Capitalism with Chinese characteristics strikes again.
oh no the thing that everyone said would happen happened? who could have foreseen this?!
Just of note, the Jeff Geerling has already made a video about Bambu’s shenanigans previously when they announced that third-party software and hardware to be blocked, discussing how he no longer recommended Bambu printers. He’s not oblivious or an idiot.
This article is specifically criticising Bambu for directly targeting open-source developers and claiming that the security issues of their cloud service should be blamed on OrcaSlicer (?!?!).
sure but he only changed his tune last year. bambu has been doing shady shit for years and just gotten away with it.
At least he’s a lot better than other channels that cover 3D printing that continue to promote Bambu Lab printers, presumably being paid a lot of money
Certainly not everyone who said this would happen!
Glad I got a prusa
Knew it at the start and know it again now, that it was the right decision.
My Voron 2.4 doesn’t seem to care about clouds, what slicer I use, filament brand, etc. It just works.
I think Louis Rossman is going after them
Not quite yet. He’s basically said he’s ready to back a legal challenge to it.
Louis is encouraging someone to keep doing what they’re doing despite Bambu sending someone a cease and desist and Louis will provide some funding for legal support if Bambu keeps pushing. But there isn’t anything going directly after them yet.
He just uploaded orcaslicer to the FULU GitHub and invited Bambu to sue him instead… I’m ordering popcorn in bulk for this one 🍿
You’re right. Maybe it better in general to let other people fight while he supports, this way more people learn to fight back.
He’s calling for donations in order to fight them
When did he do that? Last time I remember there was no link
you can donate to Fulu foundation.
The former poster was incorrect in saying he was asking for donations (he was asking for people to say they would donate, if the need were to arise)
However, a few hours ago, he uploaded a followup video stating he has uploaded the code in question himself, and is inviting Bambu Labs to challenge him legally. In the video he did mention where donations could be made but I don’t recall him specifically asking for donations for this particular cause.
he has uploaded the code in question himself
Uploaded it to…GitHub. Where Bambu will send them some legal threat and they’ll take it down like they always do.
Yeah, I don’t think Louis Rossman has the means to host his own website or upload it somewhere else.
He absolutely does. Who do you think hosts consummerrights.wiki?
I know he does. I was saying that the code getting taken down from GitHub would be nowhere near the “end of the battle”. He would just rehost it elsewhere.
Splitting hairs here imo. His 2nd video was baller
For what end, if he succeeds they’ll just remove it from the market.
If by “it” you mean the printer, not at easy move imo
I bought an x1c in 2023 as I was getting into printing, but I’ve pretty much stopped buying anything from Bambu. I get my filament 3rd party, I dont care about the rfid tags and their system doesn’t deserve my money anymore, and I’m already stocked on consumables for the next 1500hrs of run time on my printer.
I have never bought Bambu filament. There’s a far wider array of types and colors available to print with online, cheaper, than Bambu’s offerings. It only takes a few minutes to calibrate and save the settings for a 3rd party filament. The only thing it should be necessary to buy from Bambu is replacement parts.
The bulk deals at Bambu were pretty inline price wise with china filament- I was getting it under $14 a kilo. and I do like their refillable spools reducing overall waste and taking up way less storage space in my cabinet. But yeah none of that’s worth it at this point, and their bulk deals are all mostly gone.
I mostly use Sunlu at ~$10/spool. Also refillable.
When the hell did sunlu come out with refillable spools??
V3, a couple years ago, I think.
Goddamn maybe I’ll go back to them then. Thats hot.
When I was in college we used a lot of Sunlu in the engineering makerspace I was part of, but I haven’t really seen their stuff since I graduated, which is like 3 years ago. They were still using the solid black spools then.
“Felony contempt of business model”
Damn, I naively bought an A1 a few months ago for my first 3d printer. “Easy for beginners” was really all I knew about them at the time
The problem is they keep ignoring their own EULA and just change things.
Their slicer is a fork of an AGPL open source slicer, as such they cannot lock down the software without violating the license. Slice3r does not have the resources to sue Bambu, but Fulu does.
I have an A1 too, and when the news came out that third-party slicers (like OrcaSlicer, which I was and still am using) were going to be blocked, I set my printer to LAN only mode. I wouldn’t recommend a Bambu to newbies to 3D printing anymore, but I’m stuck with mine and it has been printing ok. Like any printer, it struggles with overhangs and such, it’s not always a magic “it just works” experience".
Bambu Lab printers to me are for the people who don’t care about tinkering on their printer as a hobby, and just want to print things without fuss. Stay in their Apple-like ecosystem and their cloud environment and you’ll be perfectly happy. If you want the printer itself to be the hobby, there are a number of similar spec devices that with some tinkering can work just as well.
Some tinkering. I’m done with that shit. I want to print stuff not mess with the printer to print something. Say what you want but bamboo brought that to the people as the industry was pretty stagnant till they arrived. Sure they are assholes now but they did move the industry forward.
the industry was pretty stagnant till they arrived
not exactly, a bunch of patents expired and Bambu were the first to take advantage.
Right there with you. Until there’s another product just like it, I’m going to stick with the ecosystem. I did the hobby thing tinkering on an Ender 3, now I just want my printer to print the models I make.
What are my options if I don’t want the printer itself to be the hobby, and I just want to print without fuss, but I also don’t want to deal with all that vertical integration crap?
My Anycubic Kobra 3v2 is really easy to print with. Never had a Bambu and I have had several printers now. By far the easiest to just have print a thing.
Just about any modern printer “just works” these days.
Prusa is fantastic in terms of openness and self-repairability, but it is pretty expensive due to the fact that it’s all made in the EU, and not in sweatshops in China.
The Snapmaker U1 is a good alternative if you want something far less expensive, but it’s not going to be quite as open and repairable.
You go for a commercial-grade machine and spend thousands, honestly. Imo, none of the other consumer-grade machines really offer that out of the box experience. They all require something, and that something depends on the printer.
Well, the most open you can get is Prusa’s machines. Repairable, upgradeable, with great customer service to boot.
Other companies are more open than Bambu but few support the open-source movement like Prusa. Qidi, Elegoo, etc. all have great printers that I can recommend (Q2 and Centauri Carbon are fantastic options based on feature set) but they don’t use a very open firmware. They are compatible with OrcaSlicer and aren’t as bad as Bambu though.
Prussa has its own issues and are starting to close things down.
Only in the fact that they’re restricting commercial repurposing of their IP. They’re still just as open in terms of LAN only and using any software you want to interact with your printer directly, without going through their servers.
In terms of home users, they still provide every single part as a 3d model you can print at home.
I’m not sure what any home users would want beyond what they’re offering.
You’re also giving money to a company that has completely screwed all the people who made 3d printing possible by a culture of open sharing.
They are… My daughter wanted one for Christmas last year because she’s into cosply and it works great out of the box for someone who has no idea about 3d printing…
But from what I’ve read on here it’s not the best company because of all the proprietary shit they keep coming up with.
For what daughter uses it for, it does the job and does it well…
Always have been.
They’re just trying to protect their ass from when somebody 3D prints a gun and goes out and kills somebody the state considers “important”
(ie; not you.)
I feel like you didn’t even read the blog post or have any clue what this is about.
