grue3D Printer Reviewers: Being honest in this industry will put you out of a job.
The most trustworthy reviews are always those where the reviewers just bought the products. Even when it’s not as blatant as it is here, there’s always a motivation to not anger the company too much when you get their products early and for free.
NatanoxThe most trustworthy reviews are always those where the reviewers just bought the products.
So much this. One reason why there are so super few honest Bambu Lab reviews out there, they understood how to do PR through influencers and used their VC money to send thousands of devices everywhere for basically free (and keep doing so) to build an overly positive lifestyle image. Those few who do actual deep dives and get cut off from new free devices simply drown in the masses. Meanwhile their printers melt themselves and the A1 Mini apparently likes to catch fire.
Anycubic is a whole different beast, they’ve known to basically steal stuff for many years (like when they took Prusa’s first-gen MMU design and successfully patented a slightly different design). Shit like this is one of the reasons Prusa is meddling with new licenses in the first place.
Creality now went IPO and is blasting every corner of their products with AI. Elegoo also already broke licenses to close off their devices.
Pretty sure vendors like Snapmaker, Sovol or QIDI also have done a sufficient amount of shit.
Capitalism will always be a shitshow like this, and it’s annoying. Ethical or even lawful behaviour shouldn’t be something you have to be able to afford, it should be the fucking default because it’s made free and beneficial to everyone.
vendors like Snapmaker
so far Snapmaker seems to have a good trackrecord, and has earned the trust of many, as their successful u1 kickstarter showed.
they promised to opensource large parts of their by end of next month. Lets see how that turns out …snapmaker.com/…/33344279396759-Snapmaker-U1-FAQ#…
What firmware does the Snapmaker U1 use, and is it open source?
The Snapmaker U1 runs on Klipper firmware, with Moonraker for API management. Both have been modified by Snapmaker and are scheduled to be released as open source before March 2026…
From the provided link, running out of days to keep that promise.
Who isn’t shitty and affordable at the same time in the 3D printing space?
Yes they can. But, most open source projects don’t have that kind of money. Lawyers ain’t cheap. And location of the lawsuit matters too. It’s really hard to sue a Chinese company in China.
China is a shitshow, legally speaking. The Chinese government basically encourages Chinese companies to steal international IP. If you sell any products to China, you can expect them to steal any novel ideas inside. There’s no recourse even for big companies.
Ek-Hou-Van-BraaiI wish the EU (and US) would block the sale of products that violate GPT3 licensees.
That’s the easiest solution I see to this problem.
RobotToasterI’ve looked into this from a UK perspective, partly because I’m in the market for a new 3d printer. Usual disclaimer that I’m not a lawyer, this is just a summary of what I found in my research, it could be completely wrong.
You can usually sue a company in a local court if they do business in your country, enforcement can obviously be an issue but if they have a local warehouse it can be enforced there.
In the UK there is a specific small claims track for small IP claims, it’s not expected for you to have a barrister, and cost orders are rare, so if you lose you don’t normally have to pay the opponents costs. This court can still grant injunctions, such as requiring them to release the source code, or preventing them from selling any printers.
The customer probably has standing to bring a claim as a third party beneficiary, this doesn’t seem to be entirely settled.
I’m glad to see people going public with these sorts of shenanigans.
The thing about maker communities is that makers generally appreciate the importance and ethics of “not stealing other people’s shit,” and putting companies on blast for it does in that community hurt their bottom line.
And when it hurts their bottom line, that drives action.
Elegoo wouldn’t release their firmware for the Centauri Carbon claiming it was proprietary, until someone proved it was just modified Klipper, and therefore in breach of Klipper’s license. And the community backlash was that Elegoo were compelled to release it.
So yeah, do the good work and keep making these companies accountable.
Anycubics support has always been trash. There’s whole groups about it. I had a little bedslinger from them, it was sort of ok for what it was, but it was wildly inconsistent day to day, and they pretty much drop any sort of updating or support for their products day 2 after release. I spent a lot of time dialling that thing in, but you’d get something tightened up and dialed up, and then three other issues would rear their head. It was like playing wack a mole. Their idea of support is you have to kiss up to this specific person on their Facebook groups and hope they play along and respond back to you, because they don’t often answer emails and when they do it’s basically just a feedback loop. Then it’s just back and forth. I ain’t got the patience for that stuff anymore.
I only want the higher end stuff now.
Wasn’t following the guy, but I will now. Fewer and fewer people in yt 3D printing space remain that care about the ethics of the companies selling this and more and more are just bambu sponsored.
0xd34d
I want to get into 3D printing before it’s outlawed and I’ve been gravitating to Bambu because I’m novice enough that marketing works. Where should I be looking? Price is a consideration but not my first.
Captain AggravatedLook for a used Prusa.
IMO, toolchangers are the future trend in 3d printing. Snapmaker U1 is the current hype due to being relatively cheap and using open source klipper based firmware. Other than that, Prusa has a toolchanger, I would prefer them over Bambu any day. But me personally, I will either wait till U1 becomes cheaper or wait for a diy OSS solution like Voron with IDX once it comes out. But that definitely shouldn’t be anyone’s first printer.
The new bondtech indx is really interesting, all the active electronics are in the main tool head, so is more in line with how typical cnc tool changes work and should be less expensive compared to other extant tool changing options.
Prusa just licensed the indx for their new toolchanger, but there are going to be kits for a variety of common platforms.
I think toolchanging is where it’s going to be too. Just want to see what’s out there in a few years after some development. I’m just sticking with AMS right now, because it’s largely foolproof. But that Snapmaker stuff is definitely pretty impressive. Cant wait to see where that goes
It will go the way CNC has gone, tool changers and 6 axis.
Killer57Strongly suggest not going with Bambu, they have a history of attempting to start a walled garden ecosystem the only thing that has stopped them thus far is backlash.
It depends on what you want out of the hobby honestly. 30 years later, I just want a printer that works, without fuss. I’ve done the customizations, I’ve done the firmware flashes and attached third party controllers. But I’m a huge fan of my Bambu P2S, because it just works. In over 300 hours I’ve only had 2 failed prints. I haven’t done one iota of really anything to it. Plugged it in, and the things just been chugging away. Lots of parts availability, locally and online (which is huge). Lots of support available locally too.
My previous printer, an Anycubic coincidentally, used to take like 4 or 5 false starts before you could finally get a good first layer.
I get the hate, I get that people want customization and what not. But some people just want shit that works. That’s why I look at Bambu as the McDonalds of 3d printing. It ain’t that healthy for you, it’s a scourge on the planet, but it also tastes kinda good and it’s a guilty pleasure from time to time, right?
Yes theres Prusa and all sorts of other printers that are good too, don’t take this the wrong way. Run your own journey for sure. But I’m running mine too.
Before this I would have suggested Anycubic as second choice. My S1 has been good and the Kobra X is amazing for the price.
The Snapmaker U1 is the current darling of all Youtuber reviewers. It runs Klipper, the opensource firmware. Get one yesterday.
Chinese company capitalizing off of foreign socialist structures for profit? Say it ain‘t so!
deczzzI have Bambu lab A1 now. Have had ultimaker and various creality printers. Bambu lab is by far the best in terms of print quality, ease of use, reliance and speed. Isn’t this the real reason why it has become popular and not them pressuring reviewers to only do good reviews?
What drama or problems is there with Bambu?
It’s DRM’d bullshit that gives a big fat 🖕to the entire open and collaborative spirit of 3D printing. The hobby was built on open source and open hardware (see e.g. RepRap) and Bambu is trying to destroy that.
Most of the Chinese brands are doing that; I’ve seen 3D printing youtubers talk about Bambu, Creality and Elegoo leaning on them for good reviews as if they’re employed on their marketing team rather than independent journalists.
I’ve heard a lot of stuff about their platform hosting stolen models.
Bambu tipped their hand a little over a year ago, they have every intention to lock down their platform, requiring their filament, their software and likely their cloud platform to run.
And I’ll pit my Prusa MK4S against your Bambu A1 in print quality any time.
You can use any filament you want, it works fine on LAN and SD-cards without online account. There was some debate on the fucked up firmware updating thing, but they did backtrack on this, no?
Sure, but your machine is also 3x the price (at least on my country).
That being said, my next printer will also be a prusa, but mostly because it’s a European company. I’m also for Foss 3dp, but I also don’t want to be caught up in misinformation - please enlighten me if there are serious issues actually happening and not just “well Bambu might do so and so in the future”.
yeah they backtracked. They had something TO backtrack.
Try printing something that looks like a gun part and ATF will knock down your door.
This comment is more about FOSS than about 3D printing, but if you’re interested in GPL violations, you should know about the court case SFC v. Vizio. If it goes the way the SFC is pushing (and the courts have made a surprising amount of noises suggesting they’re broadly sympathetic to SFC’s arguments), ordinary end users will have a lot more leverage to push companies to honor the terms of the GPL and provide source code as required by the GPL. Every manufacturer of smart TVs, smartphones, game consoles – hell even robot vacuum cleaners, cars, and sex toys – if they include GPL’d code in those TVs, they’re required to provide source code to users on demand. As it is now, companies can (and do) flagrantly violate the “source code provision” requirement in the GPL. But this case could change that.