Don't like what I see happening in the world.
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Posted: 5/15/2026 8:43:57 AM EDT
[Last Edit: Nopetrol][Edited]
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So, I'm getting ready to buy a printer from a 12-year-old. I thought a Bambu A1 or A1 mini would be the route. But now I'm reading a lot of chatter on the internet that Bambu is working on locking down/out software and making everything proprietary? You won't be able to use aftermarket stuff in the machine and you won't be able to use anything but Bambu brand filament? Anybody have any thoughts? I realize there's a couple threads, especially the one just a few down titled "Bambu drama". The problem is I don't speak your language, and everybody starts talking about these workarounds and whatever, I get lost in the sauce. Purpose engineered brand specific exclusivity rubs me the wrong way and I don't want to spend a lot of money buying into an ecosphere that can't use other brand or off-brand stuff. |
Something clever belongs here.
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We can only speculate on what they're going to do and what their motivations are. They haven't locked anything down yet, but it would come as no surprise if they did decide to in the future. It's not like it would be a new tactic in the consumer electronics space; we've seen it before with things like K-cups, printer ink and toner refills, ebooks, etc. If you're that worried about it then either don't update to the latest firmware (if it ever happens in the first place) or just go with a different machine entirely. Right now the only material locked printers that I'm aware of are industrial machines like stratasys and markforged, but those are far outside the reach of hobbyists. In short: I wouldn't worry too much about. Get whatever machine you want and go about your life. |
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Just buy one. It's all overblown. Iw I'll say Bambu filament prints really really well and is perfectly reasonably priced. For what that's worth. But no, they are not locked down. At the end of the day tech in this space evolves so rapidly you'll buy a new one in three years anyway. And it will be better than the high end machines of today most likely. The X1C isn't but four years old and it brought so many firsts to 3D printing it's unreal. First commercially mass produced printer with: AI Load Cell sensor LIDAR Automatic flow rate calibration Automatic Pressure Advance calibration Cloud printing Sealed multi material A speed-focused kinematic design, aka first printer to accelerate at its speed and to print at its speed. Poop chute Durable nozzle wiper Many of these features are super common now, but this One printer brought all these features mainstream. Some worked, some was a cool test but not great in execution, but point is there is very active innovation in this space, and it's progressing steadily. So yeah, even my fancy H2D will be a dinosaur in 4 years. I'm okay with that as it can only mean things are getting even better. 
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Don't like what I see happening in the world.
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Bambu's potentially about to learn some legal lessons regarding GPL software licenses. I'm actually not sure if GPL stuff has ever been tested in court, but it'll be very interesting to observe if it goes that far. One of the best ways to get a bunch of crazy open-source communist-nerds into a frothy rage is to start violating the GPL. And the tech industry is getting so overboard with enshittification that a lot of normy nerds are willing to join the communist-nerds in these battles. |
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Idk. But I've been looking at new printers, and I'm starting to lean qidi over this. Who knows, but bambu looks like they are positioning to go to a subscription service. And since I want to make guns, I want to keep everyone else from seeing too much of what I'm doing. Everyone loves bambu, and thats great, but there are other options. I suppose if I found a local deal though, I would jump on it. I'm sure there will be ways to workaround whatever software they try to force. |
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Originally Posted By 2ANut: Bambu's potentially about to learn some legal lessons regarding GPL software licenses. I'm actually not sure if GPL stuff has ever been tested in court, but it'll be very interesting to observe if it goes that far. One of the best ways to get a bunch of crazy open-source communist-nerds into a frothy rage is to start violating the GPL. And the tech industry is getting so overboard with enshittification that a lot of normy nerds are willing to join the communist-nerds in these battles. Stop believing what you read online. They violated zero licenses. Who did, though, is the developer of OSBL and in fact committed a federal felony. Not opinion. Fact. The piece of software that is closed source is Not a part of the functionality of the slicer, is not coded with the slicer, is not installed with the slicer, and is not required for any primary function of the slicer. It's ONLY job is to authenticate the software to the cloud server, which BBL owns, and has a legal right to protect. By stealing those closed source authentication keys and publishing them, not only did he violate IP rights, but he used that stolen IP to fraudulently authenticate and access a company's server. That's a felony under federal law. Feel free to look it up. |
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Originally Posted By -Obsessed-: Stop believing what you read online. They violated zero licenses. Who did, though, is the developer of OSBL and in fact committed a federal felony. Not opinion. Fact. The piece of software that is closed source is Not a part of the functionality of the slicer, is not coded with the slicer, is not installed with the slicer, and is not required for any primary function of the slicer. It's ONLY job is to authenticate the software to the cloud server, which BBL owns, and has a legal right to protect. By stealing those closed source authentication keys and publishing them, not only did he violate IP rights, but he used that stolen IP to fraudulently authenticate and access a company's server. That's a felony under federal law. Feel free to look it up. Louis Rossmann is on the case...and he is correct about things 98% of the time. The so-called "stolen authentication keys" were openly published in GPL-licensed code. Nor were they actual authentication keys...more like user agent strings as I understand it.  Bambu Lab: I'm reposting your code & I dare you to sue me. |
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Originally Posted By 2ANut: Louis Rossmann is on the case...and he is correct about things 98% of the time.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jhRqgHxEP8Well this is the 2% then. He claims it's the same piece of software and is required for the slicer to work. That simply isn't true. The slicer works perfectly fine without the network plugin that connects it to the servers. It's literally an option to disable loading that piece of software at runtime. If the software didn't work without it, it wouldn't let you run it without it. It would be impossible. Yet it's not. I have BBL printers and have used the software without the plugin. This isn't heresy. It's first hand knowledge. It's hard to argue that separate pieces of software that interact with the slicer is also copyleft by definition. If that were the case every piece of networking and operating system software would also be forced to be copyleft. And yet, that's an obvious fallacy. I don't really care if it goes to court. It poebably should frankly. Let there be precedent either way. But courts don't always get it right so be careful what you ask for and all that jazz... But it's pretty obvious one entity is committing a felony and one is not. Hard to argue in favor of the felon. 
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Im one of the few who get worked up over the bambu software, because their machines are really good and its really easy to scale and we design lots of things that would be of interest to them. Yes, its a problem and yes its spying on you. Both the machines if connected and absolutely the software you use to slice are spying on you. All there stuff operates off their servers, does not matter if in the US or china, its theirs and they own your design the second you use their software-for anything. If your just printing shit you find off the net, then no worries really.... but if your designing things and it has the potential to be of interest to somebody then I highly recommend the following. Get a dedicated computer and run Orca as your slicer offline (orca is chinese/mix mutt software too but its good). Now transfer the sliced program to the 3d printer using a USB(not bambu USB). Do not upload any wifi passwords to your printer or slicer and do not download any bambu software- you dont need it for now and You should be fine. I also disable the printer cameras, no need for them the way we run them. If bambu disables 3rd party or USB connections I would not buy a bambu, even if your just printing rubber dog shit. |
Don't like what I see happening in the world.
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803
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Yeah I'm on the fence with some of these issues. Like most of you, I don't enjoy being monitored or spied on. Especially if my kid is the one using it. Currently, not real worried about printing sensitive stuff. I was smart enough to make a significant investment in P80 before they got in the courts of Pennsylvania. My kid would largely be making projects/trinkets for him and his younger brother, maybe a hook or a bracket for me here and there. Some mundane solution to something. It figures the company that has what appears to be the most beginner friendly package is also the one with the most poison hidden in the apple. |
Something clever belongs here.
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I've had multiple BBL printers. Still have an X1C and H2D with multiple AMS versions between them. I use Bambu Studio to this day. I've printed pistol frames, some of Obsessed's files, gridfinity stuff, etc. Do I care, nope. This shit is over blown. Prusa used some parts of another slicer, I don't remember the name. Bambu used some parts of the Prusa slicer. Orca used some parts of the Bambu slicer. Granted, BBL has used some of the Orca advancements in their slicer recently. But, I still don't care. I can take my printers off line tomorrow, block them from the internet, and use LAN only mode if I want. I'm wondering what you guys are printing where this becomes an issue. |
Who, What, Where? Call Sign, Snowball
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Originally Posted By Saker13: I've had multiple BBL printers. Still have an X1C and H2D with multiple AMS versions between them. I use Bambu Studio to this day. I've printed pistol frames, some of Obsessed's files, gridfinity stuff, etc. Do I care, nope. This shit is over blown. Prusa used some parts of another slicer, I don't remember the name. Bambu used some parts of the Prusa slicer. Orca used some parts of the Bambu slicer. Granted, BBL has used some of the Orca advancements in their slicer recently. But, I still don't care. I can take my printers off line tomorrow, block them from the internet, and use LAN only mode if I want. I'm wondering what you guys are printing where this becomes an issue. On Jeff Geerling's video he mentions running his printer offline in developer mode. Doing this prevents him from using the cloud features. He's savvy enough it's not an issue for him. |
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Originally Posted By Moondog: On Jeff Geerling's video he mentions running his printer offline in developer mode. Doing this prevents him from using the cloud features. He's savvy enough it's not an issue for him. |
Who, What, Where? Call Sign, Snowball
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Originally Posted By Striker: exactly how would a bambu printer know you are using a different brand filament? |
Who, What, Where? Call Sign, Snowball
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Originally Posted By Striker: exactly how would a bambu printer know you are using a different brand filament? They don't. Yet. The spools have RFID tags that can be read by the machine to automatically set the filament type and color in the slicer to make the process easier. The internet postulates that eventually Bambu will roll out DRM to lock the machines into using only their material. This is already a thing that happens in the industrial printer space. |
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| Bambu would never try to limit users to only using their brand of filament, that would be literal suicide. As for them trying to detect and prevent you from printing gun frames, yeah I could see them doing that and I expect that's coming. But for now they aren't doing that so |
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Originally Posted By Moondog: On Jeff Geerling's video he mentions running his printer offline in developer mode. Doing this prevents him from using the cloud features. He's savvy enough it's not an issue for him. Originally Posted By Moondog: Originally Posted By Saker13: I've had multiple BBL printers. Still have an X1C and H2D with multiple AMS versions between them. I use Bambu Studio to this day. I've printed pistol frames, some of Obsessed's files, gridfinity stuff, etc. Do I care, nope. This shit is over blown. Prusa used some parts of another slicer, I don't remember the name. Bambu used some parts of the Prusa slicer. Orca used some parts of the Bambu slicer. Granted, BBL has used some of the Orca advancements in their slicer recently. But, I still don't care. I can take my printers off line tomorrow, block them from the internet, and use LAN only mode if I want. I'm wondering what you guys are printing where this becomes an issue. On Jeff Geerling's video he mentions running his printer offline in developer mode. Doing this prevents him from using the cloud features. He's savvy enough it's not an issue for him. The primary thing you lose is access via the phone app or access from a computer not on your home network. There are a few smaller things linked to MW and automatically syncing profiles in Studio too.....but I'd guess most people would barely notice those. |
EP429: Today's lesson - Don't provoke ARFCOM. People will see your butthole.
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Originally Posted By enchant012: Bambu would never try to limit users to only using their brand of filament, that would be literal suicide. As for them trying to detect and prevent you from printing gun frames, yeah I could see them doing that and I expect that's coming. But for now they aren't doing that so Especially if they don't figure out their filament supplier issues first....they've been OOS on a ton of filament options enough that people are bitching while not being locked into them. Never is a long time.....but I agree that it seems unlikely. |
EP429: Today's lesson - Don't provoke ARFCOM. People will see your butthole.