[pclark]

I know they get a lot of hate in the HN community but my Bambu Labs P1S is mind blowing. It’s so easy to use I print 100x more than with my old Ender. It’s motivated me to learn Fusion360 … i’m actually printing droids for my kids to color this very minute.

[the__alchemist]

Enders were... not a great experience. I understand they were in a good price spot at the time, but from my experience and from what I gather online, very finicky. People who liked tinkering with the printer itself loved and recommended them because 3D printing became a skill of its own (Not for the design considerations in the article, but to make the equipment work consistently).

I've heard that Bambus are much better. I have a Raise3D E2 from the Ender era, and it's rock solid. A step up in price, but no finicking. Just works, when new, and now.

[harrall]

My Prusa Mk3 had perfect prints too and now I have a Bambu P1S.

I got a budget printer in 2017 and that’s when I learned that tinkering was not for me.

[sho_hn]

Because a lot of the readers here seem to be comparing Bambus and Enders: These aren't the only options. If you want a similarly-featured and reliable printer that doesn't phone home, I'd recommend taking a look at Prusa.

It's where Bambu forked much of their software from, they're equally easy to use after recent updates, very reliable and easy to service.

They also added US-based manufacturing recently, and I think you can get US-made Core ONEs, which given the tariffs may mean they're soon to be cheaper than equivalent Bambus.

Some people will groan that every 3D printing thread must have a Prusa fanboy, but then again the company inspires that attachment also not without reason :-) I've printed for thousands of hours on my MK4(S) and I've had zero issues, and it's pretty great they offer upgrade kits to turn this into their next-newer model.

[Robotbeat]

I’m a huge Prusa fanboy as well, but Bambu does deserve credit. There’s clearly a before-Bambu and after-Bambu era for 3D printing. Prusa had to adapt (and did, IMO, pretty quickly), and now so have a lot of the other Chinese printer manufacturers.

I totally don’t trust China from a manufacturing perspective. I think it’s literally an intentional policy of the Chinese government to try to de-industrialize the rest of the world (in particular the West and the US, geopolitical rivals), and this is most clearly seen with how China has dominated drone manufacturing and rare earths mining and (just as important) processing. Rare earths is relevant not because it’s irreplaceable or incredibly rare (they’re not, in spite of the name)but because it’s super easy to see the Chinese govt use access to what would otherwise be a kind of niche mineral group as a geopolitical trade weapon. DJI leveraged corporate espionage and stolen IP of rivals (like Parrot) as a launching platform for absolute dominance of what has become a national security relevant sector. And Bambu Labs was started by former DJI folks, so they’re playing some of the same game. But geopolitical motivations aside, they legitimately HAVE upped the game dramatically, bringing to bear just an insane level of electrical engineering, software, and mechanical design and manufacturing expertise on what was not long ago a hobbyist driven sector, producing machines superior to the industrial Statasys machines at a hobbyist price with an Apple-like polish.

But I do think Prusa has, against all odds, actually kept pace. The Mk4S and XL, and then especially the Core One really are comparable machines that keep most of the core of the open source Prusa ethos (although diminished as Prusa got burned by cheap Chinese clones in the past & now doesn’t open source as much) and far less of the corporate control and surveillance embedded in the IoT-ified Bambu machines. The ONLY non-Chinese company to still make competitive machines.

[fennecfoxy]

Yeah and people always mention that Bambu forked all Prusa's stuff, which was only open to fork in the first place because Prusa forked it from Slic3r.

I'm nominally against the Chinese company ingesting and reselling everything possible thing but in this case it's more business as usual as the entire market does it - I mean it all originated in reprap with everyone sharing stuff anyway. Only thing is when they try to create a moat (and both Bambu & Prusa are guilty of this).

[Robotbeat]

They are not equally guilty. Prusa is fighting for their lives against subsidized Chinese printers, against a global scale industrial policy that they are only a tiny player in (Czechia is not exactly a heavy hitter globally). That they have still succeeded at all is remarkable.

[ornornor]

Prusa has fallen very much behind. There are open issues about the Mini and the MK4 that have been open for years and still ignored by Prusa. Table stakes like full compatibility with octoprint.

For instance: https://github.com/prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware-Buddy/issues/189 (over 5 years old)

[zoky]

I know two people with that exact model of 3D printer. Both printers are routinely out of commission for weeks on end due to some failure that the owners lack either the technical expertise to diagnose and fix or the desire to pay exorbitant prices for proprietary replacement parts to fix (or both). Meanwhile my Ender 5 is always chugging along, and is never out of commission for more than a day or two while awaiting replacement parts from Amazon that cost between a few cents and up to maybe $20 each.

I don’t actually think Bambu makes unreliable printers; to the contrary, they are excellent machines that, if anything, are much more reliable on the whole than Creality. But they’re kind of like sports cars, in that their target market is either people who want something fast and flashy and are willing to throw money at any problems to make them go away, or for technical types who want something they can take out on the track and don’t mind wrenching their own machines. The problem is that Bambu printers are marketed and touted as being great for beginners, and while they certainly make it easy to get into 3D printing for nontechnical people, I think most of them will end up ultimately being disappointed at either the lack of customization they allow or amount of time, effort, and money required to diagnose and fix them when something goes wrong.

[Max-q]

I think that conclusion is wrong, they are absolutely for beginners. No bed leveling. Lidar scan of first layer. Filament sensors. Good software. Enders are sold to beginners but you actually need to be an expert to get good results and keep them running.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

My Bambu A1 just works. I had an Ender 3 before and it almost killed my interest in 3d printing because my prints constantly failed. I don’t see a path where the A1 could disappoint me.

[lttlrck]

My biggest complaint is that the filament RFID spec is closed.

BBL parts are not very expensive and their support is stellar. Of course if they go bankrupt we'll be high and dry.

Prior to my two A1s I spent more time, and more money in parts, mucking about with the printers, modifying and calibrating, tweaking Klipper than getting anything done.

[gaudystead]

One of the biggest selling points for me upgrading to an X1C was for similar reasons... I wanted more time to work _with_ the machine, not work _on_ the machine (if that makes sense).

[baq]

I've seen this put as '3d printing hobby' vs '3d printer hobby'.

[Vespasian]

We had no issues with our bambu whatsoever. It's a great machine that does exactly what it advertised to do.

It's not magic and faces the same limitations as all other 3D-priters but it's execution is top notch. I can't remember a single instance where I felt the need to change the printer settings in the slicer besides selecting one of the presets.

Our filament purchases went up by at aleast an order of magnitude and new members to our club get the hang of it really quick.y

[pclark]

as I said, as a Bambu owner, i’m really impressed with mine and highly recommend them to others.

[poulpy123]

Bambu Lab make good printers, and with the X1C and they were one the first to propose "click & print" 3D printer affordable for consumers. The issue is that they are currently closing their ecosystem, and we cannot know where they will go.

Also comparing recent printers and the old enders is very unfair, you have to compare with similar current technology

[the_af]

Hate? I missed this. Why hate?

[GuB-42]

Mostly because they are proprietary in a community with an open philosophy, and for being successful doing that.

Most consumer-level 3D printers are derived from the RepRap project, which was about making a 3D printer that prints 3D printers. So if you want your own printer, find someone who already has one to print the specialized parts for you, add a few standard parts (screws, motors, etc...) and build your own, which you can then use to make 3D printers for others. You can then share designs, improve, etc... Totally in the open source spirit, of course, the software part is similarly open source, usually GPL licenced.

And this spirit is found in most of the consumer-level 3D printing world. With open source firmwares and slicers, easy to modify machines, and standard parts. I think one of the the companies that exemplify this the most is Prusa. They 3D print their printers using their own printers, and open source most for their work.

But then BambuLabs came along, and they have proprietary components, a proprietary firmware and a cloud-based system. Their slicer is open source, they don't really have a choice because it is based on GPL software, but they recently made it harder to use the forked version some people made (namely OrcaSlicer), and they did so via an automatic update. Of course people didn't really appreciate.

But maybe the worst part is that BambuLabs printers are actually really great and popular printers, for an affordable (but not cheap) price. And many people think that from now on, proprietary will become the standard.

If you don't care about that, then BambuLabs printers are maybe the best you can get. If you care, go with Prusa. If you are broke and don't mind getting a new hobby, go for something like an Ender3.

[imtringued]

>But maybe the worst part is that BambuLabs printers are actually really great and popular printers, for an affordable (but not cheap) price. And many people think that from now on, proprietary will become the standard.

This is the correct answer. A lot of people got used to eating shit. Turns out the 3D printer industry was selling you overpriced garbage. Bambu Labs was too good to be true so people were thinking that there must be a catch and now that there is a barely significant inconvenience, they start dog piling the company as if all hell had started breaking loose.

Now look at reality: everyone is building copycats of bambu lab printers, proving that the 3D printer industry was selling overpriced garbage products, because they knew they could get away with it. What people really wanted is the alternative reality where bambu Labs didn't exist and printers still sucked.

[the_af]

I gotta say the A1 Mini is the only printer I see myself using, unless something better comes along that is even easier to use.

I see my printer as a tool, a means to an end. I already have hobbies I want to use it for, I don't need another hobby of tweaking, configuring, modding, trying different brands of things, etc. My A1 is almost there and requires very little fiddling. "It Just Works". If I were younger, around the same age trying different Linux distros was a viable hobby, maybe I'd try more open source friendly printers, but I simply don't have the time or patience anymore.

[GuB-42]

> Turns out the 3D printer industry was selling you overpriced garbage.

Mostly cheap "garbage" actually. Before BambuLabs, manufacturers competed on price more than anything else, using the Ender3 as a model. BambuLabs printers were considered rather expensive. Kind of an intermediate between semi-professional printers like Ultimakers and Ender3 clones. Even the affordable BambuLabs A1 at its base price is about twice the price of an Ender3.

They did shook things up on the high end though, and this, I think, is a good thing.

[Pawka]

> If you are broke <...>

Buy used Prusa! Their printers are reliable machines, easy to fix or upgrade. I have seen MK3 or even Prusa Mini (which is a newer option) for ~150 EUR. Still great options for anyone who wants to go into this hobby.

[the_af]

> But maybe the worst part is that BambuLabs printers are actually really great and popular printers, for an affordable (but not cheap) price. And many people think that from now on, proprietary will become the standard.

This is the only part I was aware of: I own an A1 Mini and having lots of fun with it. Almost "it just works" (not really there yet, in my opinion, but getting really close).

Thanks for sharing the rest of the background. I was aware about the update (which is optional so far) and wasn't too concerned about it, but I understand why other people may be. I wasn't aware of the "open source", printers printing printers part of the hobby; I'm new to it.

[WillAdams]

Non-compliance with GPL and other opensource licensing.

Predatory licensing agreements and cloud software which presumably allows the company to access/steal designs.

[Orygin]

Have you got a source for the GPL non compliance ?

If I remember what I saw during the day, and from recaps since then, it was only the Bambu Studio slicer (that is a fork of Prusa Slicer), which was provided with review units but without the source code being released yet. The code was released in time for production units. The only violation of the license is if they did not provide the code to reviewers when asked (which may have happened, but is not as clear cut as what their competitors imply)

[Gerardox]

What are some alternatives? Ty in advance for any hint!

[q3k]

My favorite continues to be hardware from Prusa. They're rock solid and respect user freedoms (serviceability/upgradability/hackability). Being made in the EU is also a big upside for me.

I've had an MK3S+ for years and even though it's a primitive machine in comparison to the current Bambu hardware I see no reason to upgrade to something else. It just keeps printing whatever I throw at it and the results continue to be very good. In fact, I seem to have better luck with it than the Bambus I sometimes use at various hacker/makerspaces.

If you just look at the numbers (speed, volume, ...) against Bambu hardware they're not as good, but the reliability and simplicity make up for it IMO. The main missing feature is multi-material support, but that's something I'm not really interested in due to how wasteful the current technology is.

[baq]

Bambu AMS is useful even if you're doing single color prints - you don't have to worry about filament running out, it'll just continue on the next roll if it has the same filament loaded on two slots. It can also print multiple (small) objects in the same job with only one filament change per object.

[q3k]

Right, but I'm also wary of the extra complexity and whether it's worth it for me personally. (I've seen Bambu AMS systems act up, and I also know they're picky about spools).

[fennecfoxy]

It's wasteful in part due to Bambu's defaults for purging; they're really high, I imagine to make it "foolproof" but it means I see people (like the YTbers who made a stop motion film with 3d printed objects) waste a loooot of filament, because they have no idea it can be dropped quite a lot before colours start mixing.

It would be lovely for the BL printers/AMS to use a colour sensor at the hotend and then you can run a calibration on purges to determine what is an acceptable threshold when transitioning colours and use the absolute minimum purge amount.

[the_af]

I suppose more complexity (like the sensor you propose) would increase the chance of failures or something going unexpectedly. Bambu Labs seems to be going for "It Just Works", at the cost of being wasteful. Seems to be working as a strategy, giving the rave reviews it's getting...

I'm not using my AMS much, precisely because I simply cannot stand the waste and the additional print time.

[Gerardox]

Thanks for the throughout reply!!

[adambatkin]

Prusa. Made in Europe, from quality components (or buy it as a kit from them and build it yourself, which is a really fantastic experience). Hardware is repairable and upgradable and the firmware is open source.

But they cost more than Bambu. Most Chinese things tend to cost less than alternatives, for obvious reasons.

[sho_hn]

Note that Prusa recently opened a US-based factory according to their blog, so in addition to EU-made they also got US-made going.

As a big fan of the company I'm hoping this will make them price-competitive to Bambu (or even considerably cheaper) while the tariffs rage. I'm not a fan of the tariffs, but if it gives a boost to the Core ONE launch, welp ... good for them.

[the_af]

For those of us in Latin America, Prusa being US-made makes no difference price-wise. Chinese is cheaper.

[lawn]

While they target a completely different audience (tinkerers and DIY vs "just works") the VORON printers are the gold standard of open source printers, and you'll get a very capable machine when built.

[rileyphone]

I got a Sovol SV06 ACE a few months ago as it seemed to have most of the nice features of the Bambu (like auto bed leveling) without the closedness. The printer runs Klipper and you can ssh into it. So far there's been one issue where I had to replace a fan but otherwise it's been great. Much cheaper than a new Prusa too.

[the__alchemist]

Raise3D. Even the lower-end ones are expensive, but they're a step up in reliability.

[Rebelgecko]

GPL issues and concerns about the SaaS-y aspect. Folks on HN and often techy folks in general don't like it when hardware requires an internet connection vs local control. These concerns are somewhat warranted based on recent moves Bambu has made

[kiba]

More than that. They tried to gaslight people after people found out the changes Bambu Lab was making.

[fennecfoxy]

Same here - switched from Ender 5 Plus to BL a1 mini (to trial if I liked them) and as mentioned in another comment, I'm actually printing now and not endlessly tinkering.