Bambu Lab pushes a “control system” for 3D printers, and boy, did it not go well
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Because there is no evidence for the assertions, that are coming from "the same crowd" that has been saying stuff like this about Bambu for years now. The burden of proof is on them, not some "all things trend towards shit" cynicism.
I don't cheerlead companies. I have a Prusa, I have a Bambu, I have a Uniformation. I do not have a t-shirt for any of them. I have in the past recommended all of them to people.
Bambu excites me because they make good hardware, but more importantly they were the first ones to really crack the code to open 3D printing to a wider audience. Not people who wanted to tinker. Not open source enthusiasts. Not "get an Ender 3 and here's the list of upgrades".
If someone else can fill that void, great.
I'm interested in 3D printing as an essential tool. I would not live without a 3D printer again. Whoever helps me share that with other people has my attention.
My frustration comes from seeing all these comments saying "oh I was about to buy one, guess I'll skip". I think the idea that a $349 A1 is going to turn into a paperweight is straight up FUD, and that if someone was going to get one, or has one (see above) they should just enjoy it. They don't have to spend $999 for a Prusa instead, unless they want to.
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I have a 5TH XL that's been working great too. Had problems with horizontal artifacts but pinged support which pointed out that I didn't do belt tuning since mine was a kit, and that's all fixed. Only hardware issue is the tool light doesn't appear stable when hotend is heated up, but I turn that off anyways since it's blindingly bright and blinds cameras.
Mine was shipped in May so had PETG parts instead of PCCF, so had to replace a lot of parts for the OEM enclosure (they were included with said enclosure), so that was an annoyance, but new printers should have them. I think the only current real problem is price.
It'd be nice to have an S upgrade for better part cooling though for overhangs like the MK4, but multi material supports mitigate this somewhat.
Upgrading to 5x high flow nozzles for faster/stronger printing is going to be bloody expensive (5x64$ +shipping and not on sale) but I guess that's just the nature of toolchangers. Apparently the XL is flow rate limited and not motion system limited and the nozzles address that (plus having a higher effective filament temp without cooking the filament results in stronger parts)
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100% this, really good way to express it.
I think people should enjoy it however they want. Being into the hardware is totally fun. Supporting open source is great. I felt really good about buying my Prusa. I don't think they have the value to recommend to casual buyers right now, you pay a lot more for them, but if their ethos is worth that price to you? Go for it.
There is nothing wrong with buying an 'appliance' printer though, a machine that just works. Bambu is not open source. But they sell all the parts you might need to repair things, they're not black boxes. People buy sewing machines, dishwashers, washing machines, etc etc that are way more inscrutable all the time. For more money!
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I share my 3D printing stuff on Bluesky in the hopes that it inspires someone, or does my little part to normalizing 3D printing being useful and interesting. And, it's fun to show off things you're proud of making in CAD and printing.And printing kick-ass storage solutions, posted on Bluesky
My Hex/star wrenches are nowhere near as fancy as yours, but you've made me start looking into custom making a tray/rack for them
I've been 3D printing 'seriously' for over 6 years, so not like a crazy veteran, but been using the tech for a bit. The magic just doesn't wear off for me. Design a part on your screen, and a few hours later hold it in your hands? So fucking cool.
I want more people to experience it. People don't have to get a Bambu. Or a Prusa. There's a whole ecosystem of options. If neither of those are right for you? Ask for advice, post your budget, people will help.
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The Prusa XL debacle was why I pulled my year old deposit back and bought two of the X1C's. Now, because of two really poor customer service interactions and this latest issue I'm unlikely to buy anything significant from Bambu. I smell the subscriptions in the pipeline and for me that's not happening.
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I have a Prusa i3 mk3 that I bought when they first came out, 7 years ago. I've printed some upgrades for it from STL files in Prusa's repos, but it's otherwise the same printer.
It was a challenge at the start, but I got it tuned, and it worked.
Many years later, Prusa still ships firmware updates for it, and it is incredibly reliable and prints basically always come out fine. I've absolutely gotten my money's worth compared to other printers I could have bought at the time.
So it may be the same printer, but Prusa's continued support has elevated it far beyond what I initially bought.
My next printer will surely be a Prusa.
It was a challenge at the start, but I got it tuned, and it worked.
Many years later, Prusa still ships firmware updates for it, and it is incredibly reliable and prints basically always come out fine. I've absolutely gotten my money's worth compared to other printers I could have bought at the time.
So it may be the same printer, but Prusa's continued support has elevated it far beyond what I initially bought.
My next printer will surely be a Prusa.
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I bought an Infimech TX back in October for around $330 because I didn't want to have to be connected to Bambu server to run my prints. I think it's great, and generally reviews the same as Bambu printers. Be careful of Creality K1s if you go that route, because there are many different versions and they are not created equal.
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But there is evidence. The evidence is what kicked off this whole kerfuffle. As Jeff Geerling put it, they changed the deal. When someone does that, you don't just look at the new deal in isolation, you re-evaluate your entire trust relationship. They're in Darth Vader territory now. If they changed the deal once, what's stopping them from changing it again? And the logical question to ask after that is, what will they change it to?
It's not necessarily all things trend towards shit, but some things certainly do, and when you see a new little smear of shit somewhere you didn't notice it before...
Now, I can't speak to whatever it is people have been saying about Bambu for years now. I'm sure some people were always upset that it's not more open source*, but from the general community I feel like it's been overwhelmingly positive. That's clearly changed -- this is not just coming from open source fanatics, it's coming from inside the house.
* Of course, if some people were warning, "Hey, this Bambu ecosystem is nice, but it's all proprietary -- watch out or they might lock it down even more," those people look more prescient than crazy to me.
I don't think anyone thinks they're going to turn into a paperweight. That's hyperbole. But people are rightfully concerned that they might turn into a less useful printer than they were before. Because that's exactly what this update did. I think they're also right to fear further changes like that in the future, including ones that might make the printers more expensive to own or use in the ways they want to. That's what this broken trust implies.
It's also very reasonable for people in the market for a printer to be taking that broken trust into account. I hope everyone does. That pressure is exactly the thing that tells Bambu they did fuck up.
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They really can't though, at least not for determined owners. They would have had to ship with everything locked down to have a chance at that. And since this is not HP, I am going to go ahead and attribute this to incompetence rather than malice. (Although I am biased -- I just ordered the P1S five days prior to this change.) But I'm also confident enough that I can circumvent any restrictions on my own in the unlikely event that Bambu actually starts locking things down or rent-seeking, assuming somebody else doesn't release a custom FW first.
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I'm still and plan to keep using physical media to communicate with my 3D printer. Most convenience comes at an undisclosed price, and I found that avoiding Cloud services and uselessly connecting everything I own to LAN and Internet is more than a great way to improve security and privacy, it also protects our freedom from grabby tech companies who use Open Source to lure us in and then pulls the rug when their time comes.
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I think overall some of the panic has been a bit overblown in that it's not immediately obvious that Bambu would indeed go to a prescription model. However, all their implementations still rely on their servers and any product that requires internet access for simple LAN communications imho is bad idea. Not only is it a security risk but I don't want hardware that relies on somebody else's computer.
The way BambuLabs has handled the whole kerfuffle just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I was considering at some point exchanging my long in the tooth Creality Ender 3s (that work fine, they're just slow) with a BL unit. But I'm going to hold off and a Prusa is now higher on the list. The only thing I don't like about the Prusa XL with MMU is that it keeps the spools in the open, ready to absorb moisture. At least the BL unit keeps the spools in an enclosure (even if that means requiring re-spooling.)
The way BambuLabs has handled the whole kerfuffle just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I was considering at some point exchanging my long in the tooth Creality Ender 3s (that work fine, they're just slow) with a BL unit. But I'm going to hold off and a Prusa is now higher on the list. The only thing I don't like about the Prusa XL with MMU is that it keeps the spools in the open, ready to absorb moisture. At least the BL unit keeps the spools in an enclosure (even if that means requiring re-spooling.)
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I've gone back and forth on what I think about this: there's a lot of FUD and hyperbole but I also think a lot of legitimate concern.
I like Geerling's take and in general that's where I probably stand too - I'll keep using my printer but I likely won't put more money into Bambu.
I use OrcaSlicer and the Home Assistant HACS integration, both are important parts of my 3D printing workflow and the initial news really bummed me out as both of these were slated to break or at least change substantially. My printer was running in LAN mode before any of this and since then I have blocked its outbound access at the firewall level. I probably won't be doing any firmware updates - at least until things settle down - which also bums me out as I have a long-running support ticket with Bambu about plate recognition that's supposed to get fixed in some future firmware update that now I likely won't be able to take advantage of without risking other features that I probably care about more.
My initial reaction was something along the lines of, "shit, now I have to sell my printer and get out of this ecosystem," but I've calmed down and now agree with a lot of what Aurich's said. I'm not happy about this but a lot of the community's reaction strikes me as over the top.
I like Geerling's take and in general that's where I probably stand too - I'll keep using my printer but I likely won't put more money into Bambu.
I use OrcaSlicer and the Home Assistant HACS integration, both are important parts of my 3D printing workflow and the initial news really bummed me out as both of these were slated to break or at least change substantially. My printer was running in LAN mode before any of this and since then I have blocked its outbound access at the firewall level. I probably won't be doing any firmware updates - at least until things settle down - which also bums me out as I have a long-running support ticket with Bambu about plate recognition that's supposed to get fixed in some future firmware update that now I likely won't be able to take advantage of without risking other features that I probably care about more.
My initial reaction was something along the lines of, "shit, now I have to sell my printer and get out of this ecosystem," but I've calmed down and now agree with a lot of what Aurich's said. I'm not happy about this but a lot of the community's reaction strikes me as over the top.
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chaos215bar2
Ars Praefectus
Or, maybe it's just a bunch of people who have been burned too many times by consumer electronics that became locked down, broken, or otherwise lost functionality in irreversible firmware updates simply screaming as loudly as possible so that maybe the message will come through this time.
I'll say it again. If you don't like this, the answer is half decent consumer protection laws. Since those are absolutely nowhere in sight, expect the extreme backlashes to any move that even hints at the possibility of locking down paid for hardware to continue, especially in those rare hobbyist spaces where something resembling a majority of participants actually recognize how harmful this trend is.
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What printer do you use?
My Prusa Mk3 is literally 5 feet behind me while I'm typing—Bambu lives in the garage workshop and Prusa is in my office—and I still use Octoprint instead of getting up with a physical card. Once you're used to remote printing it's hard to give up.
But it's 100% local. Just a RPi on my wifi, I click a button in PrusaSlicer, it goes. No fuss. No internet, no security issues.
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This argument is driving me crazy! Bambu is not preventing you from using 3rd party slicers. You can use whatever slicer you want, and that slicer will "directly" slice your model! The thing you can't do is send the gcode directly from the slicer to the printer - you either have to use the Bambu Connect software (not sure why people are so up in arms about this, but I digress) or a SD card.
You are correct, that mode was not listed in the initial blog post, hence my statement of how Bambu bungled their initial post. Was it added after the controversy started, or was it always planned? Who knows, and quite honestly it really doesn't matter.
The ability to not upgrade was absolutely in the initial blog post. On multiple occasions Bambu stated that you can chose to stay on the current firmware.
There is no misunderstanding from my part, as Bambu has developed an ecosystem with 3rd party developers that are using official means to communicate with the printer. The issue at hand here is the number of 3rd party developers that did not use official means, and always knew (despite their statements to the contrary) that their methods of communication were not officially supported, and thus could break in future updates.
See above
That's rather beside the point, and I never stated that Prusa didn't provide detailed guides (because of course they do, it's Prusa!) My point about Bambu's repair guides still stands and is just as valid regardless of what Prusa does.
The AMS is unfortunately wasteful, albeit Bambu has worked on reducing waste utilizing advice and suggestions from its customers. That waste doesn't bely the usefulness of the AMS, or how revolutionary it was at launch (and arguably still is). There are other mutli-color/multi-material print systems out (including by Prusa with their MMU3 upgrade), but none are as easy to use or as cost effective as the AMS. Hence my statement that hopefully the competition will catchup, because thus far they haven't.
And I have no sympathy for a holier-than-thou person who just likes to get involved in controversies for the clicks.
With all of the above being said, and a point you obviously missed, I am not directly defending Bambu on these changes, or saying that they are necessary, just that a LOT of the information and discussions going on around this controversy is FUD.
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I see a spectrum, with Jeff Geerling on one end, and Louis Rossman on the other.
I'm on Jeff's end. I don't care for Louis and his style. But I recognize that it's important to have activists holding the line. In the same way I think it's good that the community is pushing back. But people have different goals.
My hope is that Bambu says "our bad, we had what we thought were good intentions, we recognize we fucked up, we're gonna make it right". I feel like some people hope instead that Bambu just dies, or would cheer if they did.
The way you push back kinda points to the different outcomes you want.
I don't want tools to be tied to the cloud. I mentioned Glowforge before, they're the poster child for "don't buy" because of it. With Bambu you can still work locally even if you wrap your house in tinfoil and cut all the connections. Glowforge is a brick without their servers.
As Jeff said, Bambu's approach is not ideal but it's livable. I hope they see reason. I personally think it's likely, because I truly don't believe the company is stupid. But we'll see.
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I think people aren't wrong to be up in arms over it. That's super annoying.
It sounds like if they continue on this path there is a way to embed the connect plugin into Orca? If it's still one click and just works then things aren't really different than they were before. Which would be mostly fine I think. But forcing people to export a file and load another app is lame.
In the same way I don't want to go back to walking an SD card to my Prusa. Or rolling, I can practically spin around in my chair and be at the printer.
It's not a deal breaker, but it's a daily QOL friction that grates on the nerves.
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I will second this. I have three MK4S printers and they require none of the tuning I used to do on the MK3, all three are solid and reliable, they can print overhangs and shallow slopes amazing well, and no crap from the company that I can see... I print all kinds of Gravitrax enhancements for my grandson, so the printers get a lot of use with just about zero hassle.
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Let me preface this by saying that I 100% do not like what Bambu has done here, I do not want to see a world where LAN mode goes away, and I will definitely be watching closely to see how this plays out before investing more money into the Bambu Lab ecosystem.
That said... I think people sometimes see 'cloud connection' and assume that there is no benefit or value to those services. A really underrated aspect of value that Bambu Lab provides to new/casual 3D printer users is the makerworld website and their cloud slicer and app. There's something really special about being able to scroll through cool models on my phone from my couch with my kids, find a fun toy or pokemon model or whatever, hitting print, and having it just work. The cloud slicer means I don't need to open it on my computer, or even have my computer turned on.
Again, I do not agree with these changes and hope that Bambu Lab backs down... I just want to throw out there that even if we moved to a prusa or creality printer that printed just as reliably as our A1 does, the Bambu Lab cloud services do provide real value to me that those printers could not duplicate, and I think people underrate how much of a differentiator that part of the package is.
That said... I think people sometimes see 'cloud connection' and assume that there is no benefit or value to those services. A really underrated aspect of value that Bambu Lab provides to new/casual 3D printer users is the makerworld website and their cloud slicer and app. There's something really special about being able to scroll through cool models on my phone from my couch with my kids, find a fun toy or pokemon model or whatever, hitting print, and having it just work. The cloud slicer means I don't need to open it on my computer, or even have my computer turned on.
Again, I do not agree with these changes and hope that Bambu Lab backs down... I just want to throw out there that even if we moved to a prusa or creality printer that printed just as reliably as our A1 does, the Bambu Lab cloud services do provide real value to me that those printers could not duplicate, and I think people underrate how much of a differentiator that part of the package is.
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The issue is that the Mk4 is a thousand dollars. For a lot of people that's an expensive proposition. It's not a great value in the current ecosystem.
I can afford my tools, I've spent more than that on plenty of them. I spent more than that on my X1C and AMS. I have no problem with people paying more for the right thing for them. If you can afford it, great.
But it's not the easier recommendation to someone who's just 3D printing curious, it's a lot of money.
That's why this whole situation sucks, the A1 is a third of the price, and a really good printer, that just works. It was a very simple gateway into 3D printing. It still is frankly.
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Dude, my 6 year old nephew turning into a huge 3D printing nerd because of all this is the best.
He doesn't have his own computer. He's not going to learn how to use a slicer yet. Eventually sure. But right now? He's browsing Makerworld on his parent's phone, sending models to the printer, and having a blast.
To me that's amazing. That's a future I support.
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Sometimes cloud services add value, but I just don't see what the value is in this diagram published in the Bamboo Lab blog. I only see an unnecessary man-in-the-middle:
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It's the best! This weekend my 6 year old asked me to search for boxes he could print to hold all the toys he's printed
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I don't know what your printer setup is. So let me just ask you two simple questions:
1) Can you browse for models on your phone, and send them directly to your printer from it, with a click?
2) When you are not at home can you pull up a live feed of your printer to check on a print?
I don't use no. 1 myself, but as I just pointed out above, my nephew does. I do use no. 2, and it's really nice.
If your setup allows for that, great, I'm curious about it. If it doesn't, well, those are benefits you may or may not find valuable but other people do.
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I am a fan of 3D printing boxes.It's the best! This weekend my 6 year old asked me to search for boxes he could print to hold all the toys he's printed
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The Home Assistant integration covers no. 2 - that's not for everybody, but having used it I'd be loath to be without it.
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Totally agree that Bambu Lab have not made a compelling case for these changes - I do not support them and I will be sad if they keep pushing in this direction because it'll mean I have to reconsider the tradeoffs, and I don't want to lose what I currently have.Sometimes cloud services add value, but I just don't see what the value is in this diagram published in the Bamboo Lab blog. I only see an unnecessary man-in-the-middle:
I'm just pointing out that Bambu Lab actually does have a pretty unique offering that goes a bit beyond just the hardware, and so moving to a Prusa or Creality isn't a perfect solution, unfortunately.
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Oh agreed completely! While I generally just use Bambu's slicer, I do on occasion use Orca as it has some features that BambuStudio doesn't yet have. Having to export the gcode from Orca first and then upload it to Bambu Connect WOULD (had a typo initially that said “wouldn’t”) be annoying, but not a deal breaker. It does indeed sound like Bambu Connect can be incorporated directly into a slicer, soI think people aren't wrong to be up in arms over it. That's super annoying.
It sounds like if they continue on this path there is a way to embed the connect plugin into Orca? If it's still one click and just works then things aren't really different than they were before. Which would be mostly fine I think. But forcing people to export a file and load another app is lame.
In the same way I don't want to go back to walking an SD card to my Prusa. Or rolling, I can practically spin around in my chair and be at the printer.
It's not a deal breaker, but it's a daily QOL friction that grates on the nerves.
developers take advantage of that.It's just the FUD about not being able to use 3rd party slicers at all that is driving me crazy.
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"You're always claiming you're staying late at the office, you come home smelling like perfume, and I found a certain foil wrapper in your car. What's going on?"
No honey, I swear, it's nothing! All of those things mean nothing about my current or future activities! I would NEVER cheat on you!
In other news:
"You're restricting user freedom, locking stuff behind cloud services and using security as your excuse. What's going on?"
No user, we swear, it's nothing! All of those things mean nothing about our current or future activities! We would NEVER implement a paywall or subscription service!
All the signs are there. Don't be gaslit, don't be a fool. Run.
The only 3D printers worth any attention are those that, while they may offer a "just works" option, are built on a completely open platform on open, well documented hardware and either software that can be fully unlocked, or the possibility of completely separate third-party firmware. If you can't use your own open tooling with it, avoid it. Once the first cracks start showing, it's only a matter of time before yes, you will find yourself behind a paywall.
No honey, I swear, it's nothing! All of those things mean nothing about my current or future activities! I would NEVER cheat on you!
In other news:
"You're restricting user freedom, locking stuff behind cloud services and using security as your excuse. What's going on?"
No user, we swear, it's nothing! All of those things mean nothing about our current or future activities! We would NEVER implement a paywall or subscription service!
All the signs are there. Don't be gaslit, don't be a fool. Run.
The only 3D printers worth any attention are those that, while they may offer a "just works" option, are built on a completely open platform on open, well documented hardware and either software that can be fully unlocked, or the possibility of completely separate third-party firmware. If you can't use your own open tooling with it, avoid it. Once the first cracks start showing, it's only a matter of time before yes, you will find yourself behind a paywall.
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As I mentioned earlier, I almost bought an A1 as my first 3D printer. Now I am looking for alternatives that allow a Slicer on my PC to talk directly to the printer without exiting my LAN just as I do with my Brother laser printer. Bambu Lab's poor explanations points towards mandatory cloud connections so I will avoid them until they clarify and show clear evidence that that will not be necessary..
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I don't think anyone's criticizing that part. Cloud-based slicing and remote operation clearly have value for some users.
The issue is that diagram has nothing to do with those things. It's a diagram purportedly showing how a third party slicer can connect to the printer -- including in LAN-only operation. Except instead of, you know, just connecting to the printer on the LAN, there are those weird blocks in the middle.
But, as you know, moving gcode from a slicer to a printer over the LAN is a solved problem. There would be zero security issues (at least in principle) just running an Octoprint-style API directly on the printer, using SSL encryption for the link, and simple password or PSK type authentication.
Even slicer => cloud => printer doesn't need to be complicated, except you'd probably want to sprinkle in some Oauth to establish the slicer=>cloud credentials.
So what the heck is going on with that diagram? (Can you even tell what authorizes and connects to what if you're just trying to print locally? I'm not sure I can. At least three things claim to be authorization control, and everything is connected to everything else.)
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Brother PT-D600, I think it's probably old enough to have a newer model now.
I like that I can connect it to my desktop, load in a spreadsheet, format my labels with all the fonts on my system, and auto print and slice them off the sheet at a standard size.
This is my custom bin system, loosely based on Gridfinity but with a sane 50mm base standard.
Edit: Video of label printing here
View: https://bsky.app/profile/aurich.bsky.social/post/3lfnqplck7s24
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The issue with the competition is you will spend more time tinkering with your 3d printer than actually 3d printing. Thats the mostly sad state of things: they come with a lot of compromises and thats where Bambu really shined. It was easy to put together, easy to use, no messing around just to get a decent looking print. Hopefully with Bambu's misstep here, the competition opens their eyes and starts cloning and improving on the good parts faster than before. I want to 3d print, not play around with my printer.
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I upload things on occasion to printables:
https://www.printables.com/@Aurich_1215174/models
I haven't put any of the 50mm grid stuff up because it's kinda specific. I don't use a 3D printed grid, I laser cut one. And the hex key stuff is for a couple specific sets.
But if anyone wants them I'm happy to provide.
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Right now while I'm working on everything I'm using laser cut cardboard as my grid. And tbh it's working well enough that I might just stick with it.
If you have Fusion 360 with the Gridfinity plugin or another generator and make 50mm grids this is all compatible though honestly. It's just not something I've personally bothered to generate since laser cutting is so much faster.
This is the only photo I have showing the cardboard handy.
If you have Fusion 360 with the Gridfinity plugin or another generator and make 50mm grids this is all compatible though honestly. It's just not something I've personally bothered to generate since laser cutting is so much faster.
This is the only photo I have showing the cardboard handy.
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