bambu didn’t pay attention and let that little snippet of code that is under contention loose under the AGPL. As I have claimed all along, Bambu does not have the smartest coders on payroll.
But Bambu is pretty sure the Chinese courts have their back in this matter. In the past, Prusa has seriously considered going after Bambu in court. But the Prusa’s lawyers know they can’t win no matter how righteous the case because, well China. And Prusa most likely has access to much better lawyers than Rossmann does. So this ain’t going nowhere.
Josef Prusa is very angry because it’s evident the AGPL means nothing if it can’t be enforced and Bambu is worried that it will get screwed over in the market because they could lose a lot of sales over this. Or even get their products banned in some countries. Or not. Many Bambu fans seem to care very little about it. Because just use “Developer Mode” without understanding the deeper implications. And that it’s not really any protection.
Edit to add: When push comes to shove, just who do you think Bambu is going bend the knee to? Some court 1000s of miles away? Or the Chinese government that’s right outside the door? And yes, if you want to sue a Chinese company about patent, you will need to do it in China.
Does Rossman have any presence in China? If not, and if the files are hosted outside China, there’s nothing China can do.
These particular files are hosted on GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, which currently enjoys the ability to do business in China. There are probably things China can do in this case.
You mean get Microsoft to take it down? And then it goes back up on a self-hosted git repo? This does not enable Bambu, Microsoft, or anyone else to sue Rossman in China.
For the Chinese government, it’s not as much about where the files are hosted. It’s about whether they can control the code in the name of ‘national security’. And third party code is outside of Chinese governmental oversight and control. Remember the “Great Wall of China” and the internet? That’s the control they seek.
And the Chinese government will punish Bambu if they do not stop it. Which why they will have Bambu’s back in a Chinese court. And why Bambu has screwed themselves and are between a rock and a hard place.
Right. By their argument it seems like China can get fucked because what are they gonna do, kidnap him and bring him to China to face charges?
The Chinese government does not are about Rossmann. They care about control of Bambu.
If they open an office in US, can’t they sue? Chinese companies have sued US companies before.
EDIT: I meant other way around, same thing.
Can’t you just hide the fact that you used the smell snippet of code?
My next printer is definitely going to be a Snapmaker.
They one-upped Bambu with the fully open approach of the U1, did a better tool changing printer at a lower cost, and are now supporting the good fight. I really hope it’s not a publicity stunt before enshittification begins, but so far, I’m liking them a lot.
Fingers crossed for a slightly improved U1 - primarily, a larger print volume (I’d be super happy with a ~5cm increase in all directions, making it 320x320x320), which I’m buying the moment it becomes available.
How’s the repairability of the printer? Can you get replacement parts from 3rd parties? Can you get different nozzle sizes?
I currently just use an Ender 3 Pro, and it’s comforting to know that I can easily get replacement parts and upgrades for anything on the printer. And I can trust that’ll continue for years, even if Creality goes out of business
I also use 0.2mm nozzles fairly often for smaller, more detailed prints like tabletop minis. I can get quality that almost matches SLA printers
Unless they’ve changed in the past few years, most parts are proprietary and will have to come from Snapmaker or their resellers. Swaps are usually at the module level. So the flexibility in parts sourcing is much lower than your Ender 3. On the plus side, they’re usually good about honouring warranties.
Nozzles with other aperture sizes are available from Snapmaker for the U1. It’s possible that the nozzles are a standard size (my older Snapmaker 2 uses the same nozzles as your Ender 3), but I can’t find a specification anywhere.
TL;DR: If your priority is varied parts sourcing for longevity, maybe look at a different manufacturer.
No idea, I do not have a Snapmaker… I fell for the Bambu marketing and the lack of availability of good alternatives circa 2 years ago, and hopefully this X1C will serve me for the next two three years - but I am feeling the limitations of a single print head and the build volume.
Does this community not allow videos? I tried posting a link to it directly yesterday, but Automod removed it instantly.
Yeah happens to me all the time. It’s not a good rule imo but doesn’t matter we have different subs 🙂
I don’t mind it being a rule, but I do mind it being a secret. It needs to be mentioned in the sidebar (probably as an addendum to rule #2).
Forum rules should be public, and it’s generally better for everyone if they’re specific, too.
When I report content, it’s better when the report form gives me a list of stuff to choose from, and I can check off the box.
When moderators remove content, they should have the same experience. It makes things easier for them.
Users who read the rules don’t end up getting upset about wasting time having their content that they worked hard on removed.
I don’t think it’s a good experience for users if moderators even appear to be power-tripping, and that’s often what it looks like if they are moderating without rules.
The exception that I think most people would agree with is that when the rules are specific, you can get trolls who specialize in barely not breaking the rules, while tricking other people into breaking the rules. So, good moderators do need a little discretion, but I think most of their moderation would be easier with specific rules.
(Premise: I don’t have a 3D Printer, have next to zero experience using one and never heard of this controversy before. I’m just asking out of curiosity)
I’m in favor of people using open-source software to use better the stuff they bought, but putting aside my bias that seems pretty clearly an illegal thing, can someone ELI5 how could they not lose if they’re sued?
What I understood is that Bambu Lab sold those printers advertising cloud access to their proprietary servers through their “official means”, but a lot of people used unofficial open-source software to access it, because it worked better. Then at a certain point, the company disabled access to apps that weren’t their proprietary one, but people kept using them. Which prompted the company to sue.
It’s an ass move to do, but the open-source software wasn’t officially supported even before, right? And now it’s still used to access their company cloud, not a separate one, right?
From my understanding they didn’t remove any functionality that was officially advertised, and people are now using unauthorized software to access the company’s proprietary cloud, did I misunderstand something?
Bambu Lab’s software is forked from software that used the AGPL license. Then they made their code closed source, which is expressly forbidden by AGPL.
Bambu Labs are the ones who have been in the wrong this entire time, it’s just that nobody has seriously called them out on it before
Oh, wow. Yes, that’s illegal.
I see. Then wouldn’t suing them over this have worked better than “daring” them to sue for this? Or can they use the AGPL argument to win in court even if the case is related to cloud access?
EDIT: actually, is the case over cloud access? Another commenter said it’s DMCA takedowns, is that what they’re using?
Bambu is trying to stop people from using their AGPL code using DMCA takedowns. The AGPL clearly says anyone can use the code. Seems simple to me. If they didnt want people to use their code, they shouldnt have used the AGPL.
…oh. The article only mentions a cease and desist, I didn’t think they were using DMCA takedowns. So the issue (according to Bambu Labs) is that they’re using “their” code, not that they’re accessing their cloud?
Fighting a cease and desist takes money. Lots of it. Especially when the company you’re fighting is making billions of dollars on their product. And the guy who created the fork doesn’t have that kind of dough. So he opted to not fight it.
Therefore it is left up to others fight those battles.
I was pretty close to buying a P2S until I saw Jeff Geerlings latest video, which led me to Rossmanns. Bambu labs obviously hates its users, why would I give them my money?
I bought my Bambu back when orca slicer and local network was out of the box supported. It was only a few months later that they locked out their firmware and started down this path.
I’ve been steadfastly refusing to update firmware. I hope to modify it someday but if not, I’ll just make sure it’s my last Bambu.
I don’t really see the point. I mean, why bother to try to do something that just makes the company’s printers more desirable? Even if you “win”, the company is going to be a pain in the ass. Do you really want to waste time and financial resources on improving the company’s product?
Just don’t buy Bambu Lab printers. Don’t recommend them. And don’t support them with software.
If this was a world in which there was one 3D printer manufacturer, it’d be different, but it’s not. They have competition.
Because what Bamboo has done is screw over existing customers. People want their printers back to the way they baught it. They shouldn’t have to throw their printers in the trash because the manufacture decided to changed the conditions.
If you buy a car with heated seats and 3 years later, the manufacture decided to disable your heated seats unless you paid a subscription, you’d be pretty upset.
If you buy a car with heated seats and 3 years later, the manufacture decided to disable your heated seats unless you paid a subscription, you’d be pretty upset.
It’s sad that this isn’t even an unrealistic example
It technically is because the subscription was supposed to be available if you did NOT order the car with heated seats. Idk if they ever actually went through with it.
This makes Bambu even worse than BMW which is an accomplishment to say the least
Tech companies do this every week. It’s like a trade agreement with Trump. Both agree and sign a EULA, then they just throw it out. Cricut did this with their systems. Fucking legal because of shit laws.
Sure, I’d like that, but I’m not going to keep personally fighting to make life better for that manufacturer’s customers. Not when there are other car manufacturers that aren’t pulling that stuff that people can be directed to.
Is the message you want to send “if you buy product from a vendor who actively goes out of their way to dick over open-source developers, it probably won’t matter for me as a customer because those developers will keep expending time and accepting legal risk to try to improve the situation for those customers”? Or do you want it to be “you probably want to look for open-source friendly manufacturers”?
This is in response to Bambu labs enshittifying with post-sale software updates and cloud changes.
When the printers were sold they had functions that were removed in later firmware updates. This software is re-enabling those features, some of which still exist in the firmware but were hidden from the user with a software update.
It’s not such much that the developer is trying to improve Bambu Lab’s value proposition as they are trying to make the printer that they paid for work like it did when they bought it.
Bambu did the biggest own-goal I have seen in decades. Meanwhile, at Snapmaker…
As someone with a BL P2S I really appreciate other people helping with this fight. I won’t buy another BL product but I’d like to keep using the one I already have.
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