Several years ago I leapt enthusiastically into the realm of 3D printing by buying a massive, expensive delta-type printer. I had to put it together myself, which was fun, but after that I struggled to get it to print well. Even simply trying to get the prints to stick to the bed were difficult, leading me to add huge brims to all my parts which were a pain to cut off afterward. Eventually I gave up fiddling with it and it’s been gathering dust ever since.
I know that a lot of you treat the hobby as an opportunity for endless tinkering and optimization, which is great, but I think I’ve realized that what I’d prefer is something that just works out of the box with a minimum of adjustment.
What’s wrong with Bambu?
They’re slimy. Their machines use proprietary software and parts, and their software has a highly questionable always-online requirement that phones home back to their servers, which is something that really ought not to be happening with anything that may be able to identify what objects people are 3D printing. Even if they’ve walked back the always-online thing and allowed local only operation on some of their printers, that still demonstrates that they are not to be trusted. There’s nothing to say that they can’t prevent your slicer from slicing some object the CCP has deemed should not be printed, or remotely brick your printer, or just simply refuse to allow their slicer software to connect to it anymore.
Their company was founded by former DJI employees. That should really say it all.
Bambu’s Chinese warrant canary.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2918509
This is a very good joke and deserves more upvotes, but I only have one to give.
Qidi is also a Chinese company so what’s the difference? Most printers come from Chinese companies outside of companies like Prusa.
Qidi does not have a proprietary slicer that phones home, and they have not been demonstrated to engage in any suspicious behavior.
My issue with Bambu isn’t that they’re Chinese. My issue is how they conduct themselves.
Orca and local network mode work pretty well for me.🤷🏼♂️
Seems like it’s at least somewhat related to being a Chinese company since you’re mentioning the CCP. I won’t argue that these aren’t things to be conscious of, but I think these fears seem overblown.
I do support open source projects, but I don’t feel like they really enabled me to do anything I can’t do now with the X1C in the 3.5 years of printing prior to owning this thing and the performance/experience has been so much better.
Even if these are overblown, I personally refuse to tolerate setting the precedent that this kind of thing is ever okay, and once a company tries it they’re burned forever as far as I’m concerned. No one needs to be spying on me, for any reason, ever, and I will never do business with anyone who did it even if it was in the past. Trying to force people to use a cloud account just to get functionality of the piece of hardware they already paid for with no technical reason behind it whatsoever is ludicrous. My printer can do everything a Bambu can do without the need to connect to a third party’s severs. If Bambu’s cloud servers are ever disabled, compromised, or simply shut down then your printer suddenly winds up somewhere on the spectrum between having functionality crippled or simply becoming useless. That’s a stupid risk.
Bambu Studio’s extremely fishy behavior has been very well documented, and I don’t think it’s work the risk doing business with its company for any reason when so many viable alternatives exist.
There is a technical reason behind it which is integration with MakerWorld and being able to browse files from there and send them to the printer remotely from your phone or other device along with being able to watch a live feed of your print and control the printer.
Again, I won’t argue against the whole privacy aspect as I get it, but I just don’t really think it’s a big deal or something of consequence if we’re simply talking about 3D prints. They do have the option to use them locally now, but apparently this doesn’t include all their models (which you may have mentioned already or it was someone else).
They’re always online, not all their printers can go offline. And when they find something they don’t like in your bambu account they can turn off your printer.
Curious as well
Also, they’re being sued for patent infringement