I don't even own a 3D printer and I am seeing this company getting ripped a new one all over the internet. Thank you everyone who has been calling out this terrible and unethical action by Bambu.
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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I almost bought this when the Flashforge Adventurer 5X I ordered didn't fulfill and went on backorder. I'm glad I decided to wait.
Hope you decided to buy neither of the two in the end, since Flashforge is also known for being anti-consumer and their shady business practices. Out of the two I'd actually go with Bambu Lab if I didn't care about openness and modding, since their printers at least seem to have fairly good quality.
They’re doing exactly what non-Bambu buyers have been warning about beat by beat. Nobody should be surprised or really shocked by any of this.
And yet it’s just depressing to see because despite all the red flags and foreshadowing, Bambu technically developed a next level printer and has at the very least put pressure on competitors to improve their products.
Now I wonder if we have to worry about other Manufacturers following lead about the bad things too. Because I suspect people who proudly and publicly trashed their entire printer fleet in favor of Bambu probably won’t make the switch back any time soon. If this doesn’t hit Bambu hard, it might become common practice and potentially get much worse until we got chipped filament spools for 3 to 4 times the price.
These lazy Pandas of the 3D-Printer community might proof both critics and the walled garden approach that already plagues home printing right by putting their head between their legs and let themselves get beaten up by Bambu. That’s my fear.
What's Tue next best after Bambu. Glad I didnt pull the trigger on blacl friday now.
there isn't a "best" really. Depends on your wants/needs.
for true Openness, I don't think anything beats a Voron.
Prusa is great (good track record, good support, Hardware is not open anymore though, can work out of the box), but expensive.
plenty of others get you something largely decent for low prices (qidi, creality for example) but long term support seems likely to lack, and there are always reports of some issues for some and great results for others.
It is worse than that. They made it so the printer will refuse to print if it hasn't installed a new update. They took control over the printer away from their owners and it really looks like this is meant to pave the way to anti-consumer practices such as forcing an always on-online requirement, introducing subscription fees to keep some functionalities that used to be free and/or denying the ability to use third party filaments or parts. The "it is for security" excuse is pretty much a meme at that point. It never is about security and always about screwing over the consumer for more money.
I was looking forward to buying a Bambu printer but now it is off the table for me. I've been burned too many times by devices that arbitrarily require to be connected to "the cloud" to function. There is absolutely no good reason why a 3D printer cannot be directly controlled via USB or local network without the need for a connection to the internet for "authentication" (imagine how much more secure that would be!). I'm glad I got to see this before I bought one. Bambu owners should be pissed right now. They just got the rug pulled from under them.
I was looking forward to buying a Bambu printer but now it is off the table for me.
I mean for me they were already off the table with their proprietary bullshit overpriced replacement parts. Yeah sure, it prints more out-of-the-box but once you're used to a little maintenance other printers even cheap ones just are easier. Trivial maintenance and you can get 3-4 for the price of one Bambu usually, which more than offsets the speed.
The left hand giveth, and the right hand taketh away.
My next printer is a Prusa One. Because Prusa. I've watched all the videos on 'why Bamboo', and the bias in all of them is people who are running or want to run a business/farm. While that's a good selection for people who actually use the machines, what is different is how they process costs and inconvenience - because its a business, they can pass costs down to their customers, they can just as a couple reviewers said, "just buy another printer and keep moving".
This is not my use case. I'm looking for a tool for my house/life. It's more like buying a pedestal table saw, or a complete set of cordless tools, a lawn tractor or a small pickup truck. I'm the end customer. I can't 'pass on maintenance costs'. I want a well-made tool that I can happily use for a long long time.
Between the products is not a heck of a lot of difference, they both ooze plastic. Between the two business philosophies, miles and miles. And I can't say I don't want to live in a world filled with bad business philosophies, and then give those same people my business, because they have a cheaper sticker.
I don't buy devices that aren't mine anymore. And it while it often initially costs more, over life, will cost me less - in money, in time, in aggravation.
What would you recommend?
I was planning on Bambu because of perfect prints without any tuning, heated bed, enclosure, and multi material.
Anything under $2k.
This is what people are doing without any post processing :
There are no noticeable layer lines. It's almost resin quality.
that is more editing and good lighting.
there are always layer lines.
Depending on you I would recommend
Voron (DIY, will take about a week to build and a week to tune),
Prusa (depends on your preference, assemble yourself or built, depending on required time a mk4s with mmu3, or the core one which will take several months to get to you, and the mmu3 later when it will become compatible)
Qidi (cheap, chinese, will likely work decent after some tuning)
Sovol is another option, decent quality out of the box and their corexy units are stupid fast.
proprietary = trash
Don't worry, keys are already easy to leak. Can't be long before you just install a plugin in OrcaSlicer and then it works again.
Next version could fix that
There's already a project to retrofit klipper hardware.
https://github.com/ChazLayyd/Bambu-Lab-Klipper-Conversion/blob/main/README.md
I saw a video where guy compared prusa and bambu. All of his Prusas were functional but slower because they are older models. From 3 Bambu printers only one printed because he can't get replacement parts.
And this was released last year...
Even Prusa's newest printer, the core one, is no where close to BL printers of last year in terms of performance and print quality, despite costing nearly twice as much. BL is ahead of all it's competitors in both the hobbyist and pro-sumer market in both performance and UX, it really sucks that there isn't something to fill that market now that they've pulled this crap. I'm not sure what parts he couldn't get, but the few I know that do have BL printers, only one has had to replace a part and it was no issue getting it from BL whatsoever.
I think it is this video, yes it is about the core one. But he looks at it from the perspective of print farm where he needs to keep them printing as long as position.
glad i sold mine after little use :)