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  • UNY0N@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Prusa for the win yet again. I recently upgraded to MK4, and the thing just keeps. On. Going. Great customer support. They work with 3rd party suppiers instead of against them. Worth every cent.

    • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      Yep, and the fact you can upgrade to new versions is amazing, only paying for the new parts, not a whole new printer.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      I had a side gig as the printer mechanic for a small company that 3D printed bracketry for their product. They used both genuine and “knockoff” (open source ftw) Prusa Mk3s. I’d kinda like to staple Josef Prusa’s foreskin to the ceiling. I think it would make him have better ideas than the extruder-and-hot-end-assembly that those machines currently have. Deal breaking issues I’ve had with them in service:

      • Nothing is connectorized at the business end. If you need to replace either of the two fans, the extruder motor, the PINDA probe, the temperature sensor, the heater cartridge, you have to partially disassemble the extruder mechanism and unwrap the wiring harness. The filament runout sensor is connectorized at the tiny little board, but…

      • The wiring harness passes through a hole in the back of the carriage plate and most of the wires have to fit into one of two little slots as the extruder mechanism is attached to the carriage. It’s really easy to pinch or sever wires like this, and it means you can’t replace a broken fan or something without partial disassembly.

      • The PINDA probe mount is about 3 planck lengths thick. It’s subject to some load from the thickness of the PINDA probe’s cable, it’s rather near the hot end and the heat plate, so I’ve seen them warp or break under continuous use. And it’s built into a foundational part of the mechanism so it’s not a quick swap, it’s a 100% teardown and rebuild from scratch.

      • The whole thing is a demented sandwich with like 25 printed plastic parts. It’s a convoluted thing to work on, even if it’s not printed in gloss black so you can make out the shape of everything. But they print it in gloss black.

      -It’s not designed to be built up as an assembly that can be easily and quickly attached and detached from the printer. In service, this makes it impossible to have a spare extruder assembly built up so when you get “Number 3 needs a new nozzle” you can swap in the spare assembly, return the machine to service, and then work on the part at your leisure. No, the production manager is breathing down your neck with a machine in many pieces. Hand me my stapler, I just want to talk to him.

      • Those goddamn pressed in square nuts. If you want to re-use the hardware because one of the many plastic pieces partially broke in a way that means you HAVE to replace it, re-using the hardware is just one more jumper cable to the cornea.

      It’s not specific to the Extruder mechanism, but because nothing is connectorized at the business end, you end up having to open the main board’s enclosure and dealing with shit in there, and there isn’t room. It’s turned the wrong way; the connectors and shit should be on the OUTSIDE of the printer so you could get to them easier and most of the cover should hinge or bolt off.

      For an 8-bit AVR-based Mendel pattern machine they work surprisingly well when they’re in good shape but they are a PAIN IN THE TAINT to keep running in a production environment. I have the skills to do better than this but I’m not doing it for free.

      • UNY0N@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        Ouchie. OK, I get all that, not gonna argue.

        But I’m in a completely different position as a hobbyist, I have completely different criteria.

        Thanks for sharing!

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          Some of this I think still goes for hobbyists if they plan to buy the printer as a kit. The first (of like, eight) Prusas I built I had a hell of a time assembling the extruder mech because it’s not designed to be easy or sane to assemble, I still pinched wires, not bad enough to break anything but still. And I had built several 3D printers and a couple laser engravers prior to this.

          And that PINDA probe mount is still hilariously delicate.

          As a hobbyist machine that will spend most of its time powered off, they’re fine. For their gantry mechanism and the 8-bit control board, they’re surprisingly high quality if slightly slow printers.

          Oh there’s another thing: The Prusa community is in the bad habit of sharing G-Code rather than STLs, because everyone everywhere has the same printer, right?

          My personal printer is still my first manually leveled Folger 2020 i3 with some customization of mine, and I don’t need another.

  • bluewing@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    This is a risk with any item that requires software to function. Companies can change software licensees, lock-in buyers, and even open source can flat out abandon a project.

    I just bought a Bambu Mini to sit along side my trusty 6 year old Mk3s+ and this pisses me off to no end. I was expecting my mini to simply be abandoned rather than suffer a lock-in AND then abandonment. So, I guess I won’t be updating my firmware nor will I run anything through their cloud. I was thinking of uploading a few designs to their cloud. But that ain’t going to happen now.

    • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      This is a risk with any item that requires software to function.

      Absolutely not true, it’s only a risk on products with cloud dependencies. Which is exactly why I ensure every electronic device I own doesn’t have that.

      • bluewing@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        You have never had older software devices go bad have you? It’s not only cloud connected stuff you lose.

    • Crazyslinkz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      I was looking at a mini, someone recommended Bambu. I might just stick with my old ender 3 pro until it stops functioning.

      • _thebrain_@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        There is really no reason for your ender to stop functioning. 90% of it is off the shelf parts, and things like wiring harnesses and custom stuff are also available.

    • curiouschipmunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      To comment on one of your points, something that gets lost when people learn about open source (at least most traditional licenses): nobody can change the license of something that was released so you have the option to fix it yourself or hire someone else to do it for you. While it’s incredibly powerful thing to have, many people only look at open source as “free (as in beer) stuff with free support”. Thing is, even if there’s no chance in earth you’ll fix it yourself, it’s likely someone out there who’s in the same situation will do it and make available for others. Key here is having popular and open enough hardware that people can replace or the software completely or keep its development (if open).

      As open source printers go, you can always use the parts to convert it to a different printer but that requires tinkering. Perhaps this move will piss off enough some Bambu users that they’ll make the switch away from the “I just want something that works” mindset into tinkers.

  • Snapz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Do they really think they are that mainstream now that they can pull the “fuck you” switch? You’re still almost exclusively patronized by the people that can actually read and think, bambu. Your customer will decidedly act against your broken business now. Enjoy.

    This is Reddit, but if you want to hear from the asshole making decisions and see their username. https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/comments/zmz8vv/i_am_dr_ye_tao_ceo_of_bambu_lab_ask_me_anything/

  • philpo@feddit.orgEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    For everyone in the EU who bought their product within the last two years directly from Bambu Land or from a German reseller:

    Stay calm. There is a very highly probability that German customer protection laws will cover your asses - Bambu Lab EU is based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and German customer protection laws goes beyond EU rules and applies to you.

    I am currently working with three other enthusiasts, one being a lawyer -working in a different field, though- to clarify our options and will also talk to a customer protection agency.

    Short explanation:

    • German customer protection laws enable the customer of any online shop to “check” the sold product for 14d in a way they would check the product at a real world shop. The feature set and sales claims provided at this time do provide the base for finalization of the sale.

    • The seller (!= Manufacturer!) has to provide a warranty for two years - for 6 months the burden of prove that the fault was not present at the delivery falls towards the seller, for the remaining time to the buyer. As BL does communicate the chanhe openly this is not an issue.

    • BL furthermore claims that some uses fall outside the “intended use”. This is completely irrelevant - that is only relevant if they claim that they cannot provide warranty due to use outside the intended use. They still cannot reduce the feature set.

    • Which holds more merit is the claim of BL that they are reducing a side feature/unintended feature. This explanation has, in the past, been used a few times in court successfully,but lately it has not been accepted anymore - even App connections for cars have been deemed a “base feature” that might play a significant role in choosing a car. It especially has not merit in cases when this defence is used to force a user to give up their (sensitive) data.

    • BL also has a five year update policy in their TOS (which is mostly invalid otherwise,though) - and blocking users from updating if they don’t want to loose features and give up data is also very likely a breach of contract.

    • There are also GDPR and market law implications that need to be considered.

    What does that all mean? What can happen in the end?

    It is highly unlikely that this proceedings can change the course of BL - these companies don’t give a fuck. But it might force them to basically reverse the sale (you would need to pay them for the actual use, though - but that is miniscule). Of course BL can also close their office in the EU and try to only sell from outside the EU - but that will put a very large crosshair on their back in terms of customs and taxes.

    I keep you updated.

      • philpo@feddit.orgEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        The updated blog post does change the legal position they have maneuvered themselves in within the EU.

        Also,they are basically lying in their post:

        We want to make it absolutely clear that all of these claims are entirely false: Bambu Lab will remotely disable your printer (“brick” it). Firmware updates will block your printer’s ability to print.

        While:

        Due to the importance of these updates, your product may block new print job before the updates is installed, and will immediately provide update notifications to help you understand the related information.

        (TOS 7.4)

        Additionally the required certificates of course have a expiry date and after that you won’t be able to connect outside of developer mode.

        Legally, they are also in hot water with their “no support” developer mode at least within the EU. First of all they can’t remove support for functions that were present at the time of the sale. Additionally denying support within the warranty period for use that is within the normal use even if developer modes,etc. are used is considered illegal - they can ask Samsung, Google and Sony about their experience in court for those cases, they all failed.

  • randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Y’all, I fell for it.

    I bought a Bambu X1C and fully regret it. Just sent them a return request and called their product Defective by design in my RMA. I don’t expect them to acknowledge it but I figured I would send them a hefty fu first. I’m spending the rest of my afternoon downgrading firmware on this thing until I can install X1plus on it. Where am I buying my next 3D printer? Prusa? Do they have a bigger one that can print ppa-cf?

    • “They played us like a damn fiddle!” Kazuhira Miller
    • philpo@feddit.orgEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      Are you within the EU? If yes, there is a good chance you can force them to return it - they fall under German law as Bambu Lab EU is based in Germany and German consumer protection laws are very strict in that terms.

    • NekuSoul@lemmy.nekusoul.deEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      You would think that everybody owning a 3D printer would at least be somewhat of a tinkerer and therefore oppose this. Looking around however I’ve already seen a frustrating amount of people ridiculing the people calling this out. You’re probably right though and the people who don’t care will probably mostly have gathered around Bambu.

      • dom@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        The whole point of bambu was that it was a 3d printer for people who didn’t want to tinker.

        The people on this sub assume everyone who buys products do a ton of research on the companies making those products instead of just watching a couple reviews.

        Most people are not as informed as those that appear in a dedicated 3d printing sub.

    • myplacedk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      I care. I bought Bambu anyway, because there’s a LAN only option. I enabled it today. I am also not going to upgrade firmware.

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        I’ve been considering a Bambu until today. From what I learned today, there is no Lan only option. It now must connect to their servers to let you print. They also said they will disable your ability to print if you don’t upgrade the firmware.

        • myplacedk@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          I wouldn’t buy a new Bambu now. But the one I have has a LAN only option, and i assume it will keep it as long as I don’t upgrade my firmware.

          I don’t see how they would disable my printer without updating firmware. Maybe I should block all internet communication just to be sure.

          • Quack@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            6 months ago

            You should definitely block it from having internet access. I don’t see any way how they’d prevent us from printing when not on the latest firmware if it can’t phone home.

      • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        For how long? 3d printer firmware upgrades often bring some meaningful enhancements. Imagine that might be hard to resist forever

        • myplacedk@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          Forever is a long time. I’m sad I won’t get upgrades, but I didn’t expect any when I bought it. I’ll be fine for a while.

          When I feel that big an itch for a new thing, I’ll buy a new thing. Probably something Prusa branded.

      • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        there’s a LAN only option. I enabled it today.

        Do you trust it to not “phone home” anyway?

        • BlackAura@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          That’s a separate issue from requiring internet access / cloud / their servers to be online to print.

        • myplacedk@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          I assume it does. If I had a big problem with that, I wouldn’t have connected it to the internet in the first place.

          However, the talk about disabling printers without this update makes me think I should probably block it.

    • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgOPEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      Well, I don’t own my own printer yet, and I plan on buying Prusa because they’re (still mostly) open-source and respect the user, even though every Tom, Dick and Harry tells me to get a Bambu printer because they’re three times cheaper and better.

      This is why I won’t get a Bambu printer.

      • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        They’re not open source anymore. You can’t be mostly open source, you either are or are not.

        IMO they started exactly the same path Bambu goes (though Bambu has a great head start).

        • ffhein@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          I admit this is speculation, but I got the impression that Prusa is moving away from open source because they’re salty about other companies cloning their products and selling them much cheaper than the “original” parts. Proprietary parts, patents, etc. is of course worse for the user than a fully open ecosystem, but he isn’t necessarily going full anti-consumer.

          • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.worldEnglish
            0·
            6 months ago

            I mean, you either can afford Prusa or you can’t. A Chinese fake Prusa knockoff is in no way interesting to people who want and expect the Prusa quality (though I haven’t had much luck with the fabled quality myself, the printer needed fixing multiple times). And people who can’t afford a Prusa are not a potential customer anyway. So cheap knockoffs are not stealing any customers.

            Bambu is who’s stealing Prusa’s customers en masse and Prusa decided that they’re gonna slowly lock down their ecosystem while benefiting from years of open source by other people and projects. Which is, ironically enough, their stated reason for locking their ecosystem - people benefiting from their open source work while being closed.

  • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    I wonder how easy would it be to swap the controller for something more open like the BTT boards? That way you’d get the nice design and an open platform. I’m not sure how much of their wiring could be repurposed for this though.

    • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      The controller, at least in the A1 and A1 mini, is an ESP chip. Probably an ESP32S3. You don’t need to swap any hardware, just open it up and find its UART pins to flash it.

      (I know they’re ESPs because the device name shows up as espressif on my router)

      • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        That doesn’t mean it’s the board actually controlling the printer though. It could just be used as an interface component because they’re easy to use as the middle-man on network connected devices.

            • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
              0·
              5 months ago

              You’d be surprised how often the UART is already exposed for factory programming.

              As well, what I gathered from that thread is that they aren’t supported, because it’s a bit of overhead, and because they aren’t supported no one makes ESP32 printer boards. I think if suddenly a whole bunch of folks with A1s wanted to replace the firmware that might be a good userbase to add support for?

              • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                0·
                5 months ago

                Maybe, maybe not it’s hard to say. I think most BL printer owners don’t really care or don’t want to mess with soldering tiny wires to tiny pads on their board and mess with flashing the device. The people buying these are generally not the tech-fiddling type.

                • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                  0·
                  5 months ago

                  I’m the tech-fiddling type and I bought one, my housemate is the tech-fiddling type and she bought one, our friend is the tech-fiddling type and she bought one. We all bought them because we wanted to spend our tech-fiddling time on the projects themselves and not on the printer.

      • NekuSoul@lemmy.nekusoul.deEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        Exactly. When purchasing any modern device I ask myself as to how much a company can screw me if they turn hostile out of nowhere. If I can’t handle that risk, I don’t purchase that product. Not having open source firmware that’s connected to the internet is a huge red flag.

  • Nightsoul@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Lol knew it was only a matter of time before bambu did something stupid. Always had a funny feeling about them in the back of my head, like too good to be true.

    • Zetta@mander.xyzEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      Never go proprietary when great open source alternatives exist, honestly people who bought Bambu deserve what they’re gonna get.